This article examines the philosophical foundations of the concept of the information society and analyzes its historical stages of formation. Drawing on classical and contemporary theories—from post-industrialism and knowledge economics to digital civilization studies—the paper argues that the information society represents not merely a technological transformation but a profound ontological and epistemological shift in how societies generate, distribute, and legitimize knowledge. The study identifies four major stages of formation: proto-informational developments, industrial–informational transition, early digitalization, and the current algorithmic–networked civilization. It concludes that the information society must be understood as a complex socio-philosophical process in which information becomes the dominant factor of social organization, human agency, and global interdependence.

Information society, philosophy of information, digital civilization, ontology of information

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