Bruno Latour

Wikipedia
***
Bruno Latour (French: [latu]; born 22 June 1947) is a French philosopher,
anthropologist and sociologist of science.[1] He is especially known for his
work in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS).[2] After teaching
at the cole des Mines de Paris (Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation) from
1982 to 2006, he is now Professor at Sciences Po Paris (2006),[3] where he is
the scientific director of the Sciences Po Medialab. He is also a Centennial
Professor at the London School of Economics.[4]
Latour is best known for his books We Have Never Been Modern (1991;
English translation, 1993), Laboratory Life (with Steve Woolgar, 1979) and
Science in Action (1987).[5] Although his studies of scientific practice were at
one time associated with social constructionist[5] approaches to the
philosophy of science, Latour has diverged significantly from such
approaches. He is best known for withdrawing from the subjective/objective
division and re-developing the approach to work in practice.[1] Along with
Michel Callon and John Law, Latour is one of the primary developers of
actornetwork theory (ANT), a constructionist approach influenced by the
ethnomethodology of Harold Garfinkel, the generative semiotics of Algirdas
Julius Greimas, and (more recently) the sociology of mile Durkheim's rival
Gabriel Tarde.
Biography
Latour is related to a well-known family of winemakers from Burgundy, but
is not associated with the similarly named estate in Bordeaux.[7]
As a student, Latour originally focused on philosophy and was deeply
influenced by Michel Serres. Latour received his Ph.D. in Theology [8] at the
University of Tours.[9] He quickly developed an interest in anthropology,
and undertook fieldwork in Cte d'Ivoire which resulted in a brief
monograph on decolonization, race, and industrial relations.[5]

After spending more than 20 years at the Centre de sociologie de l'innovation

at the cole des Mines in Paris, Latour moved in 2006 to Sciences Po, where
he is the first occupant of a Chair named for Gabriel Tarde. In recent years he
has also served as one of the curators of successful art exhibitions at the
Zentrum fr Kunst und Medientechnologie in Karlsruhe, Germany,
including "Iconoclash" (2002) and "Making Things Public" (2005). In 2005 he
also held the Spinoza Chair of Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam.
[10]
Awards and honors
On 22 May 2008, Latour was awarded an honorary doctorate by the
Universit de Montral on the occasion of an organizational communication
conference held in honor of the work of James R. Taylor, on whom Latour
has had an important influence.
Holberg Prize
On 13 March 2013, he was announced as the winner of the 2013 Holberg
Prize.[11][12][13] The prize committee stated that "Bruno Latour has
undertaken an ambitious analysis and reinterpretation of modernity, and has
challenged fundamental concepts such as the distinction between modern
and pre-modern, nature and society, human and non-human." The
committee states that "the impact of Latour's work is evident internationally
and far beyond studies of the history of science, art history, history,
philosophy, anthropology, geography, theology, literature and law."[11][12]
[13][14]
A 2013 article in Aftenposten by Jon Elster criticised the conferment to
Latour, by saying "The question is, does he deserve the prize."[15] "If the
statutes [of the award] had used new knowledge as a main criteria, in stead of
one of several, then he would be completely unqualified in my opinion."[16]

Main works
Laboratory Life
After his early career efforts, Latour shifted his research interests to focus on
laboratory scientists. Latour rose in importance following the 1979
publication of Laboratory Life: the Social Construction of Scientific Facts
with co-author Steve Woolgar. In the book, the authors undertake an
ethnographic study of a neuroendocrinology research laboratory at the Salk
Institute.[5] This early work argued that nave descriptions of the scientific
method, in which theories stand or fall on the outcome of a single
experiment, are inconsistent with actual laboratory practice.
In the laboratory, Latour and Woolgar observed that a typical experiment
produces only inconclusive data that is attributed to failure of the apparatus
or experimental method, and that a large part of scientific training involves
learning how to make the subjective decision of what data to keep and what
data to throw out. Latour and Woolgar argued that, for untrained observers,
the entire process resembles not an unbiased search for truth and accuracy
but a mechanism for ignoring data that contradicts scientific orthodoxy.
Latour and Woolgar produced a highly heterodox and controversial picture
of the sciences. Drawing on the work of Gaston Bachelard, they advance the
notion that the objects of scientific study are socially constructed within the
laboratorythat they cannot be attributed with an existence outside of the
instruments that measure them and the minds that interpret them. They
view scientific activity as a system of beliefs, oral traditions and culturally
specific practices in short, science is reconstructed not as a procedure or as a
set of principles but as a culture. Latour's 1987 book Science in Action: How
to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society is one of the key texts of
the sociology of scientific knowledge in which he famously wrote his Second
Principle as follows: "Scientist and engineers speak in the name of new allies
that they have shaped and enrolled; representatives among other
representatives, they add these unexpected resources to tip the balance of
force in their favor."

