Bruno Latour (1947–2022)
Author of We Have Never Been Modern
About the Author
Bruno LaTour was born in the French province of Burgundy, where his family has been making wine for many generations. He was educated in Dijon, where he studied philosophy and Biblical exegesis. He then went to Africa, to complete his military service, working for a French organization similar to show more the American Peace Corps. While in Africa he became interested in the social sciences, particularly anthropology. LaTour believes that through his interests in philosophy, theology, and anthropology, he is actually pursuing a single goal, to understand the different ways that truth is built. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, LaTour has written about the philosophy and sociology of science in an original, insightful, and sometimes quirky way. Works that have been translated to English include The Pasteurization of France; Laboratory Life; Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society; We Have Never Been Modern; and Aramis, or the Love of Technology. LaTour is a professor at the Center for the Sociology of Innovation, a division of the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Mines, in Paris. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Disambiguation Notice:
The following books are distinct and should not be combined: the books Reassembling the Social, Making Things Public, Pandora's Hope, Aramis, The Pasteurization of France, and We Have Never Been Modern are 6 distinct works.
Works by Bruno Latour
Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society (1987) 493 copies, 3 reviews
The Science of Passionate Interests: An Introduction to Gabriel Tarde's Economic Anthropology (2008) 41 copies
Le dialogue des cultures : Actes des rencontres inaugurales du musée du quai Branly ( 21 juin 2006 ) (2007) 6 copies
Zur Entstehung einer ökologischen Klasse: Ein Memorandum | Wie gelingt politisches Handeln in Zeiten des Klimawandels? (edition suhrkamp) (2022) 6 copies
La Vie de laboratoire : La production des faits scientifiques (Sciences et société) (1988) 5 copies
Habiter la Terre 2 copies
Dónde aterrizar (Spanish Edition) 2 copies
Nous ne vivons pas sur la même planète ; Un conte de Noël: Imaginer les gestes barrières contre le retour à la production d'avant-crise (2020) 2 copies
COMO HABITAR LA TIERRA 1 copy
mode d'emploi 1 copy
Misli na izložbi 1 copy
HACIENDO LA ‘RES PÚBLICA’ 1 copy
Onde estou?: Lições do confinamento para uso dos terrestres (#Mundojunto) (Portuguese Edition) (2021) 1 copy
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Latour, Bruno Paul Louis
- Birthdate
- 1947-06-22
- Date of death
- 2022-10-09
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Habilitation à la direction des recherches, 19 87)
Université de Tours (Doctorat de 3e cycle, Philosophie, Thèse "Exégèse et Ontologie", 19 75)
Agrégation de philosophie (Rang 1, 19 72)
Université de Bourgogne (Théologie, Philosophie, 19 66 | 19 72
Lycée Saint-Louis-de-Gonzague - Occupations
- philosopher
sociologist of science
anthropologist
professor - Organizations
- Ecole nationale supérieure des mines
Sciences Po Paris - Awards and honors
- Honorary Doctorate (University of Goteborg)
Recipient of the Siegfried Unseld Prize for his life achievements (Frankfurt)
Medal of Honor Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Bologna.
Légion d'Honneur (2012)
Holberg International Memorial Prize (2013) - Relationships
- Vieillard-Baron, Jean-Louis (Directeur de thèse)
- Short biography
- Bruno Latour est un sociologue, anthropologue et philosophe des sciences.
À la fin des années 1970, il est assistant de Jean-Jacques Salomon au Conservatoire national des arts et métiers, avant d'être nommé à l'École des mines de Paris, où il restera en poste de 1982 à 2006.
En septembre 2006, alors en pleine gloire, il est nommé professeur à l'Institut d'études politiques de Paris, dont il devient directeur scientifique en septembre 2007. En 2010, il initie au sein de Sciences-Po, le programme d'expérimentation en arts et politique (SPEAP).
Agrégé de philosophie, Latour a été profondément influencé par la pensée de Michel Serres. Il s'intéresse à l'anthropologie et entreprend une enquête de terrain dans un laboratoire de l'ORSTOM en Côte d'Ivoire à Abidjan dont le résultat est une brève monographie sur la décolonisation, la notion de race et les relations industrielles. Parallèlement, il mène une recherche sur l'exégèse biblique des textes portant sur la résurrection pour une thèse de troisième cycle.
En 1979, il publie avec Steve Woolgar "Laboratory Life: the Social Construction of Scientific Facts" (traduit en français en 1988 sous le titre "La Vie de laboratoire : la Production des faits scientifiques"). Après un projet de recherche sur la sociologie des primatologues, Latour poursuit ses recherches entreprises dans "La Vie de laboratoire" avec "Les Microbes : Guerre et paix" (1984).
Latour se tourne ensuite vers des travaux plus théoriques et programmatiques. À la fin des années 1980, il devient un des principaux défenseurs de la théorie de l'acteur-réseau aux côtés notamment de Michel Callon et de John Law.
