Cognitive Security and Philosophical Dialogue: A Historical-Philosophical Analysis of Ideological Manipulation in Information Warfare

Liudmyla Krymets1, Vitalii Chornyi1, Natalia Logvinenko1, Serhii Khovrych1, Maksym Udod1
1Department of Social Sciences, Kruty Heroes Military Institute of Telecommunication and Information Technology, 45/1 Knyaziv Ostrozkyh St., Kyiv, 01011, Ukraine
DOI: https://doi.org/10.70517/revcc2624199
Published: 07/11/2026
: Liudmyla Krymets, Vitalii Chornyi, Natalia Logvinenko, Serhii Khovrych, Maksym Udod. Cognitive Security and Philosophical Dialogue: A Historical-Philosophical Analysis of Ideological Manipulation in Information Warfare. Revista Cultura Científica, 2026 Issue 24. pg. 2477-2490.

Abstract

The intensification of information warfare in algorithmically mediated environments has shifted manipulation from the content of beliefs to the conditions under which perception, interpretation and judgement are formed. The objective of this study is the conceptualisation of cognitive security through a historical-philosophical reconstruction of the relationships among cognition, truth, power and algorithmically mediated perception. The study takes the form of a conceptual philosophical reflection article and combines historical-philosophical analysis, conceptual genealogy, comparative philosophical interpretation and conceptual synthesis. The positions of Plato, Aristotle, Al-Farabi, Machiavelli, Bacon, Kant, Heidegger, Arendt and Foucault are correlated with contemporary scholarship on algorithmic governance, surveillance capitalism, information warfare and epistemic injustice. The analysis develops the argument that the classical problem of illusion has moved from the representational to the infrastructural level: ranking, filtering and personalisation pre-structure the field in which truth and falsity can be distinguished before judgement begins. Information warfare is accordingly interpreted as a struggle over the conditions of perception rather than over particular narratives. On this basis, cognitive security is defined as a philosophical category denoting the preservation of reflective judgement, interpretive autonomy and epistemic plurality, distinct from its technical meaning in cybersecurity. Philosophical dialogue is identified as a practice of epistemic resistance and epistemic repair that introduces reflective friction into accelerated communication, restores the relational conditions of shared intelligibility and underpins educational formation. The proposed framework offers conceptual grounds for digital governance, media literacy and educational policy, while its empirical operationalisation remains a task for further research.

Keywords: cognitive security, information warfare, algorithmic epistemology, philosophical dialogue, power–knowledge, interpretive autonomy

Abstract

The intensification of information warfare in algorithmically mediated environments has shifted manipulation from the content of beliefs to the conditions under which perception, interpretation and judgement are formed. The objective of this study is the conceptualisation of cognitive security through a historical-philosophical reconstruction of the relationships among cognition, truth, power and algorithmically mediated perception. The study takes the form of a conceptual philosophical reflection article and combines historical-philosophical analysis, conceptual genealogy, comparative philosophical interpretation and conceptual synthesis. The positions of Plato, Aristotle, Al-Farabi, Machiavelli, Bacon, Kant, Heidegger, Arendt and Foucault are correlated with contemporary scholarship on algorithmic governance, surveillance capitalism, information warfare and epistemic injustice. The analysis develops the argument that the classical problem of illusion has moved from the representational to the infrastructural level: ranking, filtering and personalisation pre-structure the field in which truth and falsity can be distinguished before judgement begins. Information warfare is accordingly interpreted as a struggle over the conditions of perception rather than over particular narratives. On this basis, cognitive security is defined as a philosophical category denoting the preservation of reflective judgement, interpretive autonomy and epistemic plurality, distinct from its technical meaning in cybersecurity. Philosophical dialogue is identified as a practice of epistemic resistance and epistemic repair that introduces reflective friction into accelerated communication, restores the relational conditions of shared intelligibility and underpins educational formation. The proposed framework offers conceptual grounds for digital governance, media literacy and educational policy, while its empirical operationalisation remains a task for further research.

