Steve Fuller (social epistemologist)

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Steve Fuller in 2005.
Steve Fuller in 2005.

Steve William Fuller (born July 12, 1959 in New York City) is an Anglo-American philosopher-sociologist in the field of science and technology studies.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Fuller was admitted as a John Jay Scholar to Columbia University in 1976, from where he graduated summa cum laude in History and Sociology in 1979. He then studied at Clare College, Cambridge University, on a Kellett Fellowship, from which he received an M.Phil. in History and Philosophy of Science in 1981. He then received a Ph. D. in the same subject from the University of Pittsburgh in 1985, where he was an Andrew Mellon Pre-Doctoral Fellow. Fuller's Ph.D. was entitled "Bounded Rationality in Law and Science," which explored the implications of the views of Herbert Simon for political theory and philosophy of science. Fuller subsequently held assistant and associate professorships at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Virginia Tech and, again, the University of Pittsburgh. In 1994, at the age of 35, he was appointed to the chair in sociology and social policy at the University of Durham, England, from which he moved in 1999 to his current post at the University of Warwick, England. In July 2007 Fuller was awarded a higher doctorate (D. Litt.) by Warwick for recognition of 'published work or papers which demonstrate a high standard of important original work forming a major contribution to a subject'.[1]

[edit] Research

Fuller is most closely associated with social epistemology as an interdisciplinary research program. Social epistemology is a normative discipline that addresses philosophical problems of knowledge using the tools of history and the social sciences. Fuller founded the first journal (1987) and wrote the first book (1988) devoted to this topic. The most obvious feature of Fuller's approach, already present in his 1988 book, is that he rejects out of hand the Cartesian problem of scepticism.

Fuller is a prolific author and speaker, having written more than 200 academic articles and given over 500 public talks across the world. His works have been translated into fifteen languages. He has been active in public understanding of science initiatives in the UK, where he moved in 1994. In 1995 he organized in Durham one of the first UK conferences on the Science Wars, which featured Lewis Wolpert, Peter Atkins and Andrew Pickering as invited speakers.

[edit] Public intellectual work

Since moving to the UK, Fuller has increasingly oriented himself towards public intellectual expression, including television and radio, which he interprets as a natural outgrowth of his version of social epistemology. Two of his books have been recognised in this regard. Kuhn vs Popper was Book of the Month for February 2005 in the US mass circulation magazine, Popular Science. The Intellectual was selected as a Book of the Year in 2005 by the UK liberal-left magazine, New Statesman. He periodically contributes a column to the Project Syndicate, associated with George Soros' Open Society project, which appears in several languages in newspapers across the world.[2] In 2006 he also taught a course on the 'epistemology of journalism' at an international summer school at the University of Lund, Sweden.[3]

[edit] Academic freedom

Fuller has been one of the most visible supporters of the UK group, Academics for Academic Freedom.[4] He distinctively believes (modeled on what he takes to be the German model) that academic freedom refers to a freedom reserved for academics, not a special case of freedom of speech.[5] This includes the right to give offence as long as it is done within the terms of reason and evidence that is appropriate to the academic profession. He believes that it is important for academics to be able to express their intellectual opinions and to open them up to others for further debate which can result in progress.

[edit] Controversy surrounding support of intelligent design

Fuller has been criticised for his allegedly postmodernist views on science (Fuller's views can more accurately be characterised as the related viewpoint of social constructionism), as well as his support for 'Intelligent Design'.[6][7] Where this criticism has come from pro-Science blogs, it has largely centred on his testimony, for the defense, at the Kitzmiller trial.[8] This testimony was frequently quoted by Judge Jones, though not in a way helpful to the defense, as noted by critics of Intelligent Design.[9] Critics within the Science and Technology Studies community have described Fuller's participation at this trial as "naive" and have suggested that the field needs further development before it can constructively engage the legal community on the nature of science.[10][11]

On 21 February 2007, Fuller debated Lewis Wolpert at Royal Holloway, University of London on whether evolution and intelligent design should be accorded equal status as scientific theories. Fuller supported the proposition.