Ses ouvrages les plus connus sont "La vie de laboratoire" (1979), "La science en action" (1987), "Nous n'avons jamais été modernes" (1991) et "Politiques de la nature" (1999). - Nationality
- France (birth)
- Birthplace
- Beaune, France
- Place of death
- 13e arrondissement, Paris, Île-de-France, France
- Disambiguation notice
- The following books are distinct and should not be combined: the books Reassembling the Social, Making Things Public, Pandora's Hope, Aramis, The Pasteurization of France, and We Have Never Been Modern are 6 distinct works.
- Associated Place (for map)
- France
Members
Reviews
I have no problem conceding that this rather thin book went a bit over my head. The blurb promised a spectacular new insight into human reality and history. And the bold claim that we only seemingly joined modernism stimulated my curiosity. But Latour writes as if he's in his own universe, uses quite particular jargon (which he hardly explains) and terminology that differs from what the rest of the intellectual world ordinarily uses (eg he uses the word 'society' for something that almost show more everyone else would describe as 'culture') and many passages just remained too obscure for me.
And yet: what I did understand, did resonate somehow. I'll try to translate it into my own words: what we understand as modernity (the Enlightened, rational-scientific view of the world) is not a radical break with the foregoing, and it must certainly not be interpreted in terms of progress; on the contrary, it is even a downright wrong view. That is because modernity rests on a radical break between nature (matter) and culture (society), whilst - according to Latour - both belong to the same realm and can't be divided; the break even is clear nonsense. As a consequence, self-proclaimed modernism gives us the illusion that everything we create is new and different and above all better (an accumulation of knowledge and insights). And thus it throws us into an arrogance that dazzles and disguises that we are actually heading for a catastrophe. (Obviously Latour in his later works makes very strong ecological accents).
I think I do see what Latour means, and maybe he is partially right (but in a much more nuanced way): western modernism claims a universalism and a truthfulness that isn't realistic; in the past months my reading of a lot of books on systems thinking has made that clear to me, too. And Latour's critique on how we look at history and time from our modernist and progressive perspective really appealed to me; these passages in the book contain fundamentally valuable insights.
But I'm not convinced modernism in general makes such a clear break between nature and culture as Latour claims. And the author uses his point of departure to radically deal with everything and everyone (all -isms are done with, and most of all postmodernism, while his view in fact amounts to pure deconstruction and is therefore essentially postmodernist). Moreover, if we follow his claim that the starting point of modernism is a real illusion (that ‘nonsensical’ separation between nature and culture), how then is it possible that we are heading for an (ecological, nuclear ...) catastrophe? Then that distinction does make a difference! It seems to me that Latour got trapped in a thought paradox that he himself constructed.
No, I’d rather prefer the much more constructive approach of systems thinking that in its own way tackles the simplistic aspects of modernism, but at least makes an attempt to formulate meaningful alternatives. But then again, maybe I'm wronging Latour and I just misunderstood him. And it seems to me, that that is at least as much his fault as it is mine. show less
And yet: what I did understand, did resonate somehow. I'll try to translate it into my own words: what we understand as modernity (the Enlightened, rational-scientific view of the world) is not a radical break with the foregoing, and it must certainly not be interpreted in terms of progress; on the contrary, it is even a downright wrong view. That is because modernity rests on a radical break between nature (matter) and culture (society), whilst - according to Latour - both belong to the same realm and can't be divided; the break even is clear nonsense. As a consequence, self-proclaimed modernism gives us the illusion that everything we create is new and different and above all better (an accumulation of knowledge and insights). And thus it throws us into an arrogance that dazzles and disguises that we are actually heading for a catastrophe. (Obviously Latour in his later works makes very strong ecological accents).
I think I do see what Latour means, and maybe he is partially right (but in a much more nuanced way): western modernism claims a universalism and a truthfulness that isn't realistic; in the past months my reading of a lot of books on systems thinking has made that clear to me, too. And Latour's critique on how we look at history and time from our modernist and progressive perspective really appealed to me; these passages in the book contain fundamentally valuable insights.
But I'm not convinced modernism in general makes such a clear break between nature and culture as Latour claims. And the author uses his point of departure to radically deal with everything and everyone (all -isms are done with, and most of all postmodernism, while his view in fact amounts to pure deconstruction and is therefore essentially postmodernist). Moreover, if we follow his claim that the starting point of modernism is a real illusion (that ‘nonsensical’ separation between nature and culture), how then is it possible that we are heading for an (ecological, nuclear ...) catastrophe? Then that distinction does make a difference! It seems to me that Latour got trapped in a thought paradox that he himself constructed.