Keywords: cognitive security, information warfare, algorithmic epistemology, philosophical dialogue, power–knowledge, interpretive autonomy

References

  1. Herman, E. S., & Chomsky, N. 1988. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books.

  2. Benkler, Y., Faris, R., & Roberts, H. 2018. Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. New York: Oxford University Press.

  3. Hunter, L. Y., Albert, C. D., Rutland, J., Topping, K., & Hennigan, C. 2024. “Artificial intelligence and information warfare in major power states: how the US, China, and Russia are using artificial intelligence in their information warfare and influence operations.” Defense & Security Analysis, 40(2), 235–269. https://doi.org/10.1080/14751798.2024.2321736

  4. Munk, T. 2025. “Digital defiance: Memetic warfare and civic resistance.” European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, 31(3), 501–528. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10610-025-09613-4

  5. Dowding, K., & Taylor, B. R. 2024. “Algorithmic decision-making, agency costs, and institution-based trust.” Philosophy & Technology, 37(2), Article 68. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-024-00757-5

  6. Villa, D. R. 1996. Arendt and Heidegger: The Fate of the Political. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

  7. Arendt, H. 1967. “Truth and politics.” The New Yorker, 25 February. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1967/02/25/truth-and-politics

  8. Kirmayer, L. J. 2024. “The fragility of truth: Social epistemology in a time of polarization and pandemic.” Transcultural Psychiatry, 61(5), 701–713. https://doi.org/10.1177/13634615241299556

  9. Zuboff, S. 2019. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. New York: PublicAffairs.

  10. Castells, M. 2009. The Rise of the Network Society: The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture. Vol. I (2nd ed.). Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444319514

  11. Beer, D. 2017. “The social power of algorithms.” Information, Communication & Society, 20(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2016.1216147

  12. Sahakyan, H., Gevorgyan, A., & Malkjyan, A. 2025. “From disciplinary societies to algorithmic control: Rethinking Foucault’s human subject in the digital age.” Philosophies, 10(4), 73. https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies10040073

  13. Coşgun Solak, M. 2025. “The societal epistemology of artificial intelligence: The rise of algorithmic authority in the production of knowledge in the social sciences.” İnsan ve Toplum Bilimleri Araştırmaları Dergisi, 14(4), 144–160. https://doi.org/10.15869/itobiad.1730658

  14. Fricker, M. 2007. Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. New York: Oxford University Press.

  15. Pijpers, P. B. M. J., & Ducheine, P. A. L. 2023. “If You Have a Hammer…: Shaping the Armed Forces’ Discourse on Information Maneuver.” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 36(4), 1164–1183. https://doi.org/10.1080/08850607.2023.2197560

  16. Dowse, A., & Bachmann, S. D. 2022. “Information warfare: methods to counter disinformation.” Defense & Security Analysis, 38(4), 453–469. https://doi.org/10.1080/14751798.2022.2117285

  17. Lazer, D. M. J., Baum, M. A., Benkler, Y., et al. 2018. “The science of fake news.” Science, 359(6380), 1094–1096. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aao2998

  18. Yampolskiy, R. V., & Spellchecker, M. S. 2016. Artificial Intelligence Safety and Cybersecurity: A Timeline of AI Failures. arXiv preprint arXiv:1610.07997. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1610.07997

  19. Brundage, M., Avin, S., Clark, J., et al. 2018. The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence: Forecasting, Prevention, and Mitigation. arXiv preprint arXiv:1802.07228. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1802.07228

  20. Foucault, M. 1980. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977. Ed. C. Gordon; trans. C. Gordon, L. Marshall, J. Mepham & K. Soper. New York: Pantheon Books.