Some of Latour's position and findings in this era provoked vehement

rebuttals. Gross and Leavitt argue that Latour's position becomes absurd
when applied to non-scientific contexts: e.g., if a group of coworkers in a
windowless room were debating whether or not it were raining outside and
went outdoors to discover raindrops in the air and puddles on the soil,
Latour's hypothesis would assert that the rain was socially constructed.[17]
Similarly, philosopher John Searle[18] argues that Latour's "extreme social
constructivist" position is seriously flawed on several points, and furthermore
has inadvertently "comical results."
The Pasteurization of France
After a research project examining the sociology of primatologists, Latour
followed up the themes in Laboratory Life with Les Microbes: guerre et paix
(published in English as The Pasteurization of France in 1988). In it, he
reviews the life and career of one of France's most famous scientists Louis
Pasteur and his discovery of microbes, in the fashion of a political biography.
Latour highlights the social forces at work in and around Pasteur's career and
the uneven manner in which his theories were accepted. By providing more
explicitly ideological explanations for the acceptance of Pasteur's work more
easily in some quarters than in others, he seeks to undermine the notion that
the acceptance and rejection of scientific theories is primarily, or even usually,
a matter of experiment, evidence or reason. Another work, Aramis, or, The
Love of Technology focuses on the history of an unsuccessful mass-transit
project.
We Have Never Been Modern
Latour's work Nous navons jamais t modernes : Essais danthropologie
symtrique was first published in French in 1991. It was soon translated into
English by Catherine Porter and published in 1993 as We Have Never Been
Modern.
Latour encouraged the reader of this anthropology of science to re-think and
re-evaluate our mental landscape. He evaluated the work of scientists and

contemplated the contribution of the scientific method to knowledge and

work, blurring the distinction across various fields and disciplines.[19]
Latour argued that society has never really been modern and promoted
nonmodernism (or amodernism) over postmodernism, modernism, or
antimodernism.[20] His stance was that we have never been modern and
minor divisions alone separate Westerners now from other collectives.[21]
Latour viewed modernism as an era that believed it had annulled the entire
past in its wake.[22] He presented the antimodern reaction as defending such
entities as spirit, rationality, liberty, society, God, or even the past.[23]
Postmoderns, according to Latour, also accepted the modernistic
abstractions as if they were real.[24] In contrast, the nonmodern approach
reestablished symmetry between science and technology on the one hand and
society on the other.[25] Latour also referred to the impossibility of
returning to premodernism because it precluded the large scale
experimentation which was a benefit of modernism.[26]
Latour attempted to prove through case studies the fallacy in the old
object/subject and Nature/Society compacts of modernity, which can be
traced back to Plato.[19][27] He refused the concept of "out there" versus "in
here".[28] He rendered the object/subject distinction as simply unusable and
charted a new approach towards knowledge, work, and circulating reference.
[28] Latour considered nonmoderns to be playing on a different field, one
vastly different than that of post-moderns.[24] He referred to it as much
broader and much less polemical, a creation of an unknown territory, which
he playfully referred to as the Middle Kingdom.[24]
In 1998, historian of science Margaret C. Jacob argued that Latour's
politicized account of the development of modernism in the 17th Century is
"a fanciful escape from modern Western history".[29]
Pandora's Hope
Pandora's Hope (1999) marks a return to the themes Latour explored in
Science in Action and We Have Never Been Modern. It uses independent

