Steve Fuller

Untimely Thoughts at the Dawn of the Transhuman Era

Nietzschean Meditations

The Intellectual

Kuhn Vs.Popper

Religion and the New Atheism

"The Knowledge Book" is a unique interdisciplinary reference work for students and researchers concerned with the nature of knowledge. It is the first work of its kind to be organized on the assumption that whatever else knowledge might be, it is intrinsically social. The book consists of 42 alphabetically arranged entries on key concepts at the intersection of philosophy and sociology - what used to be called "sociology of knowledge" but is now increasingly called "social epistemology". The entries include concepts common to disciplines that in recent years have devoted more of their attention to knowledge: cultural studies, communication studies, information science, education, policy studies and business studies. Special attention is given to concepts from the emerging field of science and technology studies. Each entry presents a short, self-contained essay providing an overview of a concept and concludes with suggestions for further reading. All the entries are fully cross-referenced, allowing readers to both make connections and follow their own interests.

Key Concepts in Philosophy, Science and Culture

The Knowledge Book

Steve Woolgar

T. Shinn

Marc de Mey

If nothing else, the twelve papers assembled in this volume should lay to rest the idea that the interesting debates about the nature of science are still being conducted by "internalists" vs. "externalists,"" rationalists" vs. "arationalists, n or even "normative epistemologists" vs. "empirical sociologists of knowledge. " Although these distinctions continue to haunt much of the theoretical discussion in philosophy and sociology of science, our authors have managed to elude their strictures by finally getting beyond the post-positivist preoccupation of defending a certain division of labor among the science studies disciplines. But this is hardly to claim that our historians, philosophers, sociologists, and psychologists have brought about an "end of ideology," or even an "era of good feelings," to their debates. Rather, they have drawn new lines of battle which center more squarely than ever on practical matters of evaluating and selecting methods for studying science. To get a vivid sense of the new terrain that was staked out at the Yearbook conference, let us start by meditating on a picture. The front cover of a recent collection of sociological studies edited by one of us (Woolgar 1988) bears a stylized picture of a series of lined up open books presented in a typical perspective fashion. The global shape comes close to a trapezium, and is composed of smaller trapeziums gradually decreasing in size and piled upon each other so as to suggest a line receding in depth. The perspective is stylized too.

Sociological and Psychological Perspectives on Science

The Cognitive Turn

This is the book that launched the research program of social epistemology, which has fuelled imaginations and provoked debates across many disciplines around the world. Its opening question remains as pressing as ever: How should knowledge production be organised. The second edition contains a substantial new introduction, in which Fuller reflects on social epistemology's place in the history of analytic and continental epistemology and discusses the inspiration he has drawn from a wide variety of fields in the humanities and social sciences. It also includes a spirited attack on alternative philosophical groundings for social epistemology and a detailed response to the standard criticism that social epistemology has received from realist philosophers and natural scientists during the "Science Wars."In Social Epistemology Fuller seeks to reconcile normative philosophy of science and empirical sociology of knowledge. He reinterprets key problems in the philosophy of science, such as realism, the nature of objectivity, the demarcation of science from other disciplines, and the nature of our knowledge of other times and places. In the course of this reinterpretation, which draws on concepts and arguments from many branches of the humanities and social sciences, Fuller considers such philosophically neglected questions as: How is the burden of proof determined in science? On what basis is the historian licensed to say that a "consensus" has been reached on a scientific claim? What implications do our patently imperfect means of linguistic transmission have for the notion that science "retains and accumulates" knowledge? Finally, Fuller proposes a course of "Knowledge Policy Studies" designed to make the theory of knowledge a branch of political theory and thereby to hasten the evolution of the epistemologist into a knowledge policy maker. In its new edition, the book remains a provocative contribution to the debate on the production, dissemination, and interpretation of knowledge in the sciences.