  21. Gadamer, H.-G. 2004. Truth and Method (2nd rev. ed.). Trans. J. Weinsheimer & D. G. Marshall. New York: Continuum.

  22. Ferrari, G. R. F. (Ed.). 2007. The Cambridge Companion to Plato’s Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  23. Aristotle. 2009. The Nicomachean Ethics. Trans. D. Ross, rev. L. Brown. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  24. Al-Farabi. 1985. Al-Farabi on the Perfect State. Ed. and trans. R. Walzer. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

  25. Machiavelli, N. 1988. The Prince. Ed. Q. Skinner & R. Price; trans. R. Price. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  26. Bacon, F. 2000. The New Organon. Ed. L. Jardine & M. Silverthorne; trans. M. Silverthorne. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139164030

  27. Kant, I. 1998. Critique of Pure Reason. Ed. and trans. P. Guyer & A. W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511804649

  28. Hegel, G. W. F. 2018. The Phenomenology of Spirit. Trans. T. Pinkard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  29. Heidegger, M. 1977. “The question concerning technology.” In: The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. Trans. W. Lovitt. New York: Harper & Row, 3–35.

  30. Habermas, J. 1984. The Theory of Communicative Action. Vol. 1: Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Trans. T. McCarthy. Boston: Beacon Press.

  31. Medina, J. 2013. The Epistemology of Resistance: Gender and Racial Oppression, Epistemic Injustice, and the Social Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199929023.001.0001

  32. Santos, B. de S. 2014. Epistemologies of the South: Justice Against Epistemicide. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers.

  33. Han, B.-C. 2017. Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power. Trans. E. Butler. London: Verso.

  34. Postman, N. 2005. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. 20th anniversary ed. New York: Penguin Books.

  35. Longo, A. 2025. “How do social media algorithms appear? A phenomenological response to the black box metaphor.” Minds and Machines, 35(2), Article 15. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-025-09716-1

  36. Ferreira, G. B. 2025. “The aesthetics of algorithmic disinformation: Dewey, critical theory, and the crisis of public experience.” Journalism and Media, 6(4), 168. https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia6040168

  37. Foster, C. L. E. 2023. “Truth as social practice in a digital era: iteration as persuasion.” AI & Society, 38(5), 2009–2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-021-01306-w

  38. Durán, J. M., & Pozzi, G. 2025. “Trust and trustworthiness in AI.” Philosophy & Technology, 38(1), Article 16. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-025-00843-2

  39. Guess, A., Nagler, J., & Tucker, J. 2019. “Less than you think: Prevalence and predictors of fake news dissemination on Facebook.” Science Advances, 5(1), eaau4586. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aau4586

  40. Stiegler, B. 2010. Taking Care of Youth and the Generations. Trans. S. Barker. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

  41. Sunstein, C. R. 2017. #Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

  42. Briegel, H. J., & Müller, T. 2025. “Phenomenology.” In: Projective Simulation in Action. Synthese Library. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland, 333–374. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-98119-7_6

Liudmyla Krymets
Department of Social Sciences, Kruty Heroes Military Institute of Telecommunication and Information Technology, 45/1 Knyaziv Ostrozkyh St., Kyiv, 01011, Ukraine
Vitalii Chornyi
Department of Social Sciences, Kruty Heroes Military Institute of Telecommunication and Information Technology, 45/1 Knyaziv Ostrozkyh St., Kyiv, 01011, Ukraine
Natalia Logvinenko
Department of Social Sciences, Kruty Heroes Military Institute of Telecommunication and Information Technology, 45/1 Knyaziv Ostrozkyh St., Kyiv, 01011, Ukraine
Serhii Khovrych
Department of Social Sciences, Kruty Heroes Military Institute of Telecommunication and Information Technology, 45/1 Knyaziv Ostrozkyh St., Kyiv, 01011, Ukraine
Maksym Udod
Department of Social Sciences, Kruty Heroes Military Institute of Telecommunication and Information Technology, 45/1 Knyaziv Ostrozkyh St., Kyiv, 01011, Ukraine

How to cite:

Liudmyla Krymets, Vitalii Chornyi, Natalia Logvinenko, Serhii Khovrych, Maksym Udod. Cognitive Security and Philosophical Dialogue: A Historical-Philosophical Analysis of Ideological Manipulation in Information Warfare. Revista Cultura Científica, 2026 Issue 24. pg. 2477-2490.

Publication History

Copyright © 2026, Liudmyla Krymets, Vitalii Chornyi, Natalia Logvinenko, Serhii Khovrych, Maksym Udod. Published by Revista Cultura Científica. This article is published as open access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Browse Advance Search