Book Review

Despite its title, this book is only occasionally about Thomas Kuhn or his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). Instead, the philosopher Steve Fuller takes readers for an undisciplined, provocative romp through the histories of philosophy, science, universities, politics, capitalism, war, and—believe it!—much much more. He first recovers the world that shaped Kuhn and then the world that Kuhn did so much to shape. Structure became the "best-known academic book of the second half of the twentieth century" less for its originality or evidence than because its author was well timed and well placed. Kuhn's ideas are embedded in Cold War Harvard and especially James Bryant Conant's project to make "science safe both from and for democracy." Scientific progress depends upon the ascendancy of a paradigm within an elite community that is necessarily insulated from scrutiny and control by outside non-experts (the state, markets, unruly masses).

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The impact of Kuhn is captured by Fuller's Law: "a seemingly radical innovation that quickly acquires widespread currency probably serves some well-established interests that remain hidden." Despite Structure's attention to revolutions, more conservatism than radicalism has followed in its wake. Ironically, social scientists see the book as a recipe for how to become Really Scientific, which urges them to build well-patrolled walls around their inevitably preservationist puzzle solving. Kuhn's legacy, says Fuller, is to "dull critical sensibilities" both inside and outside the academy.

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