Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2000 13:15:06 +0100
From: "steve.devos" <steve.devos-AT-krokodile.com>
Subject: Re: Bruno Latour's _Pandora's Hope_ -- Some thoughts.... (long)


Brad

The deleuze-guattari list from spoon has some interesting posts on
Latour's work recently

The problem I have with Latour's work generally, (and I have to confess up
front that I find it very interesting the Latour concept of 'science
studies' keeps suggesting a new career option....) is that I find the
disentangling of the theoretical and position statements from the
narrative and story lines difficult. It may be that my general dislike and
suspicion of narrative and story telling as a way of disseminating theory
and knowledge makes Latour's general writing strategy more difficult. Like
the white space that computer manual designers are addicted to the use of
anecdote, story and narrative is irritating and obscuranterist....

The area of the work I found most potentially interesting is in the
postmodern, the construction of the human and the nonhuman. There is a
direct sense in which Latour places the nonhuman as being part of the
critical matrix which works towards making 'law,politics and soon I
suspect, morality...' Artifacts, nonhumans are proposed as being
'full-fledged social actors...'  Democracy becomes insufficient because
the nonhuman cannot vote, and as such the constraints to be placed on our
liberal human democracies, (ignoring the totalitarian states for the
moment) is significant.

Remember our previous discussion about animal rights...

regards

steve.devos


"Brad McCormick, Ed.D." wrote:

> I have recently read Bruno Latour's book,
> _Pandora's Hope_.  Following are some thoughts
> I have chosen to share with you....
>
> Actually, I did not read the whole book, but rather
> tried to read the first few chapters several
> months ago, and then in the past few weeks more
> or less read most of the last 2/3 of the book, more or
> less "backwards".  I found that, almost everywhere,
> Latour's sentences seemed to not quite "hit the mark".
> Or, perhaps more accurately: I could not find in his
> sentences the resources to enable me to hit the mark --
> despite very much wanting to accomplish this!
>
> That said, I think _Pandora's Hope_ points
> us in the direction of a very important target, and
> can be useful in helping us to hit the target.
>
> What is the target?  (1) Correctly understanding our social life,
> without which we would not exist as "humans" nor, a fortiori,
> have any thoughts about anything (e.g., about "science studies"
> and "science wars"...).  So that, (2) we can do a better
> job of preserving and nurturing that social life (i.e., preserving and
> nurturing *ourselves*).
>
> Latour's argument starts with
> an appreciation of the remarkable classical Greek
> accomplishment of the Polis -- a social organization
> in which persons cooperatively manage their life rather
> than some governing (giving orders) and other being
> governed (obeying orders).  [In _The Human
> Condition_, Hannah Arendt celebrated this accomplishment
> by calling it true "anarchy", i.e., absence of
> life dominated by hierarchical power relations; and
> I think it's what Marx hoped for when he spoke of
> "the government of men being replaced by the
> administration of things"; etc.]
>
> Then Latour asks why don't *we* *have* this great
> achievement as our form of social life?  Obviously
> there is no one answer to this question, but Latour
> focuses on one item: Starting with Plato, the
> dichotomization of human understanding into
> *knowledge* (episteme) and *opinion* (doxa).
> To be very brief: Since political activity cannot
> be epistemic, and "tertium non datur", then politics
> is mere opinion and therefore power must
> reign over social life, either as more or less
> brute power, or as brute power in the service of
> a few who "know".
>
> Latour's proposed resolution surely is mot original,
> but I don't see where that makes it not worth
> repeating, since it is heard so seldom: The
> form of political deliberation, aiming at consensus
> based on necessarily insufficient information
> (which is the general predicament of social life)
> requires a third kind of activity, which is
> neither episteme nor doxa, but rather -- he does not
> use this word in the book -- what I believe the
> Greeks called: phronesis -- the endeavor to be
> reasonable, as opposed to being rational -- which latter
> aspiration is ultimately not transparent to itself
> unless it attempts to situate itself in a larger,
> ultimately all-encompassing (cosmological?) context,
> and thus ceases to be strictly *rational* but
> changes itself into the reasonableness and the
> quest to become ever more reasonable (i.e.,
> to take into account ever more of the world,
> including all three: episteme, doxa and
> reasonableness itself).
>
> I haven't tried to use Latour's words, but I think
> the above (excuse if I have been too longwinded
> in trying to be as succinct as possible!) is what
> Latour's argument "nets out to": Democracy is
> a conversation aimed at reaching consensus,
> where proof cannot be had and not everybody
> shares the same beliefs.
>
> --- Pandora's <what> ---
>
> Latour seems very hopeful about this ideal of real
> democracy.  I am less hopeful.  It's a great ideal,
> but how can it be applied in Zimbabwe?
>
> But I have posted this to an academic audience, so
> I shall end with an academic fantasy (Latour describes
> his own exposition as a kind of "myth" -- I can't find his
> exact word at the moment, but he certainly contrasts it
> with Plato's myth of the cave!).  I read in the
> newspapers that medical interns work exhausting
> hours, often well over 80 hours per week, and that
> this regimen is imposed on them by the doctors who
> run the medical education system, in the name of
> "continuity of patient care", even though the
> interns themselves see the issues more as cheap
> labor, rites of passage, and risking making
> medical mistakes due to fatigue.  The senior doctors,
> of course, work somewhat different hours.  How about
> experimenting with some democracy among the physicians
> (from intern to most "senior" -- oh yes, and the
> nurses, et al, too...) organizing the
> care of patients?
>
> Or, lets even get closer to home, or, rather,
> the classroom: What about exploration of
> democracy in schooling?  Curiously, this happens
> to some extent anyway -- when education works well,
> and "requirements" somehow get met without
> getting in the way --> and here's my closing
> thought on the matter:
>
> I would propose that, even today, phronesis plays a
> far greater role in our social life than we *acknowledge*,
> and, wherever it fails, neither episteme nor doxa
> ("reason" or *power*) generally are able to
> produce relatively felicitous (<-- Latour does use
> that word!) conditions of social life.  Why
> don't we do more to emphasize what is most
> important?
>
> "Yours in discourse...."
>
> +\brad mccormick
>
> --
>    Let your light so shine before men,
>                that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
>
>    Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
>
> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / bradmcc-AT-cloud9.net
> 914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua NY 10514-3403 USA
> -------------------------------------------------------
> <![%THINK;[XML]]> Visit my website: http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
>
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