Download The Impact of Science Studies on Political Philosophy Author(s

The Impact of Science Studies on Political Philosophy
Author(s): Bruno Latour
Source: Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Winter, 1991), pp. 3-19
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/690037
Accessed: 17/10/2008 12:30
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.
Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=sage.
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the
scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that
promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
Sage Publications, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Science,
Technology, & Human Values.
http://www.jstor.org
The Impact of Science Studies on
PoliticalPhilosophy
Bruno Latour
Ecoles des Mines de Paris
The developmentof science studies has an importantmessagefor political theory.This
message has notyet beenfully articulated.It seems that the science studiesfield is often
consideredas the extensionof politics to science. In reality,case studies show that it is
a redefinitionof politics that we are witnessing in the laboratories. To the political
representatives(elected by humans) should be added the scientific representatives
(spokespersonsof nonhumans).Thanksto a book by StevenShapinand SimonSchaffer,
it is possible to reconstructthe origin of this divide betweenthe two sets of representatives.A definitionof modernismis offered.Thenthe article explainshow to interpretthe
shift to "nonmodernism,"that is, a historicalperiod when the two branchesof politics
get togetheragain.
What ties us all together?What is the cement, the glue, that makes us a
group?Why is therea society insteadof a disorderlymob? Conversely,why
are we all not tied together?Why do there appearto be disorderlymobs,
crowds, and masses? How is it that the same social links may weaken,
strengthen,or disappearaltogether,as we shift from the village to the city,
from parish to marketforces, from nation-stateto multinational?How can
society be made more coherent, more organic, or, on the contrary,more
contradictory,less consensual?How can society be improved?In brief,what
is the natureand functionof the social link?Whatare the historicaltransformationsof social links? Can social links be modified so thathumansociety
becomes better?
Such are the broadtypes of questionscoming underthe loose headingof
social theory and political philosophy that I want to addressin memory of
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is the Second Mullins Memorial Lecture, delivered at Virginia
Polytechnic Instituteand State University, March 1990. I thankmy colleagues at the History
and Philosophy of Science Departmentin Melbournefor attractingmy attentionto the links
between science studies and political philosophy.I thankSusan Cozzens for careful editing of
my careless English.
& HumanValues,Vol.16No. 1, Winter1991 3-19
Science,Technology,
? 1991SagePublications,
Inc.
3
4
Science, Technology, & HumanValues
ProfessorMullins's lasting impact on science studies. I want to show that
science andtechnology studies,which ProfessorMullinsinitiatedin part,are
notjust an additionto the social sciences but arebecomingtheircenterpiece.
Moreexactly,they arethe meltingpot intowhich the social sciences areabout
to be thrown-and rejuvenated.
Importantquestions of political philosophy have been raised, by social
reformers,by social historians, and more explicitly by sociologists and
economists.They are also raisedagain and againby the people who observe
social changes-and therearemany of them:pollsters,politicians,businessmen, strategists,columnists,cartoonists.
The people who raise these questions have something in common.They
feel they are far removed from other questions,raised this time by natural
scientists, questions such as: Does the evolution of the universe fit the
steady-statemodel or the inflationarymodel better?What is the numberof
neutrinos coming from the sun? Is there a fifth force tying together the
elementarycomponentsof matter?Into how many smallerunitsmay gluons
be brokendown?Whatis the influenceof cytoplasmicinheritancecompared
to thatof the gene?
Of course, thereare also borderlinequestionsthatpertainsimultaneously
to the domainof the social and to the domainof naturalsciences:
- Questions of medicine: for instance, how is it that the life-style of some
Americanstriggersdiabetes?
- Questionsof bioethics (the word itself indicateswell enough the fusion of two
differentissues):arewe authorizedto do with humanembryoswhatwe do with
cow embryos,thatis, freeze them, implantthem, manipulatethem?
- Questionsof ideology: is aggressionamong males rootedin primatesociety in
chimpanzeesas much as in humans?This questionis clearlymixed, pertaining
as much to the ethologist'sbiases as to apes or monkeys.
- Questions that are clearly technical and political imbroglios:What is a safe
level of radiationfrom nucleartests in the Nevada desert?Whatis the amount
of carbondioxide an industrymay be allowed to release safely in the atmosphere?What is the amountof anthropogenicheat-another hybridnamethatwe can add safely to the naturallyoccurringamount?
The list goes on and on. The numberof such mixed questionsis enormous;
and in fact, I arguelaterthat they are infinite, and I explain why this is so.
But what I want to stress now is this: in spite of the vast number of
borderlinecases, so far, political philosophy itself has not reconsideredthe
boundarybetween the social and naturalsciences. There is, social theory
insists, a real, useful, and importantdifferencebetween those who deal with
the humanand those who deal with the nonhuman.The newspapersmay be
Latour/ Science and Political Philosophy
5
filled with counterexampleshappilyconflatingtechnical,scientific, ethical,
and political issues, ranging from the rain forest to the ozone layer hole
gaping over the Antarctic;but this is not a reason, sociologists argue, to
abandon the dichotomy between society and nature. Some, like Jurgen
Habermas,devote most of their efforts to making this dichotomy stronger,
not weaker.
