Download STS 2411 – Lecture 13 – Actor Network Theory versus the Sociology

STS 2411 – Lecture 14 – Actor Network Theory versus the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge
Latour’s Criticism of the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge
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Latour is an internal critic of the sociology of science, shared assumptions and methods
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Division between the subject and the object
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Critical of standard divisions in Western thought, subject/object, modern/pre-modern,
natural/social, artificial constructs, useful, not fixed or final, historically variable
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Distinctions need to be maintained
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Example: theories of knowledge, two components, knowing subject and known object
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Subject’s contribution, nature and the object, individual knowledge, social knowledge, subject –
object framework
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Latour: sociology of science attempts to explain nature and objects in terms of society
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Symmetry postulate: all beliefs, whether true or false, must be given social causes, as opposed
to the standard view, which held that false beliefs have social causes and true beliefs are caused
by nature
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Latour: symmetry postulate - competing beliefs have no “natural” component, nature does
nothing, society does everything
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Latour: complex beliefs that characterize science cannot be “explained” by coarse categories
such as class or religion
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Latour: society not a product of nature (the standard view) nature not a product of society (the
strong programme), nature and society are co-produced
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Latour: relationship between society and nature varies, not fixed, sometimes easy to separate,
sometimes blurred
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Example: intelligence, determined by nature or society? Natural causes, social and
environmental contributions, social component of intelligence
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Mix of causes (social and natural) for a given phenomenon (e.g. intelligence) can change
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Example: IQ test, natural intelligence, social intelligence as well
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Latour: interactive process going on between things like nature and society, subject and object,
co-producing each other, analyst studies process of co-production
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Latour: strong programme is idealistic, ignores co-production process, nature drops out of the
picture of generating knowledge
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Strong Programme focus on social causes
Bloor’s Response
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Bloor: Strong Programme not trying to “explain” nature in terms of society, attempting to
explain our beliefs about nature in terms of society
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Bloor: symmetry - both true and false beliefs are generated through a process that involves both
nature and society, social causation does not rule out natural component to knowledge
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Latour wrong as Strong Programme uses social causation in tandem with scientific beliefs to
explain development of scientific knowledge
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Latour: in the Strong Programme objects themselves “do not make a difference” to our thinking
about them, he quotes Bloor:
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“Once we realize this [that Millikan believes in the electron and that Ehrenhaft does not
believe in it] the electron ‘itself’ drops out of the story because it is a common factor
between two different responses, and it is the cause of the difference that interests us”
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Latour: for Strong Programme “things are never enough” to determine beliefs, explaining the
natural in terms of the social
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Bloor: without the objects there would be no claims at all
The Debate
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Rhetorically charged writing, extreme claims, ignorance of argument
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Bloor correct Latour is exaggerating the case stating Strong Programme tries to explain nature in
terms of society
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Is the limited role assigned by Bloor to the natural world enough to give it a meaningful role in
the process of generating knowledge?
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For example, when discussing two diverging claims about an object, Bloor states,
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“If the object were absent there would be no occasion for disagreement or, if there
were a disagreement it would be precipitated by other causes and would arise by
another route. We can at least say that it would not be this dispute between them.”
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Response: the role played by an object here is fairly minimal, inspiration of disputes, role in the
generation of knowledge “drops out of the story”
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Bloor: Strong Programme is not trying to “explain” nature in terms of society, it is attempting to
explain our beliefs about nature in terms of society, not trying to explain nature or objects, why
shouldn’t objects drop out of the story?
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Why does the role of the natural world in knowledge production matter?
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Scientists and the general public, STS assigns too much importance to the social side of
the nature/society divide
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Science and subjectivity, minimal role of natural world