This book presents an outline of the social theory of knowledge in the 21st century. With characteristic delicacy and liveliness, Steve Fuller explores a world in which universities and the academic milieu are no longer taken by default as the best place for intellectual life. Although the author defends the privileges of academics, he takes historical discrepancies between academics and intellectuals very seriously—addressing, in particular, different types of knowledge production valued among them.
In this book you will find an analysis of the problematic relationship between postmodernism and the university as an institution, a critical review of new research fields in social epistemology and the sociology of philosophy, and a discussion of the ethics and politics of public intellectual life—especially considering its improvisational (or, as Fuller calls it, “talking-shop”) character.