Steve Fuller

The governance of science : ideology and the future of the open society

Part 1 The political and material conditions of scientific inquiry: science as the open society and its ideological deformations the role of scale in the scope of scientific governance. Part 2 The university as a site for the governance of science: the historical interdependence of the university and knowledge production multiculturalisms challenge to academic integrity, or a tale of two churches the university as a capitalisms final frontier, or the fading hope for enlightment in a complex world. Part 3 The secularization of science and a new deal for science policy: sociology as both sanctifier and secularizer of science the road not taken -revisiting the original new deal - elements for a new constitutions of science.

Why Science Studies Has Never Been Critical of Science Some Recent Lessons on How to Be a Helpful Nuisance and a Harmless Radical

Research in Science and Technology Studies (STS) tends to presume that intellectual and political radicalism go hand in hand. One would therefore expect that the most intellectually radical movement in the field relates critically to its social conditions. However, this is not the case, as demonstrated by the trajectory of the Parisian School of STS spearheaded by Michel Callon and Bruno Latour. Their position, “actor-network theory,” turns out to be little more than a strategic adaptation to the democratization of expertise and the decline of the strong nation-state in France over the past 25 years. This article provides a prehistory of this client-driven, contract-based research culture in U.S. sociology of the 1960s, followed by specific features of French philosophical and political culture that have bred the distinctive tenets of actor-network theory. Insofar as actor-network theory has become the main paradigm for contemporary STS research, it reflects a field that dodges normative commitments in order to maintain a user-friendly presence.

Can Universities Solve the Problem of Knowledge in Society without Succumbing to the Knowledge Society

This article attempts to answer the knowledge management jibe that universities are ‘dumb organisations’ in need of restructuring or, worse, dissolution. In its place, the author proposes that the university is the original entrepreneurial organisation, one designed to engage in the ‘creative destruction of social capital’. Creation occurs as research gains one temporary advantage, while destruction occurs in teaching, which removes that advantage. However, this cycle is currently subject to severe disruption by such signature trends of our so-called knowledge society as credentials inflation and expanding intellectual property regimes. Contrary to the name ‘knowledge society’, knowledge functions more as a principle of social stratification or a source of capital development, but not a form of inquiry. Epistemology thus becomes what the author calls ‘phlogistemology’. This problem is diagnosed in terms of the emergence of ‘capitalism of the third order’. The author then shows how the welfare state temporarily reversed this tendency by institutionalising the university as a public good. However, with the decline of the welfare state, academic knowledge has now reverted to the status of a positional good. The author observes that the ultimate source of the universitys identity crisis is the theory of value shared by the welfare state and contemporary neo-liberalism, both of which regard the university as a glorified short-term, client-centred service provider. In response, the author explores the consequences of taking seriously the idea that the university was one of the original chartered corporations, funded mainly by the alumnis lifelong financial commitment, not student fees or graduate taxes.

On regulating what is known: A way to social epistemology

This paper lays the groundwork for normative-yet-naturalistic social epistemology. I start by presenting two scenarios for the history of epistemology since Kant, one in which social epistemology is the natural outcome and the other in which it represents a not entirely satisfactory break with classical theories of knowledge. Next I argue that the current trend toward “naturalizing” epistemology threatens to destroy the distinctiveness of the sociological approach by presuming that it complements standard psychological and historical approaches. I then try to reassert, in Comtean fashion, the epistemologists credentials in regulating knowledge production. Finally, I consider how social epistemology may have something exciting and relevant to say about contemporary debates in the theory of knowledge.

Social Epistemology: A Quarter-Century Itinerary

Examining the origin and development of my views of social epistemology, I contrast my position with the position held by analytic social epistemologists. Analytic social epistemology (ASE) has failed to make significant progress owing, in part, to a minimal understanding of actual knowledge practices, a minimised role for philosophers in ongoing inquiry, and a focus on maintaining the status quo of epistemology as a field. As a way forward, I propose questions and future areas of inquiry for a post-ASE to address.

