I look forward to sharing my thoughts on how digitalisation reshapes social theory at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge.
Title: Digital Transformation of Social Theory
Date: 25/11/2025
Venue: Gatsby Room (Chancellor’s Centre), Wolfson College, Barton Road, Cambridge, United Kingdom & Teams
Overview: This talk outlines a programme to build a universal social theory machine: a Turing-style architecture that emulates established analogue traditions (from Durkheim and Weber to Parsons and Giddens) and recodes them into digital theory—matrix-based operations over true distinctions (mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive). The method is not metaphorical digitisation but formal recoding: identify a theory’s guiding distinctions, test their truth conditions, and, where needed, translate false into true distinctions so that classical arguments can run as reproducible programmes. The result is the prospect of a “Supervacuus”: a minimal, distinction-driven engine capable of hosting and comparing theory programmes, much as a universal Turing machine hosts algorithms. For social theorising, the payoffs are: (i) theoretical transparency in terms models that expose premises and reveal the impact of small changes in guiding distinctions; and (ii) a shift from analogue thematisations of digital phenomena to doing theory digitally, with due modesty about premises and an even-handed treatment of rival programmes in a shared, inspectable language.
For further details and updates, please see: https://www.wolfson.cam.ac.uk/about/events/digital-transformation-social-theory.
Background literature:
- Roth S. (2019), Digital transformation of social theory. A research update, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Vol. 146 No. September, pp. 88-93.
- Roth S., Mansur J., Sales A., Zazar K., Dahms H., Arnold T., and Valentinov V. (in press), Big data insights into social macro trends: Expanding the horizon (1800-2018), Systems Research and Behavioral Sciences, DOI: 10.1002/sres.3175.