but thematically linked essays and case studies to question the authority and
reliability of scientific knowledge. Latour uses a narrative, anecdotal
approach in a number of the essays, describing his work with pedologists in
the Amazon rainforest, the development of the pasteurization process, and
the research of French atomic scientists at the outbreak of the Second World
War. Latour states that this specific, anecdotal approach to science studies is
essential to gaining a full understanding of the discipline: "The only way to
understand the reality of science studies is to follow what science studies do
best, that is, paying close attention to the details of scientific practice" (p. 24).
Some authors have criticized Latour's methodology, including Katherine
Pandora, a history of science professor at the University of Oklahoma. In her
review of Pandora's Hope, Katherine Pandora states:
"[Latour's] writing can be stimulating, fresh and at times genuinely
moving, but it can also display a distractingly mannered style in which a
rococo zeal for compounding metaphors, examples, definitions and
abstractions can frustrate even readers who approach his work with the best
of intentions (notwithstanding the inclusion of a nine-page glossary of terms
and liberal use of diagrams in an attempt to achieve the utmost clarity)".[30]
In addition to his epistemological concerns, Latour also explores the political
dimension of science studies in Pandora's Hope. Two of the chapters draw
on Plato's Gorgias as a means of investigating and highlighting the
distinction between content and context. As Katherine Pandora states in her
review:
"It is hard not to be caught up in the author's obvious delight in deploying
a classic work from antiquity to bring current concerns into sharper focus,
following along as he manages to leave the reader with the impression that
the protagonists Socrates and Callicles are not only in dialogue with each
other but with Latour as well."[30]
Although Latour frames his discussion with a classical model, his examples of
fraught political issues are all current and of continuing relevance: global
warming, the spread of mad cow disease, and the carcinogenic effects of

smoking are all mentioned at various points in Pandora's Hope. In Felix

Stalder's article "Beyond constructivism: towards a realistic realism", he
summarizes Latour's position on the political dimension of science studies as
follows: "These scientific debates have been artificially kept open in order to
render impossible any political action against these problems and those who
profit from them".[31]
"Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam?"
In a 2004 article,[32] Latour questioned the fundamental premises on which
he'd based most of his career, asking, "Was I wrong to participate in the
invention of this field known as science studies?" He undertakes a trenchant
critique of his own field of study and, more generally, of social criticism in
contemporary academia. He suggests that critique, as currently practiced, is
bordering on irrelevancy. To maintain any vitality, Latour argues that social
critiques require a drastic reappraisal: "our critical equipment deserves as
much critical scrutiny as the Pentagon budget." (p. 231) To regain focus and
credibility, Latour argues that social critiques must embrace empiricism, to
insist on the "cultivation of a stubbornly realist attitude -- to speak like
William James". (p. 233)
Latour suggests that about 90% of contemporary social criticism displays one
of two approaches which he terms "the fact position and the fairy position."
(p. 237) The fairy position is anti-fetishist, arguing that "objects of belief"
(e.g., religion, arts) are merely concepts created by the projected wishes and
desires of the "naive believer"; the "fact position" argues that individuals are
dominated, often covertly and without their awareness, by external forces
(e.g., economics, gender). (p. 238) "Do you see now why it feels so good to be
a critical mind? asks Latour: no matter which position you take, "Youre
always right! (p. 238-239) Social critics tend to use anti-fetishism against
ideas they personally reject; to use "an unrepentant positivist" approach for
fields of study they consider valuable; all the while thinking as "a perfectly
healthy sturdy realist for what you really cherish." (p. 241) These
inconsistencies and double standards go largely unrecognized in social
critique because "there is never any crossover between the two lists of objects

in the fact position and the fairy position." (p. 241)

The practical result of these approaches being taught to millions of students
in elite universities for several decades is a widespread and influential "critical
barbarity" that haslike a malign virus created by a "mad scientist"thus far
proven impossible to control. Most troubling, Latour notes that critical ideas
have been appropriated by those he describes as conspiracy theorists,
including global warming skeptics and the 9/11 Truth movement: "Maybe I
am taking conspiracy theories too seriously, but I am worried to detect, in
those mad mixtures of knee-jerk disbelief, punctilious demands for proofs,
and free use of powerful explanation from the social neverland, many of the
weapons of social critique." (p. 230)
Reassembling the Social
In Reassembling the Social (2005),[33] Latour continues a reappraisal of his
work, developing what he calls a "practical metaphysics", which calls "real"
anything that an actor (one whom we are studying) claims as a source of
motivation for action. So if someone says, "I was inspired by God to be
charitable to my neighbors" we are obliged to recognize the "ontological
weight" of their claim, rather than attempting to replace their belief in God's
presence with "social stuff", like class, gender, imperialism, etc. Latours
nuanced metaphysics demands the existence of a plurality of worlds, and the
willingness of the researcher to chart ever more. He argues that researchers
must give up the hope of fitting their actors into a structure or framework,
but Latour believes the benefits of this sacrifice far outweigh the downsides:
"Their complex metaphysics would at least be respected, their recalcitrance
recognized, their objections deployed, their multiplicity accepted."[33]
For Latour, to talk about metaphysics or ontologywhat really ismeans
paying close empirical attention to the various, contradictory institutions and
ideas that bring people together and inspire them to act. Here is Latour's
description of metaphysics:
If we call metaphysics the discipline . . . that purports to define the basic

