Theoretical and methodological essence of noospheric geography of the 21st century

Abstract

In modern conditions of globalization of society development and fleeting transformations of natural processes, when the development of science, includinggeographical, is extremely accelerated, there is a rapid complication of forms and methods of theoretical and methodological knowledge, which makes it necessary to conduct logical and methodological analysis of geography in modern conditions. It turned out that a hundred years ago, says Edwin Toffler, Thomas Mann put forward a formula that expressed the feeling of death of a certain era. Today, humanity has approached an invisible boundary that separates one era from another. It is established that the world is on the threshold of grand social changes, technical and cultural innovations. In these conditions, when the world has become completely different, it is important for geographers to understand the consequences of the ongoing transformation processes. All this requires a new understanding from the standpoint of a globalized society, to find out what fundamental consequences for geography brought the information technology revolution, which will result in new paradigms for the development of our science. A. Toffler argued in «The Third Wave» that humanity was approaching a new technological revolution, that is, the First Wave (agrarian civilization and the Second (industrial civilization)) was replaced by a new wave that led to the creation of a supra-industrial civilization almost twenty years ago. If the concept of «living matter» (as a natural planetary body) underlies the doctrine of the biosphere, then the selection of such a natural phenomenon on a planetary scale as «scientific thought», becomes the most important naturalistic generalization in the theory of the noosphere. Nowadays, the idea of the coherence of the most progressive social laws and the achievements of scientific knowledge acquires a special meaning, becomes the most important problem of the very existence of human civilization. Based on the above, according to M. V. Bahrov, L. H. Rudenko and I. H. Chervaniov, we argue that «there was a need to create new scientific products that reflect the state and problems of the current stage of development of society», i. e., noosphere geography. The refore, the realization of the purpose of the study is to identify scientific sources about the change of the theoretical essence of modern geography, substantiation of the theoretical and methodological essence of the «new» noosphere geography in the transition of information society to noosphere and clarify the place of noosphere geography in general scientific classification.