Global Vectors of Soft Power in Science and Education: Socio-Epistemological Aspects

Abstract

This article examines the socio-epistemological functions of science, the scientific community and the education system as the most important elements of soft power. A socio-philosophical interpretation of the concept of soft power through the prism of social epistemology is provided. Further, the author identifies the fundamental structural and functional features of this phenomenon, originating from the modern specifics of civilizational interaction, based on the agenda of globalization and on the making of the information society. The results of the study revealed methodological difficulties in interpreting the role of science in the manifestations and use of soft power due to the fact that science and the education system inherent in it are traditionally considered as a universal cognitive activity of humankind involving obtaining and disseminating new knowledge and cannot be directly reduced to instruments of political influence. However, the article notes that the scientific communities and the results of their activities are actually used as a soft (smart) power aimed at controlled transformation of global geopolitical actors. It is not only the problems of cognitive capitalism, tragedies of the anticommons and brain drain, but also the strategies of Russian science and education for establishing the country’s cognitive sovereignty that are considered to be new conditions for the functioning of science and education as elements of soft power in the system of digital globalization. The primary purpose of this article is to study the socioepistemological significance of soft power in the transformation of the role of science and education on the one hand, and geopolitical interaction of global players on the other. The research methodology is based on the ideas of historicism, social epistemology and complexity of open social systems, as well as on the theoretical analysis of socio-political and socio-philosophical literature. The article concludes by outlining ways of creating a new interpretation of the manifestations of soft power in the field of science and education.