Before destroyingto the groundthis assertionthatis paralyzingall efforts
at understandingand modifying our world, it is fair to recognize why it has
become so entrenched in the professional ethos of social theorists and
political philosophers.Originally,they had a good reason for maintaining
this dichotomy: it was a way of defending themselves, in the nineteenth
century,againstthe arrogant,triumphant,andreductionistbelief in positivist
scientific method. If departmentsof history, sociology, literature,and art
wanted to survive against the growing departmentsof chemistry,physics,
andbiology, they hadto safeguardtheirbordersagainstinvasions.The human
was their realm. "To you Nature,but to us Culture!"was their battle cry.
Kant'sessay, the Conflictsof Faculties, was a post on just such a border;and
Habermas'snew jurisdiction is yet another,more contemporaryeffort at
securingGermanhumanitiesdepartmentsagainstthe dangerousinfluenceof
the others.
Once protectedby this fortifiedborder,they thenhad a choice. They could
try to imitate and emulatethe naturalsciences (by developing hardmethodologies, statistics,surveys, computers,jargons);but this solutioncarriedthe
danger that other scientists could scrutinize these methods that resemble
theirs and make fun of them. Or they could develop soft methodologies
completely,proudly,andexplicitly at variancewith the naturalsciences. This
is where what is called the hermeneuticenteredthe picture.
The argumentwas thaton the one side arethe naturalsciences, which deal
with objects;on the othershouldbe the sciences of interpretation,which deal
with subjectsthat talk back, interpretback, kick back. Inventingthe hermeneuticwas a trickydecision becauseit widenedthe gapbetween,for instance,
the chemistswho interpretobjects thatdo not talk back (they claim) and the
complex double or triplehermeneuticloops of, for example, the psychoanalyst who refrainsfrom talkingto a patientwho does talk,but unconsciously.
But widening this gap was worththe price, because now thatthe methodsof
sociology, history,and literarycriticismwere made completely different,no
other scientist could make fun of the methods. (Indeed, hardlyany one can
understandtheir Verstehenloops at all.) So naturalscientists might despise
them as so much "Mickey Mouse stuff'; but, firmly confident in the power
of the hermeneutic, the sociologist or psychoanalyst or historian could
6
Science, Technology, & HumanValues
despise the naturalscientists back! And as long as one has grounds for
despising the other departmentswith fatter budgets, life, even if poor, is
bearable.
So there were indeed many good reasons to invent a hermeneuticas
differentas possible from the naturalsciences- survival of departmentsand
professionsis as good a reason as any-but it has outlived its usefulness.
Indeed,it is one of the obstaclesstandingin theway of the "impactof science
studieson political philosophy,"my presentsubject.
***
The whole belief in a distinctionbetween naturaland social sciences, the
distinctionbetween questionslike "Whatbinds us, humans,together?"and
"Whatbinds them, nonhumans,together?"comes from a very simple and
elementary choice in research programs:the social scientists and social
theoristsneverventuredinto the domainsof the naturalsciences, until a few
yearsago. Eitherthey respectedthem andtriedto emulatethem on theirown
territory;or they despised them and tried to be as immuneas possible from
them. It should be clear that the spite and the critiqueof humanistsnicely
covers up the naturalsciences and technicalknowledge.The more we heap
critiqueonto them, the less dangerousthey are. Social scientists have gone
on cherishingwhat they attacked,but they never went, with their methods
and principles,with their queries and interests,to ask questions inside the
very heart of atomic physics, biology, cosmology, ecology, engineering,
geology, and so on.
Everythinghas been studiedby social scientists, from the island of Bali
to the ghettos of Los Angeles, from the street-cornerpeddlersto jazz band
players,from automobileworkersto autisticchildren-everything, that is,
except laboratories,executive rooms, computers, engineers, and weapon
systems. The peripheryis studied-the margin,not the centers;the social,
not the naturaland the technical;the soft, not the hard.This does not mean
thatpolitical philosophershave been ignorantof science and technologyalthoughthe absurddivisions of curriculamight have helped some of them
to remaincrasslyignorantas faras science was concerned.But manyof them,
on the contrary(thinkof Comte, Durkheim,Weber),were highly literatein
the sciences of their time. However, scientific literacyis not the issue, for a
reasonthatbecamevisible only when scoresof sociologists, anthropologists,
historians,and economists, started,fifteen years ago, to penetrateinto these
hostile lands:the departmentsof science on the otherside of campus.
Latour/ Science and Political Philosophy
7
Their discovery has been this: the science made, the science taught,the
science known, bearslittle resemblanceto science in the making,science in
the searching,science uncertainand unknown.The whole edifice of epistemology, all the cliches about scientific method, about what it is to be a
scientist, the paraphernaliaof Science, was constructedout of science-made,
out of science-past,never out of science in the making,science now.
