Key Contemporary Thinkers
Copyright © Gerard de Vries 2016
The right of Gerard de Vries to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2016 by Polity Press
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ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-5062-3 (hardback)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-5063-0 (paperback)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Vries, Gerard de, 1948-
Title: Bruno Latour / Gerard de Vries.
Description: Cambridge, UK ; Malden, MA : Polity Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016001169| ISBN 9780745650623 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780745650630 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Latour, Bruno. | Science–Social aspects. | Science and civilization. | Science–Philosophy.
Classification: LCC Q175.46 .V75 2016 | DDC 303.48/3–dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/201600116
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“When men cannot observe, they don't have ideas; they have obsessions,” V. S. Naipaul wrote. The modern philosophical tradition holds observation in high regard; nevertheless it is obsessed by a worldview that feeds off dualities – between humans and nonhumans, nature and society, facts and values, science and politics. Bruno Latour wants us to observe better, with a finer resolution. To become more attentive, to redescribe the world we live in, and to better understand our current predicament, he introduced ethnography and comparative anthropology as vital methods for philosophy. Latour is an ‘empirical philosopher’.
This introduction to his work follows Latour in his footsteps, both as an ethnographer and as a philosopher. The light tone of much of Latour's writing may easily conceal its profundity. Latour takes issue with much of what we take for granted as intuitively evident. By following Latour's moves closely and by providing some background from science studies, philosophy and sociology, to show to what extent and in what sense Latour's work stands out against the tradition, I hope to ease access to what Latour claims to be a richer vocabulary to account for who we are and what we value, that is, a better, fairer common sense.
Latour is a prolific writer on an amazingly varied set of topics, so some selection was inevitable. To introduce his empirical work, Latour's studies on science, law and religion will be discussed in detail; they led to substantial philosophical innovations. Latour's philosophy – his thoughts on science, on actor-network theory, cosmopolitics and his anthropology of the Moderns – is introduced roughly in the order in which they took shape. But this is not an intellectual biography; the historical and intellectual context in which Latour's thoughts evolved is only touched upon. That also holds for the reception of his work. This is an introduction to Latour's philosophy; not to science studies as a discipline, nor to the work of those who have followed Latour, used his ideas, or thought they did.
To write about a living author is an unquiet affair. With the advantage of hindsight it becomes apparent that Latour's work has been driven by a coherent heuristic. But those who followed his work were often puzzled when he took his thoughts to new levels and new domains or when he introduced conceptual innovations. We met in the early 1980s and stayed in contact ever since. Time and again he forced me to rethink his position, as well as my own.
I want to thank Bruno Latour and my Dutch friends and colleagues Huub Dijstelbloem, Rob Hagendijk, Hans Harbers, Josta de Hoog, Noortje Marres and Annemiek Nelis for their comments on the draft of this book. I'm also very grateful to John Naughton for his comments and for helping me out with the subtleties of the English grammar. As always, my gratitude to Pauline extends far beyond her comments on my writing.
For full bibliographical details see the References.
| AIME | An Inquiry into Modes of Existence – An Anthropology of the Moderns |
| AR | Aramis or the Love of Technology |
| CB | La Clef de Berlin et autre leçons d’un amateur de sciences |
| CM | Petite reflexion sur le culte moderne des dieux faitiches |
| FG | Face à Gaïa |
| ICON | Iconoclash – Beyond the Image Wars in Science, Religion, and Art |
| IRR | Irreductions (part 2 of The Pasteurization of France, cited by paragraph number) |
| LL | Laboratory Life – The Social Construction of Scientific Facts |
| LL2 | Laboratory Life – The Construction of Scientific Facts (2nd edition) |
| ML | The Making of Law |
| MTP | Making Things Public – Atmospheres of Democracy |
| NBM | We Have Never Been Modern |
| PF | The Pasteurization of France |
| PH | Pandora's Hope – Essays on the Reality of Science Studies |
| PN | Politics of Nature – How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy |
| PVI | Paris ville invisible |
| RAS | Reassembling the Social – An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory |
| REJ | Rejoicing – Or the Torments of Religious Speech |
| SA | Science in Action |
| SPI | The Science of Passionate Interests |