Off-topic, but I am fascinated by those moments when you finally get around to asking the question, “what if I am wrong?” Or perhaps just “what if I am not the glowing carrier of the perfect truth about everything in the world?”
Here’s Bruno Latour, “Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern“. Latour knows his rhetoric and may be playing slightly to the gallery, but let’s play along: Latour is of course a central person in science studies and champion of his own version of the viewpoint that truths and facts are (or should be studied as) constructions, results of power structures, scientific practices, and so on. This point of view is subject to discussion, but let that rest.
However, Latour is all surprised that this kind of general critical attitude towards science can also be used to doubt the existence of global warming. Wow, quelle surprise.
Was I wrong to participate in the invention of this field known as science studies? Is it enough to say that we did not really mean what we meant? Why does it burn my tongue to say that global warming is a fact whether you like it or not? Why can’t I simply say that the argument is closed for good?
And this completely blows my mind. Latour has been working in the field for more than twenty years and apparently it has never crossed his mind that the scepticism towards science he has championed can not only be used for dismissing things he doesn’t believe but also … for dismissing things he does believe. How is it possible for him not to have considered this before? How can this happen?
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From this we can also infer something else about Latour’s self-image: He must always have thought that his theories would inevitably lead to good in some sense. That they can be used for good and bad has taken him aback. What a surprise. Hello?
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The bigger question is then this: How do you keep yourself sharp? How do you prevent yourself from falling into some kind of dogmatic hole?
Hey Jesper-
some thoughts:
I’m somewhat familiar with criticism and deconstruction, though not Latour in particular. Deconstruction shades very easily into radical skepticism, into nihilism. In contemporary mathematics, we mostly (in practice) deal with issues of foundations by saying “if A is true, then B follows [by logic]” — which avoids the question of “is A true?”. AFAIK, in philosophy (where they argue about method as well) they say “if A is true, then B follows, by method C” — which also avoids “is C a legitimate method?”.
From this article, it seems Latour hasn’t ever turned his lens on himself, or taken seriously the despairing cries of freshman: “So how can you know anything?”
[Aside: It’s a pity Latour is being so ahistorical — he could at least reference Hume, or say “the devil can cite scripture for his purpose”.]
To keep yourself sharp?
Stay humble and critical about yourself. Easy to say, of course.
Especially, understand and empathize with your critics. That is, understand their concerns and points and integrate them into your own views: there will be genuine differences of values and basic beliefs, but much argument above the basic level is useful regardless of values. Many supporters of “ultimate truth” (some things are true, not just constructs) want certain things (with which you may disagree) to be true [they’re often right-wing]. You can disagree with these values, but take seriously their belief that “something must be true” — or at least address it.
That is, a method rarely (if ever) implies a system of value, though many wish it otherwise: most memorably, Kant wished Christian ethics to follow from pure logic.
Certainly, the only system of value that can follow from skepticism is nihilism: any positive values must come from some input. For instance, “people (their lives, desires, pleasures) are valuable (in and of themselves)”.
So I’m suggesting simply separating your values and methods from your beliefs, and scrupulously maintaining that distinction. Say: “I think these are my values/basic beliefs, here are some methods I use, and here are my (ultimate) beliefs. I think they follow (or at least are consistent with) my professed values.”
If you have a disagreement with someone, see if you disagree with their premises, their methods, their conclusions.
That is, do what I presume philosophers do: understand others’ arguments. Note that it’s much easier to stay sharp if there’s other (smart) people disagreeing with you — otherwise it’s easy to be an echo chamber.
Lastly, in Latour’s example, he seems to be confusing a rhetorical device (sowing doubt, to prevent or stall laws that may increase business costs) with a “method to find truth” (or at least identify falsehood). That is, presumably Latour wants to find truth, not just convince people — and, as you suggest, he thinks “the truth will set us free”, or at least be a good thing.
This suggests a far deeper criticism: is deconstruction a method (for finding truth), or simply a rhetorical device. If one is a skeptic, is there indeed a meaningful difference between these?
Does this help? (or is it hopelessly confused?)
Heh – thanks Jesper. I spend five or ten pages in the first chapter of my dissertation dissing Latour’s concept of a ‘symmetrical anthropology’. I’ll be sure to include a quick discussion of this as well. Also – is your thesis in English?
