The Sociology of Intellectual Life

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.

“Steve Fuller is an academic and a public intellectual. In this powerful and polemical book he addresses the contemporary problem that confronts so rare a beast: the absence of a public... Academics, he argues, must take up the role of 'educated thinking in public' if they are to inform social action. What he means is that they have to act to create a new public. The cost of inaction will not only be the death of the university but of intellectual life. This responsibility should weigh like a nightmare on the dull brains of academics in the 21st century Dennis Hayes Visiting Professor, Oxford Brookes University and the founder of Academics For Academic Freedom This text moves along easily and the reader is often genuinely impressed by Steve's learning and insight; there was a lot in here that I enjoyed Steve Yearley Professor of Sociology, University of Edinburgh The Sociology of Intellectual Life is the latest salvo from Steve Fuller in his ongoing fight for a strongly prescriptive philosophy of science. Fuller's writing is pugnacious, passionate, and unabashedly political. He clearly detests the ''underlabourer'' mentality he believes prevails among his colleagues, and he draws strength and succour from such past philosophical champions as Karl Popper and Paul Feyerabend in urging contemporary philosophers to push past the narrow horizon of normative evaluation and re-embrace their lost mission as the normative legislators of moral and scientific life (p. 79)... Fuller's work is smart and sophisticated, and we should feel lucky to have him in our midst, haranguing us for what he perceives to be our intellectual sins. He is the Socratic gadfly underwriting Popper's ''open society''... The Sociology of Intellectual Life o ffers a wide-ranging and eccentric defence of the privileges and obligations of critical practice in the twenty-first century academy. No doubt some readers will be thrilled by its ambitious attack on mainstream academia. Others will just as surely be appalled by the bucket of scorn it pours on their own professional practices Jeff Kochan Metascience”

...an inspiring read for those who think that big ideas matter and intellectuals can change the world. Fuller′s style is iconoclastic, but this is balanced by his erudition and his brilliant one-liners...Challanging and thought provoking, The Sociology of Intellectual Life is a rollicking defence of the possibilities and challanges of intellectual life in the modern university.
Eleanor Townsley
Contemporary Sociology

Steve Fuller is an academic and a public intellectual. In this powerful and polemical book he addresses the contemporary problem that confronts so rare a beast: the absence of a public… Academics, he argues, must take up the role of ′educated thinking in public′ if they are to inform social action. What he means is that they have to act to create a new public. The cost of inaction will not only be the death of the university but of intellectual life. This responsibility should weigh like a nightmare on the dull brains of academics in the 21st century
Dennis Hayes
Visiting Professor, Oxford Brookes University and the founder of Academics For Academic Freedom

This text moves along easily and the reader is often genuinely impressed by Steve′s learning and insight; there was a lot in here that I enjoyed
Steve Yearley
Professor of Sociology, University of Edinburgh

Steve Fuller is a trip. His flamboyant style is crisp, simultaneously colloquial and insider-professional, wasting no time on polite euphemisms
Randall Collins
International Sociology Review of Books

The Sociology of Intellectual Life is the latest salvo from Steve Fuller in his ongoing fight for a strongly prescriptive philosophy of science. Fuller’s writing is pugnacious, passionate, and unabashedly political... smart and sophisticated, and we should feel lucky to have him in our midst, haranguing us for what he perceives to be our intellectual sins
Jeff Kochan
Metascience

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).

English summary: St. Thomas' Church is one of the most important churches in Germany and together with the Thomas Choir and the Thomas School forms a unique group. "Faith, Music and Study" is the motto for the 800th anniversary in 2012. St. Thomas' unified in a particular way, music, religion and faith. That theme is shown in direct ways such as the pledge to the legacy of Johann Sebastian Bach: Music and Faith are shown in unity. The architecture and interior design of St. Thomas mirrors the care and mission of the institution. The beautiful, richly decorated volume shows the church in the change of its history. German description: Die Thomaskirche ist eine der bedeutendsten Kirchen in Deutschland und bildet mit dem Thomanerchor und der Thomasschule einen einzigartigen Verbund. Glauben, Singen, Lernen ist das Motto zum 800. Geburtstag im Jahr 2012. In besonderer Weise vereint St. Thomas Musik, Religion und Glauben. Das zeigt sich gerade in der Art und Weise, wie das Erbe Johann Sebastian Bachs hier gepflegt wird: Musik und Glaube als Einheit zeigen. Architektur und Raumgestaltung von St. Thomas spiegeln Anliegen und Auftrag. Der schone, reich bebilderte Band zeigt die Kirche im Wandel ihrer Geschichte. 200p (Evangelische Verlagsanstalt 2012)

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.