structure of the world, then empirical metaphysics is what the controversies

over agencies lead to since they ceaselessly populate the world with new
drives and, as ceaselessly, contest the existence of others. The question then
becomes how to explore the actors' own metaphysics.[33]
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, existsone
for each actors sources of agency, inspirations for action. Actors bring "the
real" (metaphysics) into being. The task of the researcher is not to find one
"basic structure" that explains agency, but to recognize "the metaphysical
innovations proposed by ordinary actors".[33] 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 recognizes the plurality
of metaphysics that actors bring into being, and attempts to map them rather
than reducing them to a single structure or explanation.
Bibliography
Books
Latour, Bruno; Woolgar, Steve (1986) [1979]. Laboratory life: the construction of
scientific facts. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691094182.
Originally published 1979 in Los Angeles, by Sage Publications
Latour, Bruno (1987). Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers
Through Society, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, USA.

Latour, Bruno (1988). The Pasteurization of France. Harvard University Press,

Cambridge Massachusetts, USA.
Latour, Bruno (1993). We Have Never Been Modern (tr. by Catherine Porter),
Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, USA.
Latour, Bruno (1996). Aramis, or the love of technology, Harvard University Press,
Cambridge Massachusetts, USA.
Latour, Bruno (1999). Pandora's hope: essays on the reality of science studies, Harvard
University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, USA.
Latour, Bruno (2004). Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy
(tr. by Catherine Porter), Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA,
2004.
with Peter Weibel (eds.) Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy,
Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-12279-0.
Latour, Bruno (2005). Reassembling the social: an introduction to Actornetwork
theory, Oxford ; New York, Oxford: University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-925604-4
Latour, Bruno (2009). On the Modern Cult of the Factish Gods. Duke University
Press.
Latour, Bruno (2010). The Making of Law: An Ethnography of the Conseil d'Etat.
Polity.
Latour, Bruno (2013). Rejoicing: Or the Torments of Religious Speech. Polity.
Latour, Bruno (2013). An Inquiry into Modes of Existence. Harvard University Press.

Chapters in books
Latour, Bruno; Callon, Michel (1992), "Don't throw the baby out with the Bath
School! A reply to Collins and Yearley", in Pickering, Andrew, Science as practice and
culture, Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, pp. 343368, ISBN
9780226668017.
Latour, Bruno (1992), "Where are the missing masses? The sociology of a few
mundane artifacts", in Bijker, Wiebe E.; Law, John, Shaping technology/building
society: studies in sociotechnical change, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, pp.
225258, ISBN 9780262521949.
Latour, Bruno; Akrich, Madeline (1992), "A summary of convenient vocabulary for
the semiotics of human and nonhuman assemblies", in Bijker, Wiebe E.; Law, John,
Shaping technology/building society: studies in sociotechnical change, Cambridge,
Massachusetts: MIT Press, pp. 259264, ISBN 9780262521949.
Latour, Bruno (1992), "Whose cosmos, which cosmopolitics? Comments on the peace
terms of Ulrich Beck", in Robertson-von Trotha, Caroline Y., Kultur und Gerechtigkeit
(Kulturwissenschaft interdisziplinr/Interdisciplinary Studies on Culture and Society,
Vol. 2), Baden-Baden: Nomos, ISBN 9783832926045.