Nils: Latour is a bit more slippery than that – he is very historically oriented, and he would probably disagree precisely with your point about separating beliefs from methods. A Latourian answer could be something like “but your beliefs influence the methods you use and vice versa, so you cannot maintain any hard line between the two. There are no methods that are not already ideological etc…”
Hello, I would like to post a comment on the initial issue, where Jesper wrote: ‘Latour is of course a central person in science studies and champion of his own version of the viewpoint that truths and facts are (or should be studied as) constructions, results of power structures, scientific practices, and so on’. I think the latter half of the argument is missing the point in Latours work. I guess you have all heard about the so called ‘science wars’ that started after the publication of the famous article by Alan Sokal. The latter half of your sentence fits completely within the arguments being used in this dicussing. The point here being that Latour is not claiming what you are saying he does (read Pandora’s Hope, Latour 1999 and La guerre des sciences; et la paix?, Isabelle Stengers in Jurdant: Impostures scientifiques). One cannot understand the writings of Latour within this context of science wars. Actually Latour is trying to reach, together with people like Stengers and Despret, a point outside of the dicussion between positivists and variants on the one side and social constructivism (like some postmodernists) on the other hand. Latour is not Feyerabend, but lets not forget that nor Popper nor Lakatos did their job well – what we need is a realistic epistemology, that is based on science in action (lets allso not forget that every epistemology is allso doing politics). Some questions being raised here find their answer in Politiques de la nature: comment faire entrer les sciences en democratie (translated in English I think). kind regards to you all, Rik
I hope I am not enoying you further but I want to anticipate a possible answer to my post. Namely its implications for what you write later on: ‘And this completely blows my mind. Latour has been working in the field for more than twenty years and apparently it has never crossed his mind that the scepticism towards science he has championed can not only be used for dismissing things he doesn’t believe but also … for dismissing things he does believe.’ First off all, Latour has not championed scepticism towards science. If I remember correctly (its some time ago I read the article you are referring to)what Latour is regretting is mainly the fact that he was understood wrongly by people as someone who wants to denounce science instead of engaging in a totally new and interesting philosophy of science. It is funny that you write Latour wants to denounce the things he does not believe in and leaving the things he does believe in untouched: that is exactly Latours criticisms of the Strong Program (child of David Bloor). I do not think you can accuse Latour of doing just that. Maybe a warning is at its place here; it is impossible to make sense of Latours work if you read second hand works of those that want to fight the possition they attribute to Latour (like Sokal and Bricmont, and Gross and Levitt, see also Bloor, Schaffer). Very interesting material to get an idea of what can go wrong is the discussion between David BLoor and Bruno Latour in Elsevier science magazine (1999). It is evry easy to miscomprehend Latour because what he is asking from his readers is to leave behind the inbuild dichotomies and convinctions practically of us carry without knowing it. Try to look for the moment you feel something is not working out when you try to understand Latour using the things you already know or what feels as being ‘natural’. Focus on that moment and read further into it. The devision pro science, contra (or at least sceptical of) science, with all the assumptions that have to do with it, will appear as useless in understanding the work of Latour. Please give me some comments, I really would like to get this discussing going. Regards, Rik
Rik: Yes, I know the characterization would be considered incomplete, and that Latour is (now) officially a bridge-builder, criticizing the strong programme, that he offically does not dismiss science in any way and so on.
As you’ve guessed, my first impression of Latour did come from Sokal & Bricmont + Gross & Levitt. Since then, I’ve actually read things by him – We Have Never Been Modern & Pandora’s Hope are here on my desk. I cannot in any way claim to be an expert on Latour – I am just picking up a few things I think are extremely problematic.
I do have a few problems with him: First of all, anyone can claim that they are creating an entire new philosophy based on leaving behind established categories and so on. “I am not denying an ‘outside reality’, but I am criticizing the notion of a difference between an ‘inside’ and an ‘outside’ of society/mind.” etc… When someone redefines all major concepts, it is also pretty hard to criticize them – but let’s do it sideways.
I think there is a pretty big difference between:
1) What Latour claims to do.
2) What he actually does.
3) What he is being used for.
1: In Pandora’s Hope, He claims not be anti-science in any way, and to actually be a bridge-builder, working against the division of the “two cultures” (C.P. Snow.)
