Beyond Cold War Paradigms for Science and Democracy

Abstract

Steve Fuller has been a virtual one-man industry in the field of Science and Technology Studies for more than a decade. In Social Epistemology, he outlined an ambitious programme for remaking the emerging interdisciplinary field into a catalyst for transforming the academy, for the purpose of serving the greater good. Mixing equal measures of constructivist sociology, analytical philosophy, and post-modern theory, Fuller has tried to explain how the disciplinary structure of the field must change in order to reform the academy and society. Key to his concept of social epistemology is the idea that philosophical prescriptions are empty if they do not specify the social conditions for their implementation. Seeing most philosophical talk as empty, and most sociology as too reticent to prescribe, Fuller sought to shake up the accepted division of labour so that a vigorous, theoretically-informed science policy could be developed. He founded a journal, also called Social Epistemology, to encourage interaction among scholars who engage with these issues. Reactions to Fuller's early work generally praised it as a source of new ideas, but questioned his style and methods. To many, his approach to history was particularly off-putting. He did not rely upon detailed case studies to make palatable his theoretical musings an emerging standard for the field that he saw as misguided. He even suggested that experimental psychology should replace history as the preferred science of science.1 Many believed that his policy advice presupposed the standpoint of a benevolent but authoritarian philosopher-king. It is a credit to his willingness to engage critics that he went on to develop a more democratic