Sociology after Postmodern or the «Virtual Rationality» of Metamodern as a Perspective for the Development of Sociology

Abstract

Ukrainian sociologists have long been sounding the alarm bell about the decline in interest for sociology and the catastrophic fall of соntest for admission to high school in Ukraine for the relevant specialty. The author analyzes data from researches that differ in scope and location, and shows that the situation around sociology is characteristic not only of Ukraine. The emphasis on the analysis of the objective reasons for the decline of sociology allows us to conclude that these reasons are closely related to the transition of modern-postmodern-metamodern and symbolize the picture of the difficulties that contemporary science as a whole has faced in this transformation. Further reasoning within the framework of the theories of modernization and postmodernization of society leads the author to the conclusion that modernity as the "kingdom" of science and rational understanding of the world was replaced with postmodern denial and deconstruction of metanarratives, emphasis on irrationality, plurality, epistemological and ontological pluralism, when rationalities could vary and be supplemented by each other. Metamodern tries to reconcile the conflicting rationalities of previous moderns, bringing scientific intellection into the space of culture and at the same time offering a new rationality, conventionally designated by the author as "virtual", which is capable of combining the "hard" rationality of physical space with the multiple and even unreal rationality of virtual space. But then how can this relate to sociological science and practice, with the need to predict social processes? Here the author identifies several serious contradictions and considers the possibilities of promoting sociology, which are closely related to the metamodern ideology and may be interesting to colleagues.