Презентация Латур

1.

Presentation was made by HSE students:
Okalin Aleksandr, Cheremisova Angelina, Yonatainen Eynar,
Titok Victoriya, Efimova Anastasiya, Bogdanova Elisaveta
Latour: “We’Ve Never
Been Modern”

2.

Biography – Bruno Latour (1947–
2022)
French sociologist, anthropologist, philosopher of science
Studied philosophy at University of Dijon
1970s: Anthropological field research in Ivory Coast (French colonial
administration)
Creator of Actor-Network Theory (ANT)
2013: Holberg Prize

3.

The major claim of the
book
Modernity is not an actual historical condition, but rather an ideology based on the
false belief that nature and society can be strictly separated.
However in practice people have always inextricably intertwined nature and
culture. Therefore, the modern project was never realized!

4.

briefly

5.

crisis
• Latour shows that reality supplies us with "hybrids", "networks", "monsters" that connect nature
and culture.
• He introduces the concept of "purification work" (creation of clear boundaries) and "translation
work" (creation of hybrids). These two processes exist in parallel, but it’s their divergence that
creates the illusion of "modernity".

6.

7.

constitution (which divides to hide)
Branch of power
Representatives
What and who they
represent
Area
Constitution
status главное
выделить
колонку
Political power
Thomas Hobbes,
sovereign
Citizens, society (
people)
State, public
sphere
Immanent
(created by
people for people)
Scientific power
Robert Boyle,
scientists
Non-humans,
nature
Experimental
space,
laboratories
Transcendent
(reveals laws
existing
independently
Four guarantees for the base of the Constitution: the transcendence of nature, the immanence of
society, their strict division and the God as the arbitrator.

8.

revolution
• Hybrids have multiplied to the point where the Constitution can’t longer contain them. Quasiobjects (ozone holes, genetically modified organisms) — now saturate every space and ignore any
simple division into nature and society
• The present is a mixture of all times. We live in a polytemporal now, where past and future coexist,
not as line, but as fabric
• Explain nature and society through hybrids — not hybrids through nature and society. Mediation
is primary, purification secondary:

9.

relationism
Anthropology – study of human societies and their development
- Why not working before? Cuz being asymmetrical – be studying other
sciences, but considering our subject as something special and NOT
connected with society
- 3 principles of symmetry:
1) Blur’s – true and false must be explained EQUALLY and SAME, by social
causes
2) Callon – we must consider both nature and society in the same terms,
together
3) anthropologist – a regulator within a society
- old relationism isn’t working – WEST-centristic/egoistic. New –
understanding of making connection between societies/communes
- western science has bigger networks, but it’s not literally better and
doesn’t have an access to absolute truth – we MUSTN’T forget other
sciences

10.

Scheme
uno
Cultures do not imply hierarchy and
contacts; they are absolutely
incommensurable;
nature is taken out of the equation.
One culture (A) has privileged
access to nature, and this sets
it apart from the
others.
Nature is present, but outside of cultures; all cultures
have a more or less correct point of
view on it.
All collectives constitute natures and cultures;
only the scale of mobilization changes.

11.

redistribution
- modernisation can’t be done in the old style, that’s why:
1) old desires – to divide laws of nature and social conventions to be “not barbaric”
2) revolutions failed – both 1917 (i dont agree) and 1989 – modernity hasn’t be reached by violent and fast
methods
? what should we do if modernisation fails?
1) Take a closer look at other’s positions (scheme)
2) we MUSTN’T be reactionists! Long Live The Empire!
3) accept New Constitution’s assumptions
- non-divisioning of nature and society
- time isn’t the same as progress – it just provides us with opportunity to develop
- “parliament of things” – mix of Boyle (things speak) and Hobbes’ (citizens do) – basic political field where
common destiny is being decided for ALL

12.

What we take and throw away from other positions
Take
Throw away
Modernists
Long networks, courage,
innovations, experiments
The illusion of one's
exclusivity and exposure
Traditionalists
Ability to work with
hybrids, multiple times
Limitations of scale,
mixing of knowledge and
power
Postmodernists
Deconstruction, reflexivity Nihilism, irony, despair

13.