No, I’d rather prefer the much more constructive approach of systems thinking that in its own way tackles the simplistic aspects of modernism, but at least makes an attempt to formulate meaningful alternatives. But then again, maybe I'm wronging Latour and I just misunderstood him. And it seems to me, that that is at least as much his fault as it is mine. show less
Latour manages a book that is both highly theoretical and intensely detailed. Written at one of the high points of the post-modern turn in STS, and deeply involved in the Strong Programme to explain successful and unsuccessful science in the same way, Laboratory Life shows how abstruse theory and ethnography can mutually support each other. Latour spent 21 months as a participant-observer in a neuro-endocrinology lab, and from his time develops a comprehensive picture of the scientific show more process as an act of rhetorical destruction--eliminating alternatives until only one is left, scientists as economic-strategic actors seeking to increase their stock of 'credit' in the community, and science as a difficult struggle to make Order out of Chaos.
It's interesting seeing the evolution of Latour's thought from Laboratory Life to Science in Action to We Have Never Been Modern. You see facticity as an historical construct assembled out of a whole textus of inscriptions, but the later Latour dropped the idea of 'credit' as a reward (perhaps it is not analytic enough, but to me, it does describe the difference between a decent scholar and great one), and the whole notion of We Have Never Been Modern, that the Enlightenment goal of separating the world of science from the world of politics, and the world of humans from the world of nature is doomed to failure, is not yet evident. Though Latour still makes it very clear how contextual science is, in this book at least, he seems to believe that the work of science might yet succeed in making the entire world legible. show less
It's interesting seeing the evolution of Latour's thought from Laboratory Life to Science in Action to We Have Never Been Modern. You see facticity as an historical construct assembled out of a whole textus of inscriptions, but the later Latour dropped the idea of 'credit' as a reward (perhaps it is not analytic enough, but to me, it does describe the difference between a decent scholar and great one), and the whole notion of We Have Never Been Modern, that the Enlightenment goal of separating the world of science from the world of politics, and the world of humans from the world of nature is doomed to failure, is not yet evident. Though Latour still makes it very clear how contextual science is, in this book at least, he seems to believe that the work of science might yet succeed in making the entire world legible. show less
Science in Action is one of the most influential books in STS, and for good reason. Actor Network Theory as laid out here is a powerful description of how scientists make claims about reality, using technical rhetoric to shift claims between 'true' facts and 'falsified' artefacts. Latour moves smoothly from the level of the scientific paper, to researchers, labs, disciplines, and the immense network of technoscience that girdles and organizes the world. Rarely is a theory so useful at every show more scale.
For high theory, this is a relatively accessible book (relative being a relative term). I'd recommend it to everybody, if I thought they had the stomach for it, and if I thought they wouldn't use post-modern theory for evil. show less
For high theory, this is a relatively accessible book (relative being a relative term). I'd recommend it to everybody, if I thought they had the stomach for it, and if I thought they wouldn't use post-modern theory for evil. show less
Facing Gaia collects the lectures that the French philosopher Bruno Latour delivered at Edinburgh University in 2013 for their Gifford lectures series. Across eight lengthy essays Latour, a well known figure in the field of Science Studies and the Environmental Humanities, offers a sustained critique of the scientific and cultural discourse around climate change. In opposition to the dominant idea of "Nature" that is it at the heart of most environmental ideals, Latour argues for the concept show more of Gaia, which, rather than presupposing a natural state of affairs, instead attempts to describe the earth through systems analysis. Latour's defence of the Gaia concept (which historically has not really been taken seriously by many in either the sciences or the humanities) is spirited and convincing. Having said that, I remain unconvinced that an anthropomorphised, highly gendered, Greek goddess is going to provide the cultural symbol that can change society's ideas about the planet. While Latour takes into account the cultural valences of Gaia, this is perhaps the least convincing aspect of his argument.
Over the course of the book Latour discusses the history of both science and religion, the limitations to seeing the world as full of deanimated "things", why we need apocalypse but not the Apocalypse and the necessity for science to get political. His argumentation is rigorous and provocative. The writing is engaging, although some might find the tone of the book distracting. At times, the tone borders on flippancy and imprecision (the metaphor of "madness" in the introduction is, for instance, pretty ill considered). There are places, too, where more conceptual clarity would have been welcome. That said, these are minor quibbles and across the book's three hundred plus pages there is more than enough sustenance, new ideas and radical thinking to make it essential reading for anyone interested in what the consequences of climate change might be for the humanities. show less
Over the course of the book Latour discusses the history of both science and religion, the limitations to seeing the world as full of deanimated "things", why we need apocalypse but not the Apocalypse and the necessity for science to get political. His argumentation is rigorous and provocative. The writing is engaging, although some might find the tone of the book distracting. At times, the tone borders on flippancy and imprecision (the metaphor of "madness" in the introduction is, for instance, pretty ill considered). There are places, too, where more conceptual clarity would have been welcome. That said, these are minor quibbles and across the book's three hundred plus pages there is more than enough sustenance, new ideas and radical thinking to make it essential reading for anyone interested in what the consequences of climate change might be for the humanities. show less
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