Steve Fuller Research Articles

Social Epistemology

The term “social epistemology” (SE) was first used by the library and information scientist Jesse Shera in 1951, but soon the term became muddled, and it did not become influential at that time. Later, it became known as the name for two different traditions outside library and information science, one led by Alvin Goldman and based on analytic philosophy, and the other led by Steve Fuller and related to science policy. It seems, however, problematic just to associate the term with these two schools, which, in different ways, are found not to represent genuine approaches to SE. SE is an alternative to individualist epistemologies and, as such, has roots back to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Karl Marx, and Charles Peirce, among others. In the twentieth century, the concept became influential in the wake of Thomas Kuhn’s historicist view and in pragmatic, hermeneutic, critical, and feminist views (but mostly not by using the term SE). In these contexts, it represents an alternative to “positivism.”[1] Shera’s 1951 use of the term SE is found to represent the best vision for SE, although it could not be properly concretized before alternatives to positivism were developed in 1962.

A socio‐epistemological program for the philosophy of regulatory science

AbstractThis paper presents a program of action for the philosophy of regulatory science, based on a general theory of social epistemology. Two candidates are considered. The first one, offered by Alvin Goldman, is not fit for our purposes because it is focused on a veritism incompatible with non‐epistemic aims of regulatory science. The second, championed by Steve Fuller, sociologically investigates the existing means of producing knowledge, to modify them with the goal of obtaining democratic aims through action on a legislative meta‐level. The program has been built upon this procedure, instantiated by the identification, characterization, and modification of epistemic policies.

Why Post-Truth Cannot Be Our Epistemological Compass

ABSTRACT This paper tackles some of the arguments Steve Fuller – arguably the best advocate of post-truth currently on the scene – put forward to show that, correctly understood, post-truth is the best conceptual tool to get a clear picture not only of what is happening in our societies today, but also of what has happened throughout the secular history of Western culture. The implicit assumption is that post-truth represents a reliable ‘epistemological compass’ – that is, a notion (or a set of notions) for proper orientation in both cultural and physical environments. The aim of the paper is to show that Fuller’s arguments do not work, because an epistemological compass can only be centered on a plausible notion of objectivity, and – it will be contended – this is exactly what Fuller lacks. Accordingly, it will be stressed how the upshot of his theses is the opposite of what he presumes it to be and, moreover, that his theses prove lethal to his own position.

Behind the Screens: Post-truth, Populism, and the Circulation of Elites

AbstractThe alleged emergence of a ‘post-truth’ regime links the rise of new forms of social media and the reemergence of political populism. Post-truth has theoretical roots in the interdisciplinary field ofScience and Technology Studies(STS), with sociologists of science arguing that both true and false claims should be explained by the same kinds of social causes. Most STS theorists have sought to deflect blame for post-truth, while at the same time enacting a normative turn, looking to deconstruct truth claims and subject expertise to criticism. Steve Fuller has developed a positive case for post-truth in science, arguing that post-truth democratizes science. I criticize this argument and suggest an alternative approach that draws on the prehistory of the field in the 1930s and 1940s, when philosophers and sociologists sought to define the social conditions necessary for reliable knowledge production that might stem mass media irrationalism.

Steve Fuller, A Player’s Guide to the Post-Truth Condition: The Name of the Game

Steve Fuller, <i>A Player’s Guide to the Post-Truth Condition: The Name of the Game</i>

Nietzschean Meditations: Untimely Thoughts at the Dawn of the Transhuman Era

Nietzschean Meditations: Untimely Thoughts at the Dawn of the Transhuman Era

Review of Steve Fuller (2019). Nietzschean Meditations: Untimely Thoughts at the Dawn of the Transhuman Era

Review of Steve Fuller (2019). Nietzschean Meditations: Untimely Thoughts at the Dawn of the Transhuman Era

Democracy and Inquiry in the Post-Truth Era: A pragmatist Solution

Post-truth has become a commonplace strategy. No longer are objective facts viewed as having evidentiary value; scientific knowledge is on a par with emotions or personal beliefs. We intend to show that in the context of post-truth, those proffering and receiving an assertion do not care about the truth-value of the assertion or about the best way to gather evidence concerning it. Such attitudes raise several questions about how relativism can be a corrupting influence in contemporary democracies. We will analyse Steve Fuller’s use of the term «post-truth» – especially, the political connotations about epistemic democracy that he highlights. Instead, we offer a pragmatist defence of the truth and an alternative meaning of epistemic democracy.