2: Though he claims not to promote a sceptical attitude towards science, what he writes about is always how tools, ideas, labs, people create results – it’s not that often he mentions the possibility that the properties of something – tuberculosis, vacuums, whatever – may actually influence a scientific result. And that goes a pretty far way towards promoting a sceptical attitude towards science.
3: His surprise in the article I was referring to was about the fact that somebody could use a prototypical “critical” argument against science – it’s not an absolute truth, nothing has been finally proven, the scientist has economical stakes in the result – but use it for criticizing something that Latour himself apparently believes, namely global warming.
Have you ever heard or seen someone using Latour as an argument _for_ learning science?
Or perhaps, what’s the ratio between the amount of times the following two events have occured?
a) Someone using Latour to cast doubt about a scientific claim.
b) Someone using Latour as an argument that you have to take a scientific claim seriously even if you don’t like it.
According to Latour himself, the ratio should be 1:1, but in my experience a) happens all the time, but b) never happens. There’s the rub. Is that an unfair description?
Hey Rik — I’d like to contribute to the discussion (if possible), but I’m not sure I can — I’m afraid I may be obtuse or inflamatory (or both).
Caveat: I haven’t read any of Latour’s books, nor plan to (see below). I’ve read some essays and interviews by him, and reviews of his books, and some articles about him, but I don’t claim to have any deep understanding of him.
Crucially, from what I’ve read of Latour, I find him utterly useless for understanding science or its role in the world.
Perhaps he’s saying something very deep and subtle, but when I can understand what he’s saying (and with some work or in some cases, he does seem to be saying some stuff quite clearly), it’s either trivial or horribly wrong (this, and that I find his writing verbose are why I don’t plan to read any of his books). Again, maybe I’m only understanding the obvious stuff and am missing his deep points, but I don’t think so.
(An apology for the apology: I’m apologizing so much because some people (presumably Rik, maybe Jesper?, certainly many academics) respect Latour very much, and I find him obnoxious and worthless, which seems to be an easy perspective for scientists/mathematicians to take. I’m apologizing b/c I’m trashing him, which is at the very least rude. No more apologies: everything has caveats and quotes.)
This posting is basically “Why I can’t stand Latour, by example”; it’s a (hopefully measured) rant.
For concreteness, here’s a brief interview Bruno gave.
First let me summarize valid issues that Bruno raises or touches on (my perspectives on the issues, in my words):
— an understanding of science is important for some political decisions these days, but politicians and the public are ignorant of science and scientists do a bad
job of communicating.
— scientific theories impinge on religious (or other cultural) claims about the world.
— politics affects the funding, direction, and conduct of science, especially in medicine
— scientists can be petty and teritorial
— the task of doing science is not pure labwork: it involves politics (getting funding, getting your theory accepted)
— technological benefits are often exagerated
These are all pretty commonplace; it’s worth repeating that science is much messier than it’s presented, but it’s also worth repeating that science has largely earned its respect.
Now to trash him:
The second line of:
“During the Renaissance, people were very aware that the world of political debate and the world of scientific facts were closely connected. It was only later on that the two fields came to be seen as separate, and people began to think that there had to be one assembly in which political questions were discussed (Parliament) and another in which scientific questions were discussed.”
is absolutely idiotic any way you parse it.
The discourses of politics and science have radically different and incompatible rules — it’s natural that they be separate.
Politics is about the application of power and distribution of good things; in a democracy it’s about balancing different desires, through negotiation
and compromise (or the application of force).
Science is about finding out what’s true.
A Chinese democracy and a Greek democracy might reasonably look very different: presumably the aggregate of Chinese have different values (and power) than the aggregate of Greeks.
However, Chinese scientists and Greek scientists (while they may use different languages) should come to the same conclusions about the world.
Politicians emphatically have constituents, and should reflect them; scientists don’t (they do have patrons though).
Later:
“My point is simply that scientific and political debate should be taking place in a common space.”
is also idiotic. Obviously they should have some overlap, to the extent that they relate, but they largely don’t overlap.
[Another apology: maybe he’s just staking out an extreme (and extremely idiotic) position, and maybe in his book or lectures he suggest something sane, like that there be more scientific advisors or experts consulting in the halls of power.]