This humbleand simple discovery is subvertingthe partitionbetweenthe
social and naturalsciences, this shamefulYaltaPactthatkeeps all of us, hard
and soft scientists,with all our family resemblances,trappedon two sides of
one of the only IronCurtainsthatremain.
The dramaticchange that has occurredin the last fifteen years is that in
addition to what importantscientists say about themselves, in addition to
what philosophers of science believe about science, we now have many
detailed, empirical case studies of science and technics in the making, in
many differentfields and countries;and these studies are independentfrom
the vocabulary,interests,self-pleading,andproblemsof the scientistsand of
theirepistemologists.To be sure, they do not replacethese otherversions of
the story. They add to them from a completely new angle, an angle that is
empirical, anthropological,entirely focused on science in action, and that
mergesnicely with historyof science, which, in the meantime,hasabandoned
its "whiggish" tendency to celebrate progress, big scientists, and great
discoveries.
So we are now in a position systematicallyto test, try, and comparethe
images of science given by some scientistswith other images producedout
of completely independentstudies.
To measurethe novelty of this achievement,just imaginewhat economics
would be if we hadto buildit only frommanagers'own self-servingaccounts.
Imaginewhat sociology of laborwould be if we had to rely only on the pep
talks of shop floor bosses. Imaginewhat political science would be if it were
made by politiciansthemselves.
Well, this is exactly what studies of science were before this movement
startedalmost a generationago. Scientists themselves did all the talkingaccompaniedby their retinueof trumpetersand heraldsotherwiseknown as
epistemologists, and protectedby the gang of critics otherwise known as
humanists.A basic rule of method("Neverbelieve the informercompletely.
Carefullydouble-checkwhat the informerssay.")was implementedcourageously for managers,politicians, Indians, or workers, but was not even
contemplatedfor scientists.
How do you daresay somethingof physics if you arenot a physicist?Well,
by the same token,how do you daresay somethingof businessif you arenot
8
Science, Technology, & HumanValues
a manager? Of politics if you are not a politician? Indeed, to push the
absurdityto its end, how do you dare study a frog if you are not yourself a
frog?A particleif you arenot yourselfaparticle?See how absurdthe critique
is? So, now this absurdityis over: every study requiresboth independence
and familiarity,distance and proximity,suspicion and confidence; and this
holds for every field, naturaland social. If my biologist is able to become
familiarwith the innerworkingsof a ratthathe is not, I can become familiar
with the innerworkingsof the biologist that I am not.
***
In a few pages, I cannot summarizetwenty years of what might be the
most lively, prolific,busy, and internationalfield of social science, butI will
pick up two featuresof science in the makingthatarecrucialfor the linkwith
political philosophy:its collective characterand its exegetic character.
The first featureis this: naturalscientists are not called "natural"because
they are turnedtoward nature,while scholars in the humanitiesare turned
toward society. As much as anyone else, naturalscientists are turnednot
towardnaturebut towardtheircolleagues, theirinstruments,theirskills, the
workof theirlaboratories.So why arethey called "natural"?
Because in order
to act on theircolleagues, they mobilize resourcescoming from nonhumans.
This little counter-Copernicanrevolutionis simple but radical.Walkinto
a laboratory,open the pages of Science or Nature(I referhere to thejournals
of this name, not the GreatBook of Nature),attenda conference,participate
in hearings-what will you see? Nature?Of course not.
You will see a collective of practicingscientiststurningwith skill around
instruments,tryingto interestand to convince each other,and, in orderto do
so, introducinginto theirexchanges slides, tables, documents,photographs,
andreports,coming fromfar away places of quitedifferentscales (very small
particles, very big galaxies, very abstractmodels, very tight calculations,
very extremeexperiments).Dependingon the heat of the discussion, on the
mustering,mobilization,anduse of these resources,othercolleagues will or
will not be convinced.
Oh, those dear, dear colleagues, how hard they are to convince! How
obstinateyou have to be in orderto keep theminterested,to makethemlisten
to make them buy the argumentand confess, "Yes, I believe you have
incontrovertiblyshown that!"How often, too often, do they say, "Itdoes not
work thatway,""Youcouldjust as well say this,""Youoverlookedthis cause
of error,""Yourmethodologyis rotten,""Thisis not good science," "Itis all
Latour/ Science and Political Philosophy
9
a bunchof nonsense,""It is of no interestwhatsoever."(Textbookscientists
are not supposed to say such awful things, but scientists in their natural
environment,in the wild so to speak, do talk that way.) And here you are,
obliged to go back to yourlaboratory,write anothergrantapplication,maybe
change field or instruments,dispose of hundreds of new rats, run new
computerprograms,invent new skills. Why?If you have natureon yourside,
just believe in It and in yourself.Alas, it does not work thatway. You are in
the handsof yourcolleagues, dearcolleagues.Yourclaimperishesor survives
because of what they do to it, not only because of what you do to it. You can
be persuaded,butyou cannotconvince alone-or else the doorof the asylum
mightbe openedto you, insteadof the doorto the Royal Academyof Sweden.
