Bruno Latour
Scientific facts are produced in laboratories by networks of people and things – and the split between nature and society was never real.
Placement
Sociologist of science: facts are made in laboratories by networks of humans and things – and “we have never been modern.”
Key ideas
- Actor-network theory
- Agency of things
- Critique of the nature–society divide
Influence
Influenced by 7
William James
influenced by
Latour took from James’s radical empiricism the claim that relations are given in experience, a premise of his Enquête sur les modes d’existence (2012). B. Latour, Enquête sur les modes d’existence (2012); W. James, Essays in Radical Empiricism (1912)
Evidence: AI draft
William James › 1842–1910
Gabriel Tarde
influenced by
Latour presented Tarde as a forerunner of actor-network theory and took up his monadology of associations (‘Gabriel Tarde and the End of the Social’, 2002). B. Latour, “Gabriel Tarde and the End of the Social”, in P. Joyce (ed.), The Social in Question (2002); Reassembling the Social (2005); G. Tarde, Monadologie et sociologie (1893)
Evidence: AI draft
Gabriel Tarde › 1843–1904
Alfred North Whitehead
influenced by
Latour took up Whitehead’s critique of the ‘bifurcation of nature’ for his ‘matters of concern’ (What Is the Style of Matters of Concern?, lectures 2005, publ. 2008). B. Latour, What Is the Style of Matters of Concern? Two Lectures in Empirical Philosophy (Spinoza Lectures 2005; publ. 2008); A. N. Whitehead, The Concept of Nature (1920); SEP “Alfred North Whitehead”
Evidence: AI draft
Alfred North Whitehead › 1861–1947
Thomas S. Kuhn
influenced by
Latour followed Kuhn’s turn from the logic of science to the practice of scientific communities, but studied laboratories ethnographically rather than paradigms (Laboratory Life, with S. Woolgar, 1979). B. Latour and S. Woolgar, Laboratory Life (1979); B. Latour, Science in Action (1987); T. S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)
Evidence: AI draft
Thomas S. Kuhn › 1922–1996
Philippe Descola
influenced by
Latour took up Descola’s analysis of naturalism as one ontology among four to question the Moderns’ divide of nature and culture (‘Perspectivism: “Type” or “bomb”?’, 2009). B. Latour, “Perspectivism: ‘Type’ or ‘bomb’?”, Anthropology Today 25/2 (2009); Sur le culte moderne des dieux faitiches (1996; 2009); P. Descola, Par-delà nature et culture (2005)
Evidence: AI draft
Philippe Descola › b. 1949
Isabelle Stengers
influenced by
Latour took over Stengers’s term ‘cosmopolitics’ for a common world of humans and nonhumans to be composed politically (Politiques de la nature, 1999). B. Latour, Politiques de la nature (1999); I. Stengers, Cosmopolitiques (1997)
Evidence: AI draft
Isabelle Stengers › b. 1949
Eduardo Viveiros de Castro
influenced by
Latour took up Viveiros de Castro’s perspectivism and multinaturalism, which its author called a ‘bomb’ against the Moderns’ single nature (‘Perspectivism: “Type” or “bomb”?’, 2009). B. Latour, “Perspectivism: ‘Type’ or ‘bomb’?”, Anthropology Today 25/2 (2009); E. Viveiros de Castro, Métaphysiques cannibales (2009); D. Danowski and E. Viveiros de Castro, Há mundo por vir? (2014)
Evidence: AI draft
Eduardo Viveiros de Castro › b. 1951
Criticism
Criticizes 1
Immanuel Kant
criticised
Latour read Kant’s split between things in themselves and the knowing subject as the moderns’ model ‘purification’ separating nature from society (We Have Never Been Modern, 1991). B. Latour, Nous n’avons jamais été modernes (1991)
Evidence: AI draft
Immanuel Kant › 1724–1804
Works
The moderns separated nature and society – while producing ever more hybrids of both.
Position
Latour studied scientists the way anthropologists study an unfamiliar culture, and found that facts are not simply discovered but laboriously made through instruments, texts, alliances and disputes. In his actor-network theory, things too – microbes, machines, measuring devices – act and help shape what is real. From this he drew a bold diagnosis: modernity claimed to separate nature and society cleanly, while in practice it produced ever more hybrids of both. “We have never been modern.” In his last decades he applied these ideas to ecology, calling for a “parliament of things” and a politics that takes the Earth as an actor seriously.
Life & context
Latour was born in 1947 in Beaune in Burgundy into a family of winemakers. He studied philosophy and turned to anthropology during his civilian service in Côte d’Ivoire. Observing a laboratory at the Salk Institute in California shaped his first book. He taught at the École des Mines and from 2006 at Sciences Po in Paris. He died in Paris in 2022.
Further main works
- Laboratory Life (1979)
- Science in Action (1987)
- Politics of Nature (1999)
- Facing Gaia (2015)
Appears in
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