Okay, I could go on, but my point is roughly: there are certainly interactions between science and politics, but they’re far simpler and more distinct than Bruno suggests. For instance:
— some political acts are based on scientific claims; it would be nice if these were correct claims
— politics and funding affect the direction of science, and the conduct to the extent that a much-desired goal affects conduct
Another trashing: he refers to “the Columbia space shuttle incident”. As I understand it, NASA management exagerates the reliability of the shuttle. It’s done so for decades, and this is well-known. It’s a problem of politics, not science (or the scientific ignorance or apathy of politicians and NASA management). I don’t see what’s so “difficult to distinguish between issues that fall within the realm of science and issues that are part of the political realm”.
Here’s Feynman’s report on the Challenger (1986?); it’s long and technical, but the intro and conclusion are quick.
Lastly, Latour bugs me because it feels like he sets himself against scientists: it feels very adversarial on his part, and I feel absolutely no empathy for scientists from him. Maybe he’s got a chip on his shoulder, maybe he rubs me the wrong way, but I’m pretty sure he’d get a better reception if he presented himself as “Scientists ideally are trying to understand the truth about the world: what does this entail? what does this mean? [and how can it help politics, and how can politics help it?]”
Maybe he doesn’t believe this; maybe he has other interests. He could ask or answer questions I care about, but doesn’t seem to. Mostly (as far as I know), scientists tend to ignore Latour and others in science studies, so long as it doesn’t intrude on their work — he isn’t relevant to them. I’m chatting here mostly (in an attempt?) to be social.
An added note, re: Bruno qua ethnographer of science.
Bruno strikes me as a person who sees a sausage factory, and concludes that sausages are disgusting — rather than being amazed that such delicacies can emerge from such a barbaric process.
[Disclosure: I love sausages. Also, I’ve seen a sausage factory (on film), and found it really cool.]
More seriously, Latour’s field work in ethnography of science is probably his best contribution (that I know of) to science studies. The obvious criticism of his constructivist point of view (viewing science as a social practice, and truth as something constructed) is that it is analytical, not holistic, looking at labwork in isolation from the whole society in which science works. In particular, ignoring The Ultimate Test of Reality (or rather, applications).
Science isn’t as pure and holy as it likes to seem, but neither is it as artificial as Latour seems to say.
Nils: Latour discusses the whole science vs. politics thing in “We have never been modern”, so whatever you can come up with about science and politics being (naturally) separate things, he would simply dismiss as a “modern” idea of the world – again, he is way too slippery for something like that.
And additionally, Latour claims not to be a pure constructivist, and not anti-science in any way. But like you are saying, in actuality he does always end up sounding very sceptical of science. Disconcerting, isn’t it.
Hello! I hope to touch on some, definately not all, of the things mentioned in your reactions. It might be usefull to start with a little introduction to clear out the grounds I stand (I apologise for clumsy expressions, my English is not that wonderfull and I am tired). I regard the current work of Latour in the following way:
1) there’s the contribution in science studies close connected with authors like Stengers and Despret (I guess you know Stengers from her work with Ilya Prigogine, Order out of Chaos I don’t know if anything else is transated into English but I guess so)
2) following on this there are numurous attempts in Latours work to elaborate the findings and suggestions from 1)
This devission has some advantages I think;
Lets first touch upon 1). Nils you write: “Science is about finding out what’s true”. I suppose you are not claiming this sentence to be the final word on the subject. “Science is …” is of course the subejct of science studies (philosophy of science). Many interesting attempts have been made to make sence out of this question. Especially influential, and with reason, is the work done by Popper (Objective knowledge) and Lakatos, working on a ‘demarcationmodel’ that could distinguish science from crap. But alas, both had to admit at the end of their journey that they has failed to cope with that task. This gave rise to some very sceptical approaches to science, especially famous is the “anything goes” from Feyerabend, denouncing any claims on reality in science. Consider this background. What Latour is trying to do in a great part of his work is going beyond the problems that are present in science studies. We cannot hold onto the model scetched by Popper as he himself admits, but neither can we state that science is purely social as some authors would have it.
If you want to critise Latour, Jesper, but your are confused with the many new words he is using (they are many) you should, in my opinion, look for his work on science. Whatever new concepts he borrows from Whitehead or James, it won’t save him from the test of reality, as he himself seems to admit. Jesper, you write: “- it’s not that often he mentions the possibility that the properties of something – tuberculosis, vacuums, whatever – may actually influence a scientific result”. I claim he does mention it. If you have Pandora’s Hope lying on your desk you can read it yourself. I can’t give you the page and the exact quote cause I haven’t got it here but it goes something like this: “Pasteur authorises the yeast to authorise him to speak in its name”. We cannot ignore the work of the scientist but this does not mean Latour ignores the ultimate test of reality. The problem is that Latours work is interpreted from within the context scetched above (this is why he ends up being interpreted as sounding sceptical of science). And that is your (Jespers) comment on how Latour is being used. I do not think you can blame Latour for being misused. And as you already noticed I do not agree on making the distinction between what Latour claims and what he does.
