Thoughts on Readings 4/29/09

The Politics of Nature by Bruno Latour

This week, I led the class discussion on the chapter listed above written by Bruno Latour. I am going to post some of the thoughts I used to get the class discussion started.
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Latour focuses his writings on political epistemology, or the "political philosophy of nature". Latour believes that political ecology has nothing to do with nature. In fact, he presents the idea that discussion of nature is problematic because it permits those who are participating in political discourse to "short circuit" debate.

Latour uses the allegory of the Cave as generated by Plato to define the relationship between Science and society. He believes that the Philosopher and the Scientist have to "free themselves from the tyranny of the social dimension, public life, politics, subjective feelings,popular agitation (OR THE DARK CAVE) if they want to see the truth. The social world creates a prison--but the Scientist (equipped with the pure laws of nature) is the one person who can leave the Cave and come back with "INCONTESTABLE FINDINGS THAT WILL SILENCE THE ENDLESS CHATTER OF THE IGNORANT MOB".

As Latour puts it:

"Although the world of truth differs absolutely, not relatively, from the social world, the Scientist can go back and forth from one world to the other no matter what: the passageway closed the all others is open to him alone. In him and through him, the tyranny of the social world is miraculously interrupted when he leaves, so that he will be able to contemplate the objective world at last; and it is likewise interrupted when he returns, so that like a latter-day Moses he will be able to substitute the legislation of scientific laws, which are not open to question, for the tyranny of ignorance. Without this double interruption, there can be no Science, no epistemology, no paralyzed politics, no Western conception of public life".(page 11)

Questions for discussion:

• What do you think Latour means when he refers to the tyranny of the social world?
• What does Latour mean about the scientist being like a latter-day Moses?
• Latour refers to the narrow door between the Cave and the world of Ideas now being a broad boulevard, in what ways does he mean that this change has occurred????

Latour talks about the reason behind this "double rupture" by the "epistemology police" can only be political or religious.

Question for discussion:

• What would be the relevant examples of the double rupture as it applies to recent scientific advancements?
• How has legislation been impacted by the transforming effects of the Cave? Are there ways in which the Bush administration acted as the Cave?? How???

Latour supposes that there is a Constitution that organizes public life into two houses:

HOUSE 1--OBSCURE ROOM DEPICTED BY PLATO (ignorant people in chains).

HOUSE 2--WORLD MADE OF NONHUMANS, INDIFFERENT TO HUMAN IGNORANCE AND INDIFFERENCE.

Genius of the model---role that a small percentage of VERY powerful people play who can move between the two houses.