Social Epistemology

In 1965 Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper met at the University of London to stage what has turned out to be the most momentous philosophical debate of the 20th century. At stake was no less than the soul of science itself...No discipline remained untouched by the consequences of this exchange. Was it really such a good thing that Kuhn's 'postmodernism' triumphed over Popper's 'positivism'? Kuhn vs. Popper is a provocative account of a landmark confrontation in which 'the wrong guy' won. A fantastically regarded author whom Icon are proud to have on board Touches upon every aspect of thinking about science in the 20th century Pacey, provocative and sure to receive media coverage

The Struggle for the Soul of Science

Kuhn Vs. Popper

‘Post-truth’ was Oxford Dictionaries 2016 word of the year. While the term was coined by its disparagers in the light of the Brexit and US presidential campaigns, the roots of post-truth lie deep in the history of Western social and political theory. Post-Truth reaches back to Plato, ranging across theology and philosophy, to focus on the Machiavellian tradition in classical sociology, as exemplified by Vilfredo Pareto, who offered the original modern account of post-truth in terms of the ‘circulation of elites’. The defining feature of ‘post-truth’ is a strong distinction between appearance and reality which is never quite resolved and so the strongest appearance ends up passing for reality. The only question is whether more is gained by rapid changes in appearance or by stabilizing one such appearance. Post-Truth plays out what this means for both politics and science.

Knowledge As A Power Game

Post-Truth

The caller whispers, I know what you did, but what did Carter McCoy do? Someone has been watching, waiting, and he won't stop tormenting the college professor until his revenge is complete and Carter's life is destroyed. The mystery begins when Carter sleeps with a student named Leslie Steel. After Leslie disappears later that night and is presumed dead by the authorities, Carter's carefully constructed facade begins to crumble. Anonymous phone calls, cryptic letters, haunting song lyrics, a bloody murder weapon someone is trying to implicate Carter in Leslie's death. But who? With his life falling apart, Carter attempts to cover up a murder he doesn't remember committing. Unfortunately, Detective Bruce Kraft is always one step ahead. Handsome, rugged, and confident, Kraft is everything Carter McCoy is not namely, a good guy trapped in a crummy world. In Carter's cluttered mind, everyone is a suspect, but who killed Leslie Steel? Who is attacking his friends? Who kidnapped his girlfriend? Who is the mystery person known as Vengeance? With time running out, Carter is given one last chance to uncover the truth, leading to a rollercoaster conclusion full of shocking twists. Nothing is what it seems in Fuller's debut suspense novel.

The Sickness

Intelligent Design Theory (IDT) was responsible for the 17th century's Scientific Revolution. Evolution, derives from ancient, even pagan, ideas about our rootedness in nature and the transience of various life forms. What happened to reverse these two movements' fortunes? This work provides an understanding of this debate.

Intelligent Design's Challenge to Darwinism

Dissent Over Descent

For centuries, science and religion have been portrayed as diametrically opposed. In this provocative new book, Steve Fuller examines the apparent clash between science and religion by focusing on the heated debates about evolution and intelligent design theory. In so doing, he claims that science vs. religion is in fact a false dichotomy. For Fuller, supposedly intellectual disputes, such as those between creationist and evolutionist accounts of life, often disguise other institutionally driven conflicts, such as the struggle between State and Church to be the source of legitimate authority in society. Nowadays many conservative anti-science groups support intelligent design theory, but Fuller argues that the theory's theological roots are much more radical, based on the idea that humans were created to fathom the divine plan, perhaps even complete it. He goes on to examine the unique political circumstances in the United States that make the emergence of intelligent design theory so controversial, yet so persistent. Finally, he considers the long-term prognosis, arguing that the future remains very much undecided as society reopens the question of what it means to be human. This book will appeal to all readers intrigued by the debates about creationism, intelligent design and evolution, especially those looking for an intellectually exciting confrontation with the politics and promise of intelligent design theory.

Science vs. Religion

Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is one of the best-known and most influential books of the twentieth century. But were Kuhn's ideas as revolutionary as the conventional wisdom holds? Steve Fuller argues that Kuhn advocated what was actually a profoundly conservative view of science and how one ought to study its history - a view Fuller charges helped usher in the Science Wars and stifle much innovative research.