I think the advantage of using my devision is that we can look for what he writes about science in connection with other authors, and putting him up to test. I have no problems admitting that a lot of the writings of Latour are very opaque (or is this only a French word?) and not al that clear. (Intermezzo: I am not Latours dog as you might begin to think. I am not interested in a pro – contra game, only in exchanging thoughts about an interesting subject.) The implications he is working on based on a new philosophy of science (itself being rather young) are above all confusing and do often sound ridiculous, especially when aproached with common sense. His style indeed is polemical and I can understand your uneasiness here, Nils. Besides mostly touching short on implications and very little on 1) in most of his articles makes them very difficult to understand.
I cannot on this moment touch upon the very interesting devide between politics and science, Nils, but it might be interesting to consider one article from Latour that is a bit outstanding cause it is readable ( http://www.ensmp.fr/~latour/articles/article/077.html ), touching on science and epistemology. I also apologise being short on time and therefore not being able to read the rapport you sent about the challenger and give further comments on the sentence you quote.
Ending this rather long post, but I won’t have access to the internet earlier than next weekend, I would like to ask two questions concerning your comments;
Jesper you write: “Have you ever heard or seen someone using Latour as an argument _for_ learning science?” I think I do not understand this question, could you please explain it to me?
Nils, in your comment you give some attention to Latour as an ethnographer of science and also some critique: “The obvious criticism of his constructivist point of view (viewing science as a social practice, and truth as something constructed) is that it is analytical, not holistic, looking at labwork in isolation from the whole society in which science works. In particular, ignoring The Ultimate Test of Reality (or rather, applications).”, I wonder what article or book you are commenting on, please mention. I am also sure I have read this critique before, although I can’t remember where. Could you elaborate a little further into the issue?
Kind regards, hoping you did not feel asleep while reading it, Rik
Ps: it would be nice to know from each other what is our starting point for our interest in Latour (if you don’t mind): I am a student (comparative science of cultures) in Ghent, Belgium, Latour is the main person in my thesis I am presenting about assumptions in social sciences
Just want to point out I was too fast in comment nr 5; my claim :”It is funny that you write Latour wants to denounce the things he does not believe in and leaving the things he does believe in untouched: that is exactly Latours criticisms of the Strong Program (child of David Bloor).” is not true. Its not all that relevant to the issue but I did not mean to criticise Bloor.
Re: #9, Jesper
I guess there’s the question of what I’m trying to do: my arguments certainly couldn’t convince Latour that he’s wrong, and probably couldn’t convince a crowd of sociologists, but could easily convince a crowd of scientists — though in both cases I think this is due more to the conclusion than the argument.
I was just trying to figure out if Latour was saying anything useful to me: I’m not trying to debate Latour, but simply address (on my own terms) issues that he addresses, or that you bring up about/around him. That is, I’m quite sure I couldn’t pin him down, but to the extent that he raises issues or suggests ideas that I find interesting and useful, I can react on my own.
[Notably, I don’t much care what Latour would say in response to stuff I say; I’m perhaps interested in his ideas, but not in his discourse. (And yes, I’m sure he’d say that you can’t talk about ideas absent a discourse etc.)]
So, to Rik and Jesper — I don’t have the time or energy (or, crucially, interest) to discuss Latour further, but thanks for your time and links.
Nils,
Although I think I don’t understand your post completely I would like to react briefly. I am not interested in debating Latour, in the first place I am interested in some issues – that might be the same issues you are talking about. So, if you would like to discuss some of the issues you are interested in, go ahead!
greetings
Hey Rik-
The “I don’t want to debate with Latour” was directed more at Jesper (who mentioned some ways Latour might address my comments) — I understand that you don’t want to have a duel, but rather discuss Latour’s ideas and issues.
The other point was that I’d rather not discuss even the issues of science studies (raised by Latour etc.) — while they are interesting, I haven’t the time (or desire) to discuss them.