Work · Science & Human Sciences
Cosmopolitics
Seven volumes on an “ecology of practices”: each science has its own demands and obligations; a politics of knowledge should let all those concerned by a question make themselves heard instead of letting one authority speak for “nature”.
Introduction
Stengers published “Cosmopolitiques” in 1997 in seven small volumes, collected in two volumes in 2003. The series develops an “ecology of practices”: physics, chemistry, biology, psychology and other practices each succeed in their own way, by making things able to answer their questions, and each has its own obligations. It examines conflicts between practices – for example around quantum mechanics, thermodynamics or psychotherapy – and argues against any single authority speaking in the name of nature or reason. The concept of “cosmopolitics”, which asks that all those concerned by a question can make a difference, was taken up by Latour and in debates on science and democracy.
Connections
Builds on
- Process and Reality1929 · Alfred North Whitehead
- We Have Never Been Modern1991 · Bruno Latour
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