NOEMA XIV, 2015 ELEMENTS OF SOCIAL EPISTEMOLOGY AT THOMAS KUHN AND STEVE FULLER Henrieta Anișoara ŞERBAN 1 henrietaserban@gmail.com ABSTRACT The communication attempts to pinpoint the social nature of the philosophy of science following the ideas of Thomas Kuhn and S. Fuller. Each author captures social aspects of the philosophy of science, snapshots of the history of the philosophy of science, relevant for a discussion of the scope of social epistemology and of the sociology of knowledge. Are these phrases synonyms? This insight attempts to assess the social nature of the philosophy of science in its main features and bring some answers, although they may not be the definitive ones. The investigation identifies through the literature on the subject highlighted here a perspective where the sociology of knowledge is considered a purely descriptive and empirical enterprise, and another related one that social epistemology is mostly conceptual and normative. Then we interpret Kuhn's and Fuller's ideas concerning social epistemology against these two views. KEYWORDS: Thomas Kuhn, Steve Fuller, social epistemology. Introduction This paper aims to identify and emphasize the social nature of the philosophy of science following the ideas sustained by Thomas Kuhn and Steven Fuller. Thomas Kuhn (1922–1996) is an extremely discussed, appreciated and criticized author within the domain of philosophy of science. His work Theory of Scientific Revolutions from 1962 is one of the 1 Senior Researcher, PhD, at the Institute of Political Sciences and International Relations “Ion I.C. B rătianu” and the Institute of Philosophy and Psychology ”Constantin Rădulescu- Motru” of the Romanian Academy. The paper is a translation of the communication presented in Romanian at CRIFST’s spring scientific session focused on “Rhythms in Philosophy and Society”, April 23, 2015.