Talk:Bruno Latour

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Is Bruno Latour from a wealthy or privileged background? I would like to know for one) to have some context of his opinion and 2) discern and use information about his to develop a further sense of who, how and why certain people contribute to the human debate and who, how and why others do not, or maybe do it differently. In either case, knowing his personal background and upbringing explains whether he is educated, how well, how much idol time he might have had to think when growing up (unless us middle class folks who had to work, learn, think and repeat the cycle), etc. Is he from the Latour estate wine family? Is he part of the aristocracy? Is he an exception, that has arisen out of poverty?

Stevenmitchell 03:21, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

what inference could you make from that information? --Buridan 12:07, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Criticism

Someone (preferably an articulate historian of science, which leaves me out) should start writing a Criticism section in the main article ASAP. The general public needs to know that many of Latour's peers think he's full of sh**.

70.111.85.72 (talk) 18:58, 3 May 2008 (UTC)Denison908


He's received a lot of it, obviously a section needs to be created. Sokal should be featured in it, as should Olga Amsterdamska. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0162-2439%28199023%2915%3A4%3C495%3ASYAJML%3E2.0.CO%3B2-F

--RedHouse18 02:18, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

The criticism you want, I think, is from Epistemological Chicken by Collins and Yearly in Pickering, A. (1992). Science as practice and culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. It has to do with the agency of non-human objects.

Also the criticism of Schaffer, 1991.

Sokal and Bricmont

RE: "their critics were most particularly directed against the concept of Strong Programme". I do not believe that Sokal's criticism was directed at the 'strong programme'. At no point does he or Bricmont refer to Barry Barnes, David Bloor or John Henry, or anything else that derives from the Edinburgh school of Science and Technology Studies. A closer reading of Sokal would show that he is actually critical of relativism, nominalism, constructivism, and in particular postmodernism - therefore not the 'strong programme'. If anybody would like to disagree with this I am happy to discuss the matter further when i have the time. --CJ 12:47, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Sokals attack is on postmodernism, literary theory and cultural studies. Though, much of the following debate is within science studies. A very interesting debate actually. Christopher Kullenberg 20:20, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

It is ridiculous to state that Sokal and Bricmont are attacking postmodernism, literary theory and cultural studies. They are attacking wooly thinking, linguistic obscurity disguised as profundity, and above all the misuse of scientific concepts to advance some notions of relativism which simply demonstrate the weakness (or, to state my own POV, utter banality) of Latour's (and other's) pronouncements.Cross Reference 05:21, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Right. The authors of SSK (Bloor, Barnes,..) are as much positivists as Sokal : to them Science tells something about the world, which is not the case of Latour : To him scientists represent Nature. Sokal has quite weak criticisms (in fact he doesn't understand latour's point at all), but the debate between Bloor and Latour is truely great ("Anti-Latour" by Bloor, "For David Bloor and Beyond" by Latour, "A Reply To Bruno Latour" by Bloor).

After Re-reading, this page is totally wrong : Pasteurization of France is everything BUT a biography of Pasteur! In the whole first part Latour describes "what and who made and translated Pasteur" to avoid giving the first place to somzthing like "the genius of Pasteur", "or the ideas of Pasteur" which he considers as nonsense. Latour has a very complex reflexion : it's not society that "explain" sciences nor the opposite. They're both simultenaously constructed : The discovery of microbs IS a sociological idea and construction.

You are right. The Pasteurization of France needs to be rewritten. I havent read it though, but it is on my "to-read-list". You are absolutely right about Pasteur and the microbes. I added the section "Science in Action" since I am reading the book right now. It will be completed as I go along reading. Since I am not a native english speaker, I would be happy if someone looked over the spelling. Christopher Kullenberg 15:53, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

In response to the above, Sokal and Bricmont do explicitly attack the strong programme at some length, in particular in their "Science and Sociology of Science: Beyond War and Peace" in The One Culture?: A Conversation about Science (University of Chicago Press, 2001) (PDF). --Delirium 22:39, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Sokal and Bricmont also have a very critical chapter about the strong programme in their book Fashionable_Nonsense. This criticism is directly followed by the chapter about Latour. --J Beckman 17:06, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I hope that the critizism-section will not put too much weight on the Sokal Bricmont critizism. As stated before here, their specific critizism of Latour is pretty poor, based probably in a lack of understanding (see eg Callon's "Whose imposture") of his work, and also their work is also more of a polemic in general (though I agree with many of their key points). I think, like the first speaker argues that we should focus on critizism from his peers, meaning people with the knowledge and interest in his field. Note that Sokal and Bricmont explicitly state a lack of interest in the content of the research they criticise. Also: I do not mean that S&B are not relevant. They should be mentioned. But I know there are a lot of S&B fans out there in the internet-world, and I have a hunch that it will quickly gain undue prominence. pertn (talk) 18:47, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reference