Postdigital Living and Algorithms of Desire

This article-commentary introduces the concept of living. It reflects on the power of the media, collectively speaking across various genres whose boundaries are ever more blurred, and shifts in general media machinery in relation to algorithms. Media (news, film, social media, advertising) hold a powerful grip over human life, influencing its various aspects such as(un)democratic decision-making ), adolescents’life decisions, and adoption of worldviews that put entire groups of people under the banner of mortal enemies. Many people are increasingly‘relying on their devices during this pandemic to inform and distract more than ever before. In our postdigital times of blurred boundaries between virtual and real, we also experience an increased blurring of boundaries between‘natural’and‘artificial’forms of life. In 2003, Steve Fuller and Bruno Latour debated whether‘a strong distinction between humans and non-humans is no longer required for research purposes. Two decades later, their debate has become‘embodied’in various artificial intelligences. Algorithmic online celebrities, such as Miquela Sousa aka Lil Miquela with over 2 million followers on Instagram, are examples of uncanny postdigital developments, targeting children and teen audiences.

Social epistemology in information studies

The present paper aims to provide new details and information on the intellectual context in which social epistemology was born, including aspects such as its theoretical influences, intellectual contexts, and main characteristics. As methodology it presents an analysis of the writings on social epistemology by Jesse Shera and Margaret Egan selected from different and sometimes rare sources and collection. After an the analysis, the paper addresses the relationship between the historical social epistemology proposed by Margaret Egan and Jesse Shera as a discipline to investigate the foundations of librarianship and the contemporary social epistemology proposed by Steve Fuller as a program of a “naturalistic approach to the normative questions surrounding the organization of knowledge processes and products.” Both these proposals are outlined as an interdisciplinary project that is based on both philosophical epistemology and the scientific sociology of knowledge.

Стив Фуллер и его игра в знание в условиях пост-правды

Стив Фуллер и его игра в знание в условиях пост-правды

Science on Demand

Characterizing science as a public good, as Steve Fuller notes, is a part of an ideological construal of science, linked to a particular portrayal of science in the postwar era that was designed to provide a rationale for the funding of pure or basic science. The image of science depended on the idea of scientists as autonomous truth-seekers. But the funding system, and other hierarchies, effectively eliminated this autonomy, and bound scientists tightly to a competitive system in which the opportunity to pursue ideas in science depended on peer approval in advance. Funding agencies then turned to assessments of impact. John Ziman had already recognized the effects of these changes in the nature of science, and characterized it as “reliable knowledge” produced on demand from funders. As the competition for funds increased, there were further changes in the nature of science itself toward “reliable enough” knowledge. This made science into a “good”. but a good in the sense of results produced for funders, a transformation that left the original epistemic aims of science behind.

Ответ на вопрос: что такое постправда? Перспектива проблематологии

&lt;p&gt;В статье поднимается вопрос о том, какими могут быть основания у рациональности и духовно-нравственных ценностных установок в XXI в. в мире, отмеченном господством так называемой «политики постправды». Для ответа автор обращается к концепциям постправды теоретика риторики Брюса Маккомиски и социального эпистемолога Стива Фуллера и производит их сравнение, более подробно останавливаясь на первой.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;С точки зрения Маккомиски, ситуация постправды отличается от более ранней ситуации изменением преобладающего риторического режима — если ранее «брехня» (термин Гарри Франкфурта) политических деятелей, СМИ и медиа затрагивала этос и пафос коммуникации, оставляя логос по большей части нетронутым, то в наши дни, после референдума о Брексите и избрания Дональда Трампа президентом США, логос оказался подвергнут обесцениванию. Проанализировав подход Маккомиски с учетом концепции Фуллера, автор делает вывод, что рассмотрение предмета первым недостаточно, поскольку постправда обладает не только отрицательным (как полагает Маккомиски), но и положительным измерением.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Для того чтобы описать оба данных измерения, автор прибегает к риторической теории Мишеля Мейера — проблематологии. С ее помощью он демонстрирует, что упор, который Маккомиски делает на логосе, избыточен и что «объективные факты» (якобы оказавшиеся под угрозой в мире постправды) включают в себя не только логос, но и остальные риторические компоненты.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Автор приходит к заключению, что проблематологическая парадигма с ее акцентом на вопрошании способна дать основание для рациональности и нравственных ценностей в мире, вышедшем из «состояния постмодерна».&lt;/p&gt;

A debate between Steve Fuller and Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti on ‘scientific progress, human progress and Christian theology’

This piece is the first of new annual feature of the journal, entitled ‘Debate’. Two scholars offer their contrasting reflections on a topic of interest – this year, it is ‘scientific progress, human progress and Christian theology’. The debate is opened by American sociologist Steve Fuller, who briefly presents his thesis on the subject, proposing in the end the Church to be more open to an ‘adventurous approach to nature’ in his opinion more consonant with today’s ‘emerging biometrically oriented genetic science’. In answer, Italian theologian Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti explains that, from a Christian perspective, human progress needs to respect the ‘ontological foundations of creature itself’ in order to avoid the ‘illusion’ of a false progress. Taking these thoughts into account, Fuller replies clarifying his points. The debate is concluded by remarks from the Editor.

