Perception and Representation of Reputation Through the Eras: From Traditional Trust to Post-Cognition

This article examines the transformation of reputation from the Age of Enlightenment to the contemporary digital age and analyzes how post-modernism and the post-truth era have fundamentally changed the construction, maintenance, and destruction of both personal and institutional reputation. Using Foucault's genealogical method, the study traces concepts that show linearity in the historical development of reputation and predicts the character it may assume in the next stage. This linearity begins with the traditional reasoning- and trust-based reputation systems of the Enlightenment, evolves into institutionalized systems mediated by gatekeepers in Modernism, is reshaped within the fragmented, situational realities of post-modernism, and finally manifests in the new social judgment mechanisms of cancel culture, performative activism, and digital boycotts during the post-truth era. A linear trajectory is mapped across the dimensions of speed, judgment, context, form, and agency, and on that basis the research anticipates the structure reputation may take in the forthcoming AI age. It proposes that this emerging reputation phenomenon—moving beyond the limits of human perception, evaluation, and control—may be labelled "post-cognition." Finally, the study shows that while digital technologies democratize reputation management, they also create new vulnerabilities: context collapse, permanent digital memory, and crowd dynamics can instantly undermine decades of accumulated trust. This underscores the need for new frameworks to understand reputation in an era where truth has become subjective and contested.