The Sociology of Intellectual Life outlines a social theory of knowledge for the 21st century.
With characteristic subtlety and verve, Steve Fuller deals directly with a world in which it is no longer taken for granted that universities and academics are the best places and people to embody the life of the mind. While Fuller defends academic privilege, he takes very seriously the historic divergences between academics and intellectuals, attending especially to the different features of knowledge production that they value.
The boook′s features include:
– an account of the problematic relationship between postmodernism and the university as an institution
– the problems facing an academic who wishes also to function as an intellectual
– a critical survey of the emerging fields of social epistemology and the sociology of philosophy
– a discussion of the ethics and politics of public intellectual life, especially given its largely improvisational (or as Fuller himself terms it, ′bullshit′) character.
Table of Content
Introduction
PART ONE: THE PLACE OF INTELLECTUAL LIFE: THE UNIVERSITY
The University as an Institutional Solution to the Problem of Knowledge
The Alienability of Knowledge in our So-called Knowledge Society
The Knowledge Society as Capitalism of the Third Order
Will the University Survive the Era of Knowledge Management?
Postmodernism as an Anti-university Movement
Regaining the University′s Critical Edge by Historicizing the Curriculum
Affirmative Action as a Strategy for Redressing the Balance between Research and Teaching
Academics Rediscover Their Soul: The Rebirth of ′Academic Freedom′
PART TWO: THE STUFF OF INTELLECTUAL LIFE: PHILOSOPHY
Epistemology as ′Always Already′ Social Epistemology
From Social Epistemology to the Sociology of Philosophy
The Codification of Professional Prejudices?
Interlude: Seeds of an Alternative Sociology of Philosophy
Prolegomena to a Critical Sociology of Twentieth-century Anglophone Philosophy
Analytic Philosophy′s Ambivalence Toward the Empirical Sciences
Professionalism as Differentiating American and British Philosophy
Conclusion: Anglophone Philosophy as a Victim of Its Own Success
PART THREE: THE PEOPLE OF INTELLECTUAL LIFE: INTELLECTUALS
Can Intellectuals Survive If the Academy Is a No-fool Zone?
How Intellectuals Became an Endangered Species in Our Times: The Trail of Psychologism
A Genealogy of Anti-intellectualism: From Invisible Hand to Social Contagion
Re-defining the Intellectual as an Agent of Distributive Justice
The Critique of Intellectuals in a Time of Pragmatist Captivity
Pierre Bourdieu: The Academic Sociologist as Public Intellectual
PART FOUR: THE IMPROVISATIONAL NATURE OF INTELLECTUAL LIFE
Academics Caught Between Plagiarism and Bullshit
Bullshit: A Disease Whose Cure Is Always Worse
The Scientific Method as a Search for the (Piled) Higher (and Deeper) Bullshit
Conclusion: How to Improvise on the World-historic Stage
About the author
Steve Fuller is a Professor of Sociology at Warwick University. Other titles of his include The New Sociological Imagination (SAGE, 2006), and popular The Intellectual (Icon Books, 2006).
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