So much for this cliche of hermeneutics,this claim that social scientists
talk to people who talk back,while naturalscientists talk to naturethatdoes
not talkback. This is beside the point. Scientiststalknot to naturebut to their
colleagues, and those creatureshave the very unpleasantcustom of talking
back, and sometimes kicking back (cutting funds, revolutionizingtheory,
introducingnew equipment, creating new disciplines). Of course, if you
consider completed science, science off the assembly line, after people are
convinced, then some of themwill be said to have natureon theirside while
others will be said to have society on theirs. But if you take science in the
making, no such dichotomyis feasible. Everyone is engaged in a collective
struggleto interestandconvince;andhis or herlife - scientific life -depends
entirelyon this collective fate. Natureis not behindtheirbacks, actinglike a
good parentwho can tell them apart.Nature waits to be fleshed out and
decided upon by the strugglingcollective.
And surprisinglyenough, this collective does not differentiate at all
between resourcescoming from the naturalor from the social sciences. In
this huge meltingpot, the big differencedisappears;everyone seizes everything at hand.Do scientists reachconsensus only because of collective peer
pressure?Of course not, since they have mobilized data and nonhumans,to
ease, deflect, or modify the peer pressure.Do they reach consensus, then,
becauseof the suddeneruptionof naturein theirdebates?Of coursenot, since
they have mobilized peers, professions, allies, and colleagues, to build,
deflect, modify, compose the data. This is the key discovery of science
studies:we are confrontedneitherwith society nor with nature;we have to
shift our attention 90? in order to follow scientists in action. After two
hundredyears of critique,and afterhaving used the trope"not only . .. but
also" we can ignore these two impossible groupings:things-in-themselves,
and humans-among-themselves.
10
Science, Technology, & HumanValues
The second cliche of the hermeneuticis aboutthe differencebetween the
science of texts-from the venerablebiblical exegesis all the way to modem
literarycriticism throughhistorical narrativeand psychoanalysis-and the
naturalsciences, whose reasoningis eitherinductiveor deductivebut always
aboutobjects "out there."
But again, walk to a laboratory,open a journal,talk with scientists, look
at them: they are surroundedby hundredsof textual documentsof various
origins,of tracesof differentinstruments,of faintparchmentsfromdecaying
fossils, of subtle clues from more or less reliablepolls; they are assembling
them, reshufflingthem, discountingsome, stressingothers.... Look at the
exegetic work necessary to associate in a fine web iridium levels at the
Cretaceous boundary,the dinosaurs'demise, the probabilityof meteorite
impact, and nuclearwinter, all of them to build up the Nemesis hypothesis;
each threadis weak, the whole is robust.No historiancould be more astute
in digging out an indefinitenumberof subtle clues and tracesfrom archives
thanthese naturalscientists,who aredoingjust that,but in anotherliterature.
No, this exegetic work on faint and disparatetraces is fully comparable
to that of the scholars who establish the text of Plutarchout of twenty
irreconcilablelessons, or those who reconstructthe daily occupationsof the
inhabitantsof the caves of Lascauxor the split-seconddecay of the particles
at CERN. Hermeneuticsis not a characteristicof the social sciences; it is the
property of all exegetic work; and, as far as texts are concerned, each
departmentof any campusis made of exegetes who differonly in the source
of their texts, not in the hermeneuticskill they deploy. All sciences are the
offspringof biblical exegesis. The Book of Natureis the second tome of the
Bible; this is what scientists since Galileo have echoed.
I know what your objectionmight be.
"Yes, but the signs written on parchmentsand painted on the caves of
Lascaux are made by people, to whom we can attributeinterests,intentionality, and semiotic ability.The same cannot be said of the inanimateidiots
down there in the lab that unwillingly scribble trajectoriesinside bubble
chambers, of the dumb nerve cells that fill in peaks and spikes on physiographs,of the mute rats that answertests and trialswith their feet. Those
do not want to communicatewith humans,in the way humanswould do."
This is a grave and importantobjection, which defines humans and
nonhumansin a certaintraditionalway. This definitionis now,underourvery
eyes, being slowly overcome by the very work we are all doing, in social
studiesof science andtechnology.This is the objectionthatallows Habermas
to limit access to free and honest communicationsto the poor humans.
Latour/ ScienceandPoliticalPhilosophy 11
Before going into this big question, I wish to avoid a misunderstanding.
