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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bruno Latour | 5/6 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Latour | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T10:42:40.711013+00:00 | kb-cron |
A more traditional metaphysicist might object, arguing that this means there are multiple, contradictory realities, since there are "controversies over agencies" – since there is a plurality of contradictory ideas that people claim as a basis for action (God, nature, the state, sexual drives, personal ambition, and so on). This objection manifests the most important difference between traditional philosophical metaphysics and Latour's nuance: for Latour, there is no "basic structure of reality" or a single, self-consistent world. An unknowably large multiplicity of realities, or "worlds" in his terms, exists–one for each actor's sources of agency, inspirations for action. In this, Latour is remarkably close to B.F. Skinner's position in Beyond Freedom and Dignity and the philosophy of Radical Behaviourism. Actors bring "the real" (metaphysics) into being. The task of the researcher is not to find one "basic structure" that explains agency, but to recognise "the metaphysical innovations proposed by ordinary actors". Mapping those metaphysical innovations involves a strong dedication to relativism, Latour argues. The relativist researcher "learns the actors' language," records what they say about what they do, and does not appeal to a higher "structure" to "explain" the actor's motivations. The relativist "takes seriously what [actors] are obstinately saying" and "follows the direction indicated by their fingers when they designate what 'makes them act'". The relativist recognises the plurality of metaphysics that actors bring into being, and attempts to map them rather than reducing them to a single structure or explanation.
== In the science wars ==
In Fashionable Nonsense, the physicists Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont quote Latour's claim in Science in Action that "they [scientists and engineers] do not use Nature as the external referee," which Sokal and Bricmont say is false. Scientists "are not relativist..they do 'use Nature as the external referee': that is, they seek to know what is really happening in Nature, and they design experiments for that purpose." Sokal and Bricmont also critically cite an article written by Latour in La Recherche in 1998 that referred to research showing that the pharaoh Ramses II probably died of tuberculosis in which Latour asks "How could he pass away due to a bacillus discovered by Koch in 1882?", claims that "Before Koch, the bacillus has no real existence" and writes that a pharaoh dying of tuberculosis is as much of an anachronism as it would be to claim that the pharaoh died of machine-gun fire.
Latour noted that he had been asked, "Do you believe in reality?", which caused a "quick and laughing answer". Reality, for Latour, is neither something we have to believe in nor do we have lost access to it in the first place. "'Do you believe in reality?' To ask such a question one has to become so distant from reality that the fear of losing it entirely becomes plausible—and this fear itself has an intellectual history [...] Only a mind put in the strangest position, looking at a world from inside out and linked to the outside by nothing but the tenuous connection of the gaze, will throb in the constant fear of losing reality; only such a bodiless observer will desperately look for some absolute life-supporting survival kit."According to Latour, the originality of science studies lies in demonstrating that facts are both real and constructed. The accusation of a postmodern hostility to science, thus, not only fails to recognize that science studies aims at a more robust understanding how science is done in practice, but also shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the methods and insights of science studies. Latour has emphatically problematized the rise of anti-scientific thinking and so-called "alternative facts". Latour states that the recent attacks against climate sciences and other disciplines demonstrate that there is a real war on science going on requiring a more intimate cooperation between science and science studies.
== Selected bibliography ==
=== Books === Latour, Bruno; Woolgar, Steve (1986) [1979]. Laboratory life: the construction of scientific facts. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-09418-2. Originally published 1979 in Los Angeles, by SAGE Publications Latour, Bruno (1987). Science in action: how to follow scientists and engineers through society. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-79291-3. —— (1988). The pasteurization of France. Translated by Alan Sheridan and John Law. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-65761-8. —— (1993). We have never been modern. Translated by Catherine Porter. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-94839-6. —— (1996). Aramis, or the love of technology. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-04323-7. —— (1999). Pandora's hope: essays on the reality of science studies. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-65336-8. —— (2004). Politics of nature: how to bring the sciences into democracy. Translated by Catherine Porter. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-01347-6. ——; Weibel, Peter (2005). Making things public: atmospheres of democracy. Cambridge, Massachusetts Karlsruhe, Germany: MIT Press ZKM/Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe. ISBN 978-0-262-12279-5. —— (2005). Reassembling the social: an introduction to actor-network-theory. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-925604-4. —— (2010). On the modern cult of the factish gods. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-4825-2. —— (2010). The making of law: an ethnography of the Conseil d'Etat. Cambridge, UK Malden, Massachusetts: Polity. ISBN 978-0-7456-3985-7. —— (2013). Rejoicing: or the torments of religious speech. Translated by Julie Rose. Cambridge, UK: Polity. ISBN 978-0-7456-6007-3. —— (2013). An inquiry into modes of existence: an anthropology of the moderns. Translated by Catherine Porter. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-72499-0. —— (2017). Facing Gaia: Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime. Translated by Catherine Porter. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Polity Press. ISBN 978-0-7456-8433-8. —— (2018). Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime. England: Polity Press. ISBN 978-1-5095-3059-5. —— (2021). After Lockdown: A Metamorphosis. England: Polity Press. ISBN 978-1-5095-5002-9. Latour, Bruno; Schultz, Nikolaj (2022). On the Emergence of an Ecological Class: A Memo. Polity Press. ISBN 978-1-509-55507-9. Latour, Bruno (2024). How to Inhabit the Earth. Interviews with Nicolas Truong. Translated by Julie Rose. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. ISBN 978-1-5095-5946-6.