Latour, Bruno (2015), "Les vues de l'esprit. une introduction l'anthropologie des
sciences et des techniques", in Emmanuel Alloa, Penser l'image II. Anthropologies du
visuel, Dijon: Les presses du rel, pp. 207256, ISBN 978-2-84066-557-1

Journal articles
Latour, Bruno (March 2000). "When things strike back: a possible contribution of
science studies to the social sciences". British Journal of Sociology (Wiley) 51 (1): 107
123. doi:10.1111/j.1468-4446.2000.00107.x.

References
Wheeler, Will. Bruno Latour: Documenting Human and Nonhuman Associations
Critical Theory for Library and Information Science. Libraries Unlimited, 2010, p. 189.
See Steve Fuller, "Science and Technology Studies", in The Knowledge book. Key
concepts in philosophy, science and culture, Acumen (UK) and McGill-Queens
University Press (NA), 2007, p. 153.
See Latour's "Biography" Bruno Latour's official website
http://www.lse.ac.uk/sociology/whoswho/Visiting%20Fellows.aspx
Heather Vidmar-McEwen,"Anthropologists biographies: Bruno Latour",
"Anthropologists biographies: Bruno Latour", Indiana University Anthropology
Department
"The most cited authors of books in the humanities". timeshighereducation.co.uk. 26
March 2009. Retrieved 16 November 2009.
Blok, A. & Elgaard Jensen, T. Bruno Latour: hybrid thoughts in a hybrid world.
London: Routledge, 2011.
Skirbekk, Gunnar. "Bruno Latours anthropology of the moderns".
Radicalphilosophy.com. Retrieved 5 January 2015.
"Bruno Latour" by Heather Vidmar-McEwen
http://www.uva.nl/en/disciplines/philosophy/home/components-centrecolumn/thespinoza-chair.html
Bruno Latour wins the 2013 Holberg Prize, Holberg Prize
http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2013/03/13/l-anthropologue-francais-brunolatour-distingue-en-norvege_1847284_3224.html
http://www.aftenposten.no/kultur/Holbergprisen-til-Bruno-Latour-7146138.html
Holberg International Memorial Prize 2013: Bruno Latour. Citation of the Holberg
Prize Academic Committee, Holberg Prize
"Den uforstelige Latour". Aftenposten. 24 April 2013. p. 7 Debatt. "Sprsmlet er om
han fortjener prisen."
"Den uforstelige Latour". Aftenposten. 24 April 2013. p. 7 Debatt. "Hvis statuttene

hadde brukt ny kunnskap som hovedkriterium, i stedet for ett av flere kriterier, ville han
etter min mening ha vrt fullstendig ukvalifisert."
Gross, Paul R. and Levitt, Norman (1997). Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and
Its Quarrels with Science. Johns Hopkins University Press, p. 58
Searle, John R. (2009) "Why Should You Believe It?" The New York Review of Books,
24 September 2009.
Wheeler, Will. Bruno Latour: Documenting Human and Nonhuman Associations
Critical Theory for Library and Information Science. Libraries Unlimited, 2010, p. 190.
Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern Trans. Catherine Porter. Harvard
University Press, 1993, p. 47, 134.
Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern Trans. Catherine Porter. Harvard
University Press, 1993, p. 47, 114.
Latour, Bruno. "We Have Never Been Modern" Trans. Catherine Porter. Harvard
University Press, 1993, p. 69.
Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern Trans. Catherine Porter. Harvard
University Press, 1993, p. 47.
Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern Trans. Catherine Porter. Harvard
University Press, 1993, p. 48.
Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern Trans. Catherine Porter. Harvard
University Press, 1993, p. 138.
Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern Trans. Catherine Porter. Harvard
University Press, 1993, p. 140.
Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern Trans. Catherine Porter. Harvard
University Press, 1993, p. 79.
Wheeler, Will. Bruno Latour: Documenting Human and Nonhuman Associations
Critical Theory for Library and Information Science. Libraries Unlimited, 2010, p. 192.
Jacob, Margaret C (1998). "Latour's Version of the Seventeenth Century," pp. 240-254 in
A House Built on Sand: Exposing Postmodernist Myths About Science, Noretta
Koertge (editor), NY:Oxford University Press, ISBN 0195117255
[1]
[2]
Latour, Bruno. (2004) "Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to
Matters of Concern". Critical Inquiry, Vol. 30, No. 2., Winter 2004, pp. 225-248
***
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