Do not tell me thatthis emergingpicture-of scientific activityturnedtoward
a collective of skilled experimentersand turning around silent, artificial
objects, insteadof towardnature-destroys what is beautiful,solid, and true
in science. The beauty, solidity, and truth of the old picture was only an
appearance.It was all coming from a reflectionof the qualitiesattributedto
or to scientific-methodthesuperiordesign of nature-as-it-really-is-out-there
as-it-should-be.Wehave done nothingmoreto thesciences thanwhatDarwin
did for the species. He did not destroytheirbeauty,multiplicity,and coherence by abandoningthe Designer floating above all species who (or which)
was supposedto make them what they are. On the contrary,by letting them
struggle,fight, ally, mingle, copulate,andpopulate,he addedto theirbeauty,
diversity,and coherence. The same is true for the sciences. Now there is a
series of real mechanismsby which they can generateorderout of disorder,
coherence out of competition,diversity out of homogeneity.They are true,
they are beautiful, they are diverse, they are robust,some of them are poisonous.Above all, they aremade,in the making,andhuman,andnonhuman.
But to understandin what sense they are humanand nonhuman,one has
to tacklethebig questionall over again:Whatis thecollective madeof? What
ties us all together?
***
I will indicate the answer,thanksto a marvelousbook by Steve Shapin
and Simon Schaffer called Leviathanand theAir-Pump.1As you can guess
from the title, the book is a study of the debate between, on the one hand,
RobertBoyle, the mechanicalphilosopher(todaywe would say "physicist"),
one of the designersof the vacuumpump,founderof the Royal Society, and
inventorof most of the scientific style we still use today in writingempirical
articles;with, on the other,ThomasHobbes,anothermechanicalphilosopher,
authorof the Leviathan, founder of most of the argumentson the social
contract,inventorin manyways of the modernstateunderwhich we still live
today, the commonwealth,res publica. Thus the debate is between, on the
one hand,a naturalscientist, one of the greatest,andon the other,a political
philosopher,maybe the greatest. Where could you find a better simile for
organizinga lectureon "politicalphilosophyand science studies"?
Both Boyle andHobbesarerationalistsandmechanists;theybothridicule
theirprescientificpast. But they fight with one another.Hobbes is a scientist
12
Science, Technology, & HumanValues
whose science has been completely eliminatedfrom later accounts. He is
taken seriously only as a political philosopher,while Boyle had a political
philosophy,which has been completely eliminatedfrom later accounts. He
is taken seriously only as a physicist. Shapin and Schafferreconstructtheir
debatesand give back to Hobbes his science and to Boyle his politics. I will
arguethatit is theirvery dispute,and the very forgettingof its solution, that
usherHobbes'sandBoyle's contemporariesintothe modernworld,a modem
world that is now coming to a close.
Over what ground did they fight? Precisely on this question that
hermeneuticiansunproblematicallybelieve to be settled-because it was
settled in the seventeenth century:Who or what speaks? Who or what is
allowed to have meaning?Who or what should not speak? Whom or what
should be grantedor denied intentionality?
Nature used to speak directly and symbolically; let it be mute-both
Hobbes and Boyle agree on this. Matterused to have an intentionality,a
formativepower; let it be bruteand senseless-Hobbes and Boyle agree on
that. Clerics, from every church,used to speak, directly inspiredby God,
fueling religiouswars, while the Bible text could speak directlyto everyone
reading it with a good faith. Let the Bible speak indirectly and only of
nonpolitical matters,says Boyle. Let God not speak at all to anyone says
Hobbes;otherwise,we areback again into civil wars and dissent.Fromnow
on only the statewill interpretwhat the text says. The king used to speak in
the name of God? Let him speak only as the spokesmanof citizens engaged
in a social covenant, says Hobbes.
All right,says Boyle, but I want to grantbrutenaturalmatterthe possibility, to be surenot of talkingor of willing, butof behavingmeaningfullyinside
the vacuumpump.Impossible!says Hobbes. Isolatedfacts are meaningless.
It will fuel dissent again. Everyone will come with experimentsand start
disputing all over again. No, says Boyle, we will limit carefully who is
allowed to interpretmeaningfulexperiments.We will createa communityof
notable witnesses-scientists-who will be authorizedto speak for nature.
Impossible,Hobbesretorts,factionalismwill be back again.The stateshould
destroy experimental science and keep only mathematiciansand social
theorists.Scandalous,Boyle retorts;meaningfulandcarefullycircumscribed
mattersof fact are not dangerous,only wild interpretationsare.
Here you see the beauty of the book. Hobbes and Boyle areco-inventing
the two artificialconstructionsunderwhich we still live today:the Commonwealth, which is an artificial construction;and the laboratoryexperiment,
which is also an artificialconstruct.
Latour/ Science and Political Philosophy
13
What are the two mechanicalphilosophersdoing? Why are they reshuffling powers, speech, will, intentionality,exegetic abilities, among kings,
states, gods, priests, experiments,nature,matter?
They are draftingwhat I will call a political constitutionof truth.Michel
Foucaultused the word "economics"or "politicaleconomy of truth."
A constitutionis the writtenor unwrittendistributionof rights.It decides
who will vote or not;it organizesthe powers,the variousparliaments,houses,
and senates; it dispatchesrightsbetween executive, legislative, andjudicial
bodies, imposing checks and balances, and often telling the way it can itself
be modified.
