Socio-Epistemological Mechanisms of War Legitimation in the Modern Cultural Space

Abstract

This article examines the phenomenon of war as a special form of knowledge production and circulation in the contemporary cultural space. Drawing on the principles of social epistemology, poststructuralism, and cultural philosophy, the authors analyze the mechanisms of war legitimation operating in the media, institutional, and discursive structures of society. It is shown that in the postmodern era, the legitimization of war is losing its traditional moral and rational foundations, transforming into a performative and simulative process, where truth is determined not by its correspondence to reality, but by the persuasiveness of the representation. Particular attention is paid to the phenomenon of "new military humanism" and the role of media in shaping epistemological consent to violence. The paper substantiates the thesis of a transition from an ideological to an epistemological model of power, in which knowledge becomes an instrument for the normalization of war. It concludes that overcoming the legitimization of war is possible only through the development of an alternative epistemology – knowledge as an ethical attitude, not as a form of control.