The sociology of intellectual life: the career of the mind in and around the academy

On the other hand, one cannot take away integrity in the search for evidence and honesty in declaring one’s results and still have science; one cannot take away a willingness to listen to anyone’s scientific theories and findings irrespective of race, creed or social eccentricity and still have science; one cannot take away the readiness to expose one’s findings to criticism and debate and still have science; one cannot take away the idea that the best theories will be able to specify the means by which they could be shown to be wrong and still have science; one cannot take away the idea that a lone voice might be right while all the rest are wrong and still have science; one cannot take away the idea that good experimentation or theorisation usually demand high levels of craft skills and still have science; and one cannot take away the idea that, in virtue of their experience, some are more capable than others at both producing scientific knowledge and at criticising it and still have science. These features of science are ‘essential’ not derivative. (Collins 2010)

The normative turn - Counterfactuals and a philosophical historiography of science

Counterfactual reasoning is broadly implicated in causal claims made by historians. However, this point is more generally recognized and accepted by economic historians than historians of science. A good site for examining alternative appeals to counterfactuals is to consider “what if” the Scientific Revolution had not occurred in seventeenth-century Europe. Two alternative interpretations are analyzed: that the revolution would eventually have happened somewhere else (“overdeterminism”) or that the revolution would not have happened at all (“underdeterminism”). Broadly speaking, these two interpretations correspond to the respective attitudes of philosophers and historians to the development of science. However, a case is presented for synthesizing the two interpretations into a normative historiography of science that would allow past and present concerns to interrogate each other. This exercise in counterfactual reasoning can be imagined in the spirit of a time traveler who aims to persuade, rather than simply understand, the natives he or she encounters.

Cyberplatonism: An inadequate constitution for the republic of science

Proceeding from the standpoint of the historical sociology and political economy of knowledge production, I provide an extended critique of Stevan Harnads “PostGutenberg” utopia of “paperless publishing” on the Internet. After dubbing Hamads utopia “Cyberplatonism, “ I divide its problems into two issues: (1) Does the Internet approximate the frictionless medium of thought traditionally sought by Platonists? (2) Does the peer review system offer an adequate model of how such a medium would enable inquirers to get at the Truth? Whereas Harnad argues yes to both questions, I argue no. In response to (1), I question Harnads characterization of Internet publication as cost‐free and paperless, noting his failure to take into account the hidden institutional costs of maintaining electronic communication networks, especially during a time of increased network privatization. I also criticize Harnads attempt to scapegoat the publishing industry for its supposed failure to realize the “esoteric” character of mo...

A path better not to have been taken

Sociology has always struggled with its status as both an empirical and a normative discipline. In the writings of Auguste Comte, sociology and positivism were the twin spawn of a political movement dedicated to the scientific reformation of society. National traditions have subsequently joined the struggle differently:The French proposed secular replacements for the Church as a basis for social solidarity, while Germans debated whether their research questions should be dictated by policy relevance and the Americans pondered the universalisability of their exceptional collective experience. In the UK, the struggle was refracted through Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. Patrick Geddes and Victor Branford were central to this inquiry, which led them to establish Britain’s first self-consciously ‘sociological’ association and journal, namely, The Sociological Review. But rather more like their American than their French or German counterparts, British sociologists have tended to airbrush these earliest indigenous forays out of the discipline’s official history. It is this which makes the papers by Scott and Husbands (2007), and by Studholme (2007), in the recent special issue so potentially interesting. Nevertheless, I shall argue, a different sort of airbrushing, perhaps related to concerns over political correctness, continues in recent attempts to recover Geddes and Branford. Interestingly, the original burst of interest in sociology in both the US and UK also shared a varied and imaginative engagement with Darwin, the full significance of which has yet to be appreciated. Consider this statement by Branford in 1904, from the inaugural meeting of the Sociological Society:

Intellectuals: An endangered species in the twenty-first century?

This article surveys the problems facing the existence of intellectuals in the twenty-first century by reflecting on the historical and conceptual conditions that have enabled them to flourish in the past but less so in recent times. The first part considers several strands of contemporary philosophical and social thought that, despite their progressive veneer, have served to undermine the legitimacy of the intellectuals role. This delegitimation is largely traceable to a scepticism about the existence of ideas that are simultaneously normative and manipulable. The second part deals with the rise of anti-intellectualism in philosophy and psychology in the twentieth century, focusing especially on the debates surrounding ‘psychologism’. The third part examines what remains the most attractive expression of anti-intellectualism, namely, invisible-hand thinking and its late nineteenth-century transformation through the influence of statistics, evolution and epidemiology. In the conclusion, the main strands of the argument are drawn together in a sketch of an overall account of the rise and fall of the intellectual in the modern era. Finally, I provide one strategy for stemming the current tide of anti-intellectualism by reinterpreting the currently popular concept of ‘heuristics’.