However,this moderndefinitionof a constitutiondeals with the political
realmonly, that is, the representationof humans,called citizens. A political
constitutionof truthis broaderand unwritten,but it also distributespowers,
will, rights to speak, and checks and balances. It decides on the crucial
distributionof competence: for instance, matterhas or does not have will;
God speaks only to the heartand not of politics; experimentsare all rightas
long as they remain inside a circumscribedcommunity of experimenters;
only landowners are allowed to vote for the parliament;women have no
rights;thereare no witches but only madwomen;and so on.
What makes Boyle and Hobbes more importantdraftsmenof a constitution than Washingtonor Robespierreis that they did not deal only with the
human and political rights of the eighteenth century. Indeed, they were
inventing the very dichotomy between humanpolitical representationand
nonhumanscientific representation.
One examplefromBoyle will show how this redistributionof competence
occurs in theirdispute.Divers undera diver's bell do not feel the increaseof
pressure,say Boyle's opponents.This does notproveanything,Boyle retorts.
The pressureof waterin our recitedexperimenthaving manifesteffects upon
inanimatebodies, which are not capableof prepossessions,or giving us partial
informations,will have muchmoreweight with unprejudicedpersons,thanthe
suspicious, and sometimes disagreeing accounts of ignorant divers, whom
prejudicateopinions may much sway, and whose very sensations,as those of
other vulgar men, may be influenced by predispositions,and so many other
circumstances,thatthey may easily give occasion to mistakes.(Citedin Shapin
and Schaffer 1986, 218)
Good scientists can rely on meaningful inanimate bodies more than on
talking (and lying), vulgar buddies. The same problem of representation
appearsin politics and in science. Yes, naturealso is represented;this is a
very common usage of the word. But when we use it, we forgetthatit is part
14
Science, Technology, & HumanValues
of a constitution,that natureis attributedthe constitutionalrightto be mute
but to behave meaningfullyand unwittingly,while citizens are allowed to
speak. Comparethis rule with the following example. Only a few people,
landowners,may vote while the others,the vulgumpecus, should be denied
any meaningto theirdisorderlybehavior.
The second rule seems very shockingto us. "Whyonly landowners?"we
ask. Clearly it is a historical construct. It should be changed. It has been
changed.We can hardlyimagine a democracywithout the principleof one
man,one vote.
But this is truealso on the otherside. "Whymuteexperimentalmattersof
facts?" This also is a historical construct.It can be changed. It has been
changedin the course of history,each disciplineredistributingthe rightsand
duties of inanimatebodies. Walkinto a laboratory,open scientificjournals.
No two disciplines agree on what to expect from theirobjects/subjects.Are
dolphinsand whales treatedby ethologistslike marblestones in the vacuum
pump?Of course not. Are cells in cultureexpected to behave like particles?
Of coursenot. Are bacterialgenes in a molecularbiology expectedto behave
in the sameway as mammalembryosin a developmentalbiology laboratory?
No. They are as differentfrom one anotheras the attributionof meaningto
humans in a behavioristlab is different from that on the psychoanalytic
couch, or as far apartas the closed shop principle is from the open shop
principlein laborrelations.
Do you see now the enormous,the deadly mistakeof thosewell-meaning
social theoristswhen they defendthe hermeneuticby the so-called commonsense argumentthathumansspeak and have intentionwhile nonhumansare
deaf and dumb?They accept as a given the resultof a political constitution
of truththathas firstdispatchedspeech, deafness, anddumbness.They pride
themselves for being criticalon the political side, but they swallow it hook,
line, and sinker when the politics of things is involved. Their position on
science is as reactionaryas if they were consideringthedenialof voting rights
to proletarians,or to women, as a nonhistoricalor commonsensegiven.
This paradoxicalmixtureof criticalandreactionaryattitudes-critical for
social, reactionaryfor things-is one of the sad featuresof our intellectual
life, since it is answered on the other side by the equally reactionaryand
critical attitudeof many naturalscientists, who are active, intelligent, and
skeptical in their science but swallow as a given any belief about the
organizationof society.
This is the harsh result of the Yalta Pact I mentionedearlier.The Iron
Curtainhas been lifted everywhere, but it is still cutting through family
resemblancesanda richweb of ties betweennaturalandsocial sciences. This
Latour/ Science and Political Philosophy
15
web is the implicitpoliticalconstitutionof truth,which shouldbe scrutinized,
explicated, redrafted,and voted in common. As Foucault([1970] 1986, 26)
said:
The questionis no longer to free truthfrom the system of power- it would be
a chimerasince truthitself is power-but to separatethe power of truthfrom
the hegemonic forms (social, economic, cultural) inside which it circulates
today. In brief, the political question is no longer that of mistake, illusion,
alienatedconsciousness or ideology, it is thatof truthitself.
***
Fortunatelythis shamefuldivision is coming to a close.
What was the final outcome of the debate between Hobbes and Boyle?