Book Review: Steve Fuller, Post-Truth: Knowledge as a Power Game

Book Review: Steve Fuller, <i>Post-Truth: Knowledge as a Power Game</i>

Knowing as a Subversive Activity: A Conversation with Steve Fuller’s Post-Truth: Knowledge as a Power Game

Fuller carries social constructionism to its bitter end in his theory of the “post-truth condition”—endemic to current life and to the entirety of Western Philosophy. According to Fuller, the gates to the elitist power/knowledge-games have been crashed by the democratic mob. Fuller implicitly extends Popper’s radicalism in the philosophy of science to political and social philosophy. Rather than Popper’s piecemeal social engineering for the purpose of minimizing human suffering, Fuller promotes revolutionary social change in the face of catastrophes. Fuller pushes for a “proactionary” approach because the current vast social change refutes the fragility-assumption of Popper’s “risk-adverse” sociopolitical philosophy.

FROM SOCIAL EPISTEMOLOGY TO HUMANITY 2.0. AN INTERVIEW

In this interview Steve Fuller outlines his own intellectual trajectory and changing interests. As one of the creators of social epistemology, he talks about the context of the birth and development of this interdisciplinary project, as well as how he came to the study and development of transhumanism, which is the topic of his recent trilogy Humanity 2.0. He discusses the origins of transhumanism (Victorian science fiction, Russian cosmism, cyberpunk), its political implications and explains its connection with the present which he characterizes as ultra-modern. In ultra-modernism, Fuller argues, spiritual transcendence becomes material, and a human being passes from a being- unto-death to the expansion of the possibilities of the biological body as a horizon of existence. Fuller dwells on his own preferences in Russian cosmism, the problem of differentiation between humans and nonhumans, as well as the proactionary principle which he introduced to describe the transhumanist project. This principle demands an attitude toward risk as an opportunity not a threat, and it therefore legitimizes individual and social experiments and innovations. Even though the opposite pre-cautionary principle, which prohibits innovation and action with a risk of negative consequences, currently plays a key role in the innovation process, it has appeared relatively recently as a replacement the proactionary principle. In fact, the progress of European humanity until the 1960s had been based on the proactionary principle, but it now requires a kind of update: the distribution of responsibility and risks is to be based on responsibility (liability) rather than property as its legal rationale.

The Path Taken and Not Taken in Social Epistemology

I respond to William Lynch’s critique of the sympathetic reading of my work provided by Remedios and Dusek in Knowing Humanity in the Social World: The Path of Steve Fuller’s Social Epistemology. Lynch harks back to my early works, which he sees as a promoting a ‘naturalism’ lacking in the later works. In response, I observe that my commitment to naturalism has always been ‘reflexive’, which has led me to break with conventional forms of naturalism, though sticking closely to the spirit of science.

After the Gold Rush: Cleaning Up after Steve Fuller’s Theosis

Remedios and Dusek have provided a useful contextualization of Steve Fuller’s recent work in social epistemology. While they have provided some good criticisms of some of Fuller’s new ideas, they fail to provide a systematic critique of Fuller’s retreat from a naturalistic and materialist social epistemology for one embracing transhumanism, intelligent design, and the proactionary imperative. An alternative approach is developed, drawing on Fuller’s early work and incorporating recent work on our biological and cultural evolution as a species.

Social aspects of scientific knowledge

From its inception in 1987 social epistemology has been divided into analytic (ASE) and critical (CSE) approaches, represented by Alvin I. Goldman and Steve Fuller, respectively. In this paper, the agendas and some basic ideas of ASE and CSE are compared and assessed by bringing into the discussion also other participants of the debates on the social aspects of scientific knowledge—among them Raimo Tuomela, Philip Kitcher and Helen Longino. The six topics to be analyzed include individual and collective epistemic agents; the notion of scientific community; realism and constructivism; truth-seeking communities; epistemic and social values; science, experts, and democracy.