Philosophical History Of Our Times,A

SCIENCE features a report written in the persona of a Martian anthropologist who systematically compares religious and scientific institutions on Earth, only to find that science does not necessarily live up to its own ideals of rationality, thereby risking its purpose by the role it increasingly plays in the maintenance of social and economic order.

Science

Steve Fuller has a reputation for setting the terms of debate within science and technology studies. In his latest book, New Frontiers in Science and Technology Studies he charts the debates likely to be of relevance in the coming years. Should science and technology be treated as separate entities? What impact has globalization had on science and technology? Can science be clearly distinguished from other forms of knowledge? Does the politicization of science really matter? Is there a role for the social regulation of scientific inquiry? Should we be worried about research fraud? These questions are explored by examining an array of historical, philosophical and contemporary sources. Attention is paid, for example, to the Bruno Latour's The Politics of Nature as a model for science policy, as well as the global controversy surrounding Bjorn Lomborg's The Sceptical Environmentalist, which led to the dismantling and re-establishment of the Danish national research ethics board. New Frontiers in Science and Technology Studies will appeal strongly to scholars and advanced undergraduate and graduate students in courses concerned with the social dimensions of science and technology, and anyone who cares about the future of science.

New Frontiers in Science and Technology Studies

A Player’s Guide to the Post-Truth Condition: The Name of the Game presents sixteen short, readable chapters designed to leverage our post-truth condition’s deep historical and philosophical roots into opportunities for unprecedented innovation and change. Fuller offers a bracing, proactive and hopeful vision against the tendency to demonize post-truth as the realm of ‘fake news’ and ‘bullshit’. Where others see threats to the established order, Fuller sees opportunities to overturn it. This theme is pursued across many domains, including politics, religion, the economy, the law, public relations, journalism, the performing arts and academia, not least academic science. The red thread running through Fuller’s treatment is that these domains are games that cannot be easily won unless one can determine the terms of engagement, which is to say, the ‘name of the game’. This involves the exercise of ‘modal power’, which is the capacity to manipulate what people think is possible. Once the ‘necessarily’ true appears to be only ‘contingently’ so, then the future suddenly becomes a more open space for action. This was what frightened Plato about the alternative realities persuasively portrayed by playwrights in ancient Athens. Nevertheless, Fuller believes that it should be embraced by denizens of today’s post-truth condition.

The Name of the Game

A Player's Guide to the Post-Truth Condition

Mikael Stenmark

Ulf Zackariasson

This book approaches post-truth and relativism in a multidisciplinary fashion. Researchers from astrophysics, philosophy, psychology, media studies, religious studies, anthropology, social epistemology and sociology discuss and analyse the impact of relativism and post-truth both within the academy and in society at large. The motivation for this multidisciplinary approach is that relativism and post-truth are multifaceted phenomena with complex histories that have played out differently in different areas of society and different academic disciplines. There is hence a multitude of ways in which to use and understand the concepts and the phenomena to which they refer, and a multitude of critiques and defenses as well. No single volume can capture the ongoing discussions in different areas in all their complexity, but the different chapters of the book can function as exemplifications of the ramifications these phenomena have had.

Possibilities and Challenges

Relativism and Post-Truth in Contemporary Society

As the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) has become more established, it has increasingly hidden its philosophical roots. While the trend is typical of disciplines striving for maturity, Steve Fuller, a leading figure in the field, argues that STS has much to lose if it abandons philosophy. In his characteristically provocative style, he offers the first sustained treatment of the philosophical foundations of STS and suggests fruitful avenues for further research. With stimulating discussions of the Science Wars, the Intelligent Design Theory controversy, and theorists such as Donna Haraway and Bruno Latour, Philosophy of Science and Technology Studies is required reading for students and scholars in STS and the philosophy of science.

Steve Fuller

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