Constitution’s
changing
“Modern constitution”
Non-Modern Constitution.
1st guarantee: nature is transcendent, but can be mobilized
(immanent).
1st guarantee: indivisibility of joint production of societies
and nature.
2nd guarantee: society is immanent, but infinitely surpasses
us (transcendentally).
2nd guarantee: constant monitoring of the production of
nature, which is objective, and the production of society,
which is free.
- transcendence of nature and the immanence of society,
but!!!!! both are not separated from each other.
3rd guarantee: nature and society are completely different
and the work of purification is not connected with the work of
mediation.
3rd guarantee. freedom is redefined as the ability to sort
combinations of hybrids, which no longer depends on a
homogeneous time flow.
4th guarantee: the delimited God is completely absent, but
performs an arbitration function between the two branches of
government.
4th guarantee. the production of hybrids, becoming explicit
and collective, turns out to be the goal of expanded
democracy, regulating or slowing down its pace

14.

Predecessors

15.

Hobbes + Boyle
- Leviathan, avoiding the natural condition of “war of all against all”, people TRANSFER their rights to a
sovereign (ну крч ввести что-т про контракт)
- state function as a translator of citizen’s will → that’s how the political branch of power works under the
modern Constitution (political representation in the Modern World)
- dispute with Boyle – Hobbes’ sovereign should control everything, but he fails controlling Bouyle’s
“laboratory” – symbol of rebellion and scientific movement towards progress (nonhumans are giving their
testimony – THINGS ARE SPEAKING)
- disagree with “monism” (a try to explain evrthng by using ONLY one theory)
- scientia est potentia

16.

Kant
- Perpetual Peace, world-wide revolution?, “the thing-in-itself” (я не
хочу пробовать это объяснять так что лучше скипнуть)
- Kant as a boundary between the “unknowable world of things-inthemselves” and transcendental subjectS”
- “modern” people are reaching achievements by agreements and
negotiations – such as in the “Perpetual Peace” assumption of being
in happiness in the “World Federation”

17.

Саша вставь это →
Marx
- Capital, the basis of any society is productive forces which are
seeking to reach impossible knowledge (kinda hegelian mb)
- admire his try to explain the world through revolution’s practice, but
explain that it’s impossible to be modern without plenty of time
(marxists and bolsheviks tried to reach it as soon as possible)
- by Marx, there are absolutes of gov structure –
(capitalism→imperialism); Latour argued that there are no black and
white – even capitalism is the mixture of local
practices/connections/compromises and some of them might be
useful
- !!! KNOWLEDGE IS NOT GIVEN – ONLY GOTTEN THROUGH LABOUR AND
PRACTICAL ACTIVITY — against

18.

following thinkers

19.

Michel Collan - coauthor and founder of ANT
as well as Latour
“Some elements of a sociology of translation: domestication of a scallops and fishermen of St Brieuc
bay”
● 4 moments of translation:
1. problematization
2. interessment
3. enrolment
4. mobilization
● actors: scientits, sailors, litlle fishes (!!)
● betrayal likely to be appear

20.

John Law - critique to the first generation of ANT
“A sociology of monsters”
We should focus our attention on the set of the networks, not on only
one
Monsters are helping us to distinguish different weds. They are its
bourders and the cost of production hybrids

21.

Macron + Tumberg
- idea of Latour – we can’t escape nature and make progress without it.
→ Macron’s/Tunberg’s active participation in solving ecological problems: Paris’ agreement on
climate

22.

CRITICAL EVALUATION
+
+
-
Introduction of innovative concepts (nets, hybrids), greatly different
from previous conventional ones
Non-European-centric view, ridiculing the over-emphasis of the
American scientific community
Utopian idea of “Parliament of things”
· suppression of other’s interpretations through authority in the situation
of different opinions
·impossibility to avoid corruption of the middle-person

23.

THANKS
FOR YOUR
ETTENTION!