the modern adventures of Bruno Latour
Last Friday was the MacLab employee party. As you might remember from earlier posts, my boss Bill is a cool and reasonable dude. And not only is he a great boss, but he studies the philosophy of science. I often enjoy just chatting with him about philosophy; he is thoughtful and careful, and willing to engage at my level (that is, super-naive).
At any rate, last Friday, I'm well into party mode when he starts some school-conversation. I say I'm studying Bruno Latour; I mention that he fills me with rage. (Fully in party-mode as I am, I of course mention this without realizing Bill is a big fan of Latour ;-P)
"Not a fan of dialectic, eh?"
Indeed not! And, actually, it's this comment of Bill's that's making me revise my Latour-opinion. It's not so much Latour's main thrust, which I am finding pretty cogent, that turns me off, it's his style and approach. My main beefs:
(a) His elaborate, unfortified metaphors.
(b) His attribution of intentionality to objects and artifacts (which Bill sternly lectured me against last autumn! Dialectic indeed!).
(c) Point (b) aside, his unwillingness to say who is doing the acting, and who is being controlled. T hat is, what is a matter of human decisions, and when do these facts/artifacts take a life of their own?
(d) His needless, and needlessly ambiguous diagrams.
(e) His insistence that either we take facts for granted, or re-open a controversy at huge expense. So, either a fact/machine is a black box, or it is the subject of controversy.
(f) His insistence that dialog is either meaningless, or a proof race. Hard facts are only appropriate and necessary when you're in a fight.
And, with these complaints out of the way, I proudly relate to you Bill's Breakfast-Cereal Model of the Philosophy of Bruno Latour:
In the grocery store, choices of breakfast cereals shape our experience of
breakfast. The individuals who produce these cereals do so without real
consideration of what is happening to our experience; their immediate goals
have nothing to do with their effects on their target audience. Furthermore,
they completely disregard whole networks of actors---transportation, packaging,
store management, cashiers---without which their product would have no effect
at all. And, often, if we actually look at their decisions, they're corporate
and unsavory. So while their decisions bring about our breakfast-experience,
their product takes on a role and qualities that are not directly determined,
and not even considered, by those who we consider the "producers" of the
cereal.
At any rate, last Friday, I'm well into party mode when he starts some school-conversation. I say I'm studying Bruno Latour; I mention that he fills me with rage. (Fully in party-mode as I am, I of course mention this without realizing Bill is a big fan of Latour ;-P)
"Not a fan of dialectic, eh?"
Indeed not! And, actually, it's this comment of Bill's that's making me revise my Latour-opinion. It's not so much Latour's main thrust, which I am finding pretty cogent, that turns me off, it's his style and approach. My main beefs:
(a) His elaborate, unfortified metaphors.
(b) His attribution of intentionality to objects and artifacts (which Bill sternly lectured me against last autumn! Dialectic indeed!).
(c) Point (b) aside, his unwillingness to say who is doing the acting, and who is being controlled. T hat is, what is a matter of human decisions, and when do these facts/artifacts take a life of their own?
(d) His needless, and needlessly ambiguous diagrams.
(e) His insistence that either we take facts for granted, or re-open a controversy at huge expense. So, either a fact/machine is a black box, or it is the subject of controversy.
(f) His insistence that dialog is either meaningless, or a proof race. Hard facts are only appropriate and necessary when you're in a fight.
And, with these complaints out of the way, I proudly relate to you Bill's Breakfast-Cereal Model of the Philosophy of Bruno Latour:
In the grocery store, choices of breakfast cereals shape our experience of
breakfast. The individuals who produce these cereals do so without real
consideration of what is happening to our experience; their immediate goals
have nothing to do with their effects on their target audience. Furthermore,
they completely disregard whole networks of actors---transportation, packaging,
store management, cashiers---without which their product would have no effect
at all. And, often, if we actually look at their decisions, they're corporate
and unsavory. So while their decisions bring about our breakfast-experience,
their product takes on a role and qualities that are not directly determined,
and not even considered, by those who we consider the "producers" of the
cereal.