Fuller has written a very complimentary "endorsement" of the pro-Intelligent Design Discovery Institute's textbook Explore Evolution: The Arguments For and Against Neo-Darwinism‎ (published in 2007), which features on this book's website.[12]

Also in 2007, Fuller wrote Science Vs Religion?: Intelligent Design and the Problem of Evolution. Professor of mathematics at Rutgers University, Norman Levitt reviewed it describing it as "a truly miserable piece of work, crammed with errors scientific, historical, and even theological". Major points that Levitt raises are

  • Fuller's acceptance at face value of William Dembski's claims on complexity and randomness, and his failure to come to grips with the wealth of results that this field has generated and with the trenchant criticism of Dembski's claims (or even to describe these claims accurately);
  • his disparagement of evolutionary biology, without doing "serious analysis of the working methods and logical structure of biology itself" on which to base it;
  • his misrepresentation of Isaac Newton's religious beliefs in order to make a point that is in fact antithetical to Newton's views;

Levitt infers that Fuller's views arise from an "animosity to science as such and to its cognitive authority [that] still pervades academic life outside the dominion of the science faculty."[13]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Higher Doctorates for Warwick People, University of Warwick
  2. ^ Project Syndicate
  3. ^ The Epistemology of Journalism Course Description, University of Lund
  4. ^ Academics for Academic Freedom
  5. ^ Head to Head: Academic Freedom, The Philosophers Magazine (subscription only)
  6. ^ Brief for Amicus Curiae, Scipolicy Journal of Science and Health Policy, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District‎
  7. ^ Steve Fuller and The Hidden Agenda of Social Constructivism, Norman Levitt, Talk Reason
  8. ^ More Pomo commentary on ID, The Panda's Thumb
  9. ^ And a shout out to Steve Fuller, too!, The Panda's Thumb
  10. ^ From Ruse to Farce, Michael Lynch, Social Studies of Science 2006; 36; 819
  11. ^ Anti-social Epistemologies, Gary Edmond and David Mercer, Social Studies of Science 2006; 36; 843
  12. ^ Endorsements, Explore Evolution‎ website
  13. ^ The Painful Elaboration of the Fatuous, Norman Levitt, eSkeptic, Skeptic magazine

[edit] Bibliography

  • Social Epistemology, Indiana University Press, 1988 (2nd edition, 2002).
  • Philosophy of Science and Its Discontents, Westview Press, 1989 (2nd edition, Guilford Press, 1993).
  • Philosophy, Rhetoric, and the End of Knowledge, University of Wisconsin Press, 1993 (2nd edition, with James H. Collier, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004)
  • Science, Open University Press (UK) and University of Minnesota Press (US), 1997.
  • The Governance of Science, Open University Press, 2000.
  • Thomas Kuhn: A Philosophical History for Our Times, University of Chicago Press, 2000.
  • Knowledge Management Foundations, Butterworth-Heinemann, 2002.
  • Kuhn vs. Popper: The Struggle for the Soul of Science, Icon Books (UK) and Columbia University Press (US), 2003.
  • The Intellectual, Icon Books, 2005.
  • The Philosophy of Science and Technology Studies, Routledge, 2006
  • The New Sociological Imagination, Sage, 2006.
  • The Knowledge Book: Key Concepts in Philosophy, Science and Culture, Acumen (UK) and McGill-Queens University Press (NA), 2007
  • New Frontiers in Science and Technology Studies, Polity, 2007
  • Science vs. Religion? Intelligent Design and the Problem of Evolution, Polity, 2007
  • Dissent Over Descent: Evolution's 500-year War on Intelligent Design, Icon Books, 2008

[edit] See also

  • Fuller, S. (2004). The Case of Fuller vs Kuhn, Social Epistemology 18, 3-49. (Fuller's response to the Social Epistemology Special Issue)

[edit] External links

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