The Philosopher
Bruno Latour
The face
The background
- Nationality:
- French
- Period:
- 21st-century philosophy
The synopsis
Bruno Latour (22 June 1947 – 9 October 2022) was a French philosopher, anthropologist, and sociologist, widely recognized for his contributions to the field of science and technology studies (STS). He held academic positions at the École des Mines de Paris, Sciences Po Paris, and the London School of Economics. Latour is best known for his work challenging conventional distinctions between nature and society, the modern and the pre-modern, and his role in developing actor-network theory (ANT). His influential books include *Laboratory Life*, *We Have Never Been Modern*, and *Reassembling the Social*. He received numerous accolades, including the Holberg Prize and the Kyoto Prize. Throughout his career, Latour engaged with critical questions surrounding science, technology, politics, and the environment, advocating for new ways to understand our relationship with the world.
The works
Laboratory Life: the Social Construction of Scientific Facts
Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society
The Pasteurization of France
We Have Never Been Modern
Aramis, or The Love of Technology
Pandora's Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies
"Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam?"
Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory
Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy
On the Modern Cult of the Factish Gods
The Making of Law: An Ethnography of the Conseil d'Etat
Rejoicing: Or the Torments of Religious Speech
An Inquiry into Modes of Existence: An Anthropology of the Moderns
Facing Gaia: Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime
Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime
After Lockdown: A Metamorphosis
On the Emergence of an Ecological Class: A Memo
How to Inhabit the Earth. Interviews with Nicolas Truong.
The quotes
If one looks at the works of Newton to Einstein, they were never scientists in the way modernity understands the term.
The only shibboleth the West has is science. It is the premise of modernity and it defines itself as a rationality capable of, indeed requiring separation from politics, religion and really, society. Modernisation is to work towards this.
My interest is that there is a disconnect between the science and the size of the threat that people mention about nature, the planet and the climate, and the emotion that this triggers. So we are supposed to be extremely frightened people, but despite that we appear to sleep pretty well.
India is a reservoir of alternative interpretations of what the global is, and these ways of viewing the world need to be exposed.
The composition of a common world would be the definition of politics.
Scientists are very much entangled in their culture and this culture is not pristine, untouched by other cultures and practices.