This very divide, this very YaltaPact. On the one hand,social theory;on the
other,the sciences. On the one hand,the representationof citizens, nakedand
talkinghumansengagingin the social contract,out of which emergespokespersons, the politicians. On the other,the representationof things, mutebut
meaningfulexperimentalmattersof fact, cared for by their spokespersons,
the scientists.
The two questions with which I started-"What binds us, humans, together?"and "Whatbinds them, nonhumans,together?"-get two entirely
differenttypes of answers:social forces on the one hand, naturalforces on
the other. In addition, of course, the science of Hobbes and the political
philosophy of Boyle were each deleted from the picture. To Hobbes, the
Leviathan;to Boyle, the air-pump.The modernworld was born. I define a
world as modem when the political constitutionof truthcreates those two
separateparliaments,one hiddenfor things,the otherin the open for citizens.
A no man'slandwas createdalong this new boundary.But whathappened
to all the mixed questions I have presentedat the beginning, to all these
imbroglios of political and scientific affairs, these tangles of ozone layer,
frozen embryos, dying whales, printed chips, electronic money, and rain
forests?They have grown,andgrown,anddevelopedfor threecenturies,and
populatedthe no man'slandto such an extentthattodayeveryproblemseems
to be crowdedon this tiny borderline,and there is not much left on the two
extremes:somethingpurelysocial? ,omething purely natural?
The tangles are crowded there, but they are still without political representation,withoutsocial theory.They arenot supposedto exist. They arelike
those Germanfamilies until December 1989, or like Koreanfamilies today,
with one branchon one side of the borderwhile the otherbranchlives under
anotherregime.
16
Science, Technology, & HumanValues
We can now safely reject the notion of the hermeneutic,which does
nothingbut reinforcethis partition,and startto dismantlealso this Curtain,
focusing all our efforts on offering a representationand a homelandto these
disunitedfamilies. How shall we do so?
Look at the spokespersonsfor nature,assembled every day throughthe
auspices of the newspapers,of television, in corporatesuites, in the classroom, on the bench in courts.Are they trying to reach an ideal community
of speech thatwould dominatethe mere instrumentalrationalityof science?
No, they all gatherwith the constituenciesthey representbehindtheirbacks.
Herearethosewho speakin the nameof thewhales;here arethosewho speak
for the logging and timberindustry;on their side is the lobbyist for frozen
embryos;next is anotherone representingbusiness interests;anotherspeaks
for the Milky Way,in the name of starsand black holes; anotherone speaks
in the name of the soil; anotherfor the farmers;anotherfor the Greyhound
bus drivers;anotherfor the mining of uranium;these are the representatives
from the ozone layer, and they are narrowlydefeatedby these others,who
speak for the producersof CFCs; and look, among all these self-designed
representativesand senators, here is a representativefor the district of
Blacksburg.How extraordinary,how rare, how tiny! A human elected by
fellow humans. The similarities between all these representatives,their
connectionsandcontroversiesandtangles:arethey not muchmoreimportant
thanthe moot distinctionbetween those who have been elected to speak in
the name of voting citizens, and all the othersdesignedto speak in the name
of whales, workers,forests, capitals,or stars?
But then if we acceptsuch a parliament,is it the end of the modem world?
Yes. The divide so clearly highlightedby the Hobbes-Boyle dispute is
untenable.Why? For a simple reason:it makes it impossible to understand
both how it happensthat society holds together,and how it happensthatthe
sciences are robust. It transformsin a double miracle the holding, gluing,
tying togetherof our world.
Look on the side of society.Are we tied togetherby social forces?Maybe,
but probablynot thatmuch.Thereare manyotherties thatget into the social
ones. We are held togetherby loyalties but also by telephones, electricity,
media, computers,trains,and planes. "Yes,"a sociologist would say, "but
these are not social, they are technical."This means that they can be both
despised and admired,that is, protected. Is it my fault if they have been
broughtto bearon our social links, reinforcinganddisruptingthem,shuffling
them around?If they have now gained the eminent dignity of socialness,
morality,and meaning?
Latour/ Science and Political Philosophy
17
Turnto the otherside. Whatties all the sciences andthe technicstogether?
Nature?Yes, maybe in part, as a useful ingredientand resource, but also
people, loyalties, institutions,collectives, passions, monies, and many other
social ties. "Yes," a natural scientist would say, "but you are confusing
everything,throwingeverythinginto a huge melting pot."
Is it my pot or yours?Who is bringingin cells, chips, stars,and throwing
them in the melting pot fromwhich ourworld emerges. I? Or the scientists?
It is not because this melting pot should not exist-according to the old
divide-that it is not to be thoughtaboutand tackledseriously.Whatshould
we prefer?Ourold beliefs, or the study of the society we live in?
Am I jeopardizingall the nice useful divides in favorof a "seamlessweb"
aboutwhich nothinguseful can be said?Is it morecomplicatedto studythese
new tangles of social and nonsocial ties than the artificialbrokenhalves of
the recentpast?I do not thinkso, becausethis is exactly what anthropologists
andethnographersall know how to do when theygo to anotherculture/nature.