Regarding the reference:

Latour Bruno 1992. "Where are the Missing Masses? The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts." Pp. 225-258 in Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change, edited by W. E. & Law Bijker, J. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Shouldn't the authors of the volume be W.E. Bijker & J. Law? Wijnand

Correct, well noticed Wijnand. When you observe such glaring mistakes you should be bold and make the necessary changes.--Nicholas 13:20, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I am not sure about that. Making a reference to an article in a book that contains several articles one should make the reference to the authors and not the editors. But I guess that varies along different systems and practices... [[[User:Christopher.kullenberg|Christopher Kullenberg]] 21:42, 12 November 2005 (UTC)]

Of course, the author was indeed referenced. The problem identified by Wijnand, as I understood it, was that the editors had been referenced wrongly. For some reason, it said "W.E. & Law Bijker, J." ..... which makes no sense, it should havesaid: "W.E. Bijker & J. Law". --Nicholas 15:28, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
True, my mistake. I did not read properly but misunderstood [[[User:Christopher.kullenberg|Christopher Kullenberg]]]

[edit] Latour falsely described social constructionist

I was a bit dismayed to come across this page and see Latour described as a "social constructionist" in the first paragraph; I believe this is misleading, and it ignores the pains Latour has taken to distinguish his form of "constructionism" from a "social" constructionism. Tonight I only had time to make a change to the first paragraph, but I believe many more changes are needed. At this point, the article fails to take into account recent developments in Latour's thought, best reflected in _Pandora's Hope_, _The Politics of Nature_, and _Reassembling the Social_. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Holi0023 (talk • contribs)

Yes, I think this page is somewhat misleading as it stands, though I'm sufficiently knowledgeable to change it. Latour doesn't, currently at least, promote the view that science is wholly socially constructed, and David Bloor for one has attacked Latour for allowing for an influence from the natural world into the sociology of scientific knowledge. It might be fairly said that he used be either a social cosntructionist or at least something very similar prior to the 1990s. --Delirium 22:33, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
I think you are mistaken, you can clearly see Latour distance himself from social constructionism already in Science in Action. I don't think the epistemological basis of Latour's work has altered since the late 70s. Aleksi Knuutila 22:58, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Latour is social constructivist in its most radical form. In his 1986 publication written with Steve Woolgar, Labratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts, Latour and Woogar writes:

Our argument is not just that facts are socially constructed. We also wish to show that the process of construction involves the use of certain devices whereby all traces of production are made extremely difficult to detect.

Latour is clearly in agreement with social constructivists that facts are socially constructed. And he even goes one step further to suggest that scientists not only construct facts, but fabricate these facts as though they represent the mind-independent world directly. This is one of the most cynical caricatures of science. --Stampit (talk) 05:46, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, but that's wrong. His epistemological stance is that reality and the instruments/arrangements by which we percieve it is indistinguisable. Hence, you can't really distinguish the experiment, and the social reality it is performed within, from what it discovers of reality. That does not imply that Latour (the late, at least) claims that scientific facts are made up randomly. Check out the "do you believe in reality?" chapter in Pandora's pertn (talk) 12:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Hello, Pertn. Would you point out where you think I am wrong? I am not exactly sure where I disagree with you from what you wrote. Stampit (talk) 01:31, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Hi. Maybe i misunderstood you. I would not say that Latour goes further than social constructivists. (note also that he changed the sub-heading of the 2. ed of Laboratory life from "The social construction of scientific facts" to "The construction of scientific facts" to distance himself from social constructivism. Where I think you are wrong is if you see him as a radical social constructivist seeing the construction as cynical fabrication. Rather I would see describe his argument as regarding the "construction" as a neccesity for science to percieve anything at all. I am sorry if I misinterpreted what you wrote. If you agree with me, then of course you are not wrong!pertn (talk) 18:36, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Latour falsely called a sociologist

In fact, Latour was very critical of SSS. I think he's actually an anthropologist, no? (I have no argument that his work has contributed a great deal to SSS)