They know that in the study of all the other cultures, cosmology, land
ownership, taxonomy, technology, kinship, myth structureshave to be
brought together. It is only when, kicked out of their traditionalhunting
territory,ethnographerscome back home thatthey startbelieving in the usual
distinctions.So, as a result,they know how to studyall the culturesbuttheirs,
our culture/nature.Paradoxically,we know more about most other cultures/naturesthanaboutours.
You understandnow why the modernworld is coming to a close. What
was setting it apartfrom all the others, this GreatExternalDivide between
Us, scientificized and technicized Westernersand Them, the prescientific,
the pretechnical,whoever they are, was due to this Great InternalDivide
summedup by the Boyle-Hobbes dispute:social representationon one side,
naturalrepresentationon the other.But if this internaldivide is untenable,
the other,too, falls apart.We are an anthropologicalculture/naturelike all
the others. We, too, should be studied following the same continuous,rich
web of associationsbetween humanandnonhumanties.
Is this postmodernism?No, it is not. It is probablysomething more like
premodernism,or, I would say, nonmodernism.Postmodernismis a disappointedformof modernism.It shareswith its enemy all its featuresbut hope.
It believes in rationalization,in the very distinctionbetween Us and Them,
in the very same divide between representationof things and representation
of people. But it has stopped believing in the joint promises of naturalism
and socialism. The nonmodernworld, which we entered in 1989 after the
dual failuresof the naturalistprogramand of the socialist one, is simply the
realizationthatwe have never enteredthe modernworld.
18
Science, Technology, & HumanValues
We pride ourselves on being brandedby the terrible stigma of being
Different.We are masochisticallyproudof being atheistic,deist, materialist,
disenchanted, consumerist, rationalist, capitalist, Americanized. This is
pride, pure pride. We would be completely unable to live up to these ideal
sins. We neverleft the old anthropologicalmatrix.We cannotbe postmodern
because,for a start,we have neverbeen modern.In spiteof theHobbes-Boyle
constitutionalcompromise, humans and nonhumanshave never ceased to
interfere.
We, too, live undera political constitutionof truththatcan be changedthat should be changed to recognize and accept for what it is this long
association of humanswith nonhumans.As long as naturehad to be conquered,we could live under the modern,divided constitution.Now that it
has to be protectedandthatevery single politicalandethicalproblemis made
of science andtechnologyin a single continuum,it cannot.As long as society
had to be denouncedin the nameof a science of society, we hadto live under
the modern,divided constitution.Now thatthe dissolutionof socialism has
broken down the very scientism that permittedthe denunciationstrategies,
we have to experimentcollectively with whatsocieties andnaturesmay bear.
This most extraordinaryyear, which has seen the bicentennial of the
FrenchRevolution,the completedissolutionof the IronCurtain,andthe first
political meetings on the global warmingof the Earth,is an auspiciousone
to bringhumansand nonhumansunderthe same continuousprotection.Two
centuriesago, our forebearsstruggledto invent a political representationof
citizens, of speaking and voting humans."No taxationwithout representation," they insisted. This was part of the Enlightenment.During the two
intervening centuries, enormous masses of nonhumanshave entered our
daily lives. We live with them;we like, love, or hate some of them;we have
delegated to them much of our morality,politics, and social ties. Every day
we are confrontedwith tangles of humanand nonhumanaffairs.
It is time to do for these new masses what our forebearsdid for humans.
"No innovationwithoutrepresentation"
or "no pollutionwithoutrepresentation"could be among the mot d'ordres.
Is it not worththe effortto pursuethe Enlightenmentinto the darktangles
of science and society mixtures?
This is a common undertakingfor political philosophy and for science
studies, a task large enough for all of those who work under the label of
"science, technology, and society." ProfessorMullins, whose memory we
honorhere,would have liked to see thefield to which he contributedso much
to establishbe called to such a worthy task.
Latour/ Science and Political Philosophy
19
Note
1. I cannot possibly do justice here to this beautifulbook. For a more elaborateanalysis of
the book and of the notion of constitution,see Latour(1990, forthcoming).
References
Foucault, Michel. [1970] 1986. La crise dans la tete. Translatedin The Foucault reader,
edited by P. Rabinow.Harmondsworth:Penguin.(my translation)
Latour,Bruno. 1990. Postmodern?No amodern.Steps toward an anthropologyof science.
Studies in Historyand Philosophyof Science 21:165-71.
. Forthcoming.One more turn after the social turn: Easing science studies into the
non-modem word. In The social dimensions of science, edited by E. MacMullin. Notre
Dame, IN: Universityof Notre Dame Press.
Shapin,Steve, andSimon Schaffer.1986. Leviathanand the air-pump.Princeton,NJ: Princeton
UniversityPress.
BrunoLatouris Professorat the Centrede Sociologie de l'Innovationat the Ecoles des
Mines (62 BoulevardSt. Michel, 75006 Paris). He has published several books and
articles, includingScience in Action andThe Pasteurizationof France.