Politics Of Nature
   HOME
*





Politics Of Nature
''Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences Into Democracy'' (2004, ) is a book by the French theorist and philosopher of science Bruno Latour. The book is an English translation by Catherine Porter of the French book, ''Politiques de la nature''. It is published by Harvard University Press. Overview In the book, Latour argues for a new and better take on political ecology (not the discipline but the ecological political movements, e.g. greens) that embraces his feeling that, "political ecology has nothing to do with nature". In fact, Latour argues that the idea of nature is unfair because it unfairly allows those engaged in political discourse to "short-circuit" discussions. Latour uses Plato's metaphor of "the cave" to describe the current role of nature and science in separating facts from values which is the role of politics and non-scientists. Building on the arguments levelled in his previous works, Latour argues that this distinction between facts and values is rare ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Bruno Latour
Bruno Latour (; 22 June 1947 – 9 October 2022) was a French philosopher, anthropologist and sociologist.Wheeler, Will. ''Bruno Latour: Documenting Human and Nonhuman Associations'' Critical Theory for Library and Information Science. Libraries Unlimited, 2010, p. 189. He was especially known for his work in the field of science and technology studies (STS). After teaching at the École des Mines de Paris (Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation) from 1982 to 2006, he became professor at Sciences Po Paris (2006–2017), where he was the scientific director of the Sciences Po Medialab. He retired from several university activities in 2017. He was also a Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics. Latour is best known for his books ''We Have Never Been Modern'' (1991; English translation, 1993), ''Laboratory Life'' (with Steve Woolgar, 1979) and '' Science in Action'' (1987).Heather Vidmar-McEwe"Anthropologists biographies: Bruno Latour" "Anthropologists biographies: Bru ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Science Studies
Science studies is an interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary research area that seeks to situate scientific expertise in broad social, historical, and philosophical contexts. It uses various methods to analyze the production, representation and reception of scientific knowledge and its epistemology, epistemic and semiotics, semiotic role. Similarly to cultural studies, science studies are defined by the subject of their research and encompass a large range of different theoretical and methodological perspectives and practices. The interdisciplinary approach may include and borrow methods from the humanities, natural and formal sciences, from scientometrics to ethnomethodology or cognitive science. Science studies have a certain importance for evaluation and science policy. Overlapping with the field of science, technology and society, practitioners study the relationship between science and technology, and the interaction of expert and lay knowledge in the public realm. Scope ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Sociology Of Scientific Knowledge
The sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) is the study of science as a social activity, especially dealing with "the social conditions and effects of science, and with the social structures and processes of scientific activity." The sociology of scientific ignorance (SSI) is complementary to the sociology of scientific knowledge. For comparison, the sociology of knowledge studies the impact of human knowledge and the prevailing ideas on societies and relations between knowledge and the social context within which it arises. Sociologists of scientific knowledge study the development of a scientific field and attempt to identify points of contingency or interpretative flexibility where ambiguities are present. Such variations may be linked to a variety of political, historical, cultural or economic factors. Crucially, the field does not set out to promote relativism or to attack the scientific project; the objective of the researcher is to explain why one interpretation rath ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Political Books
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies politics and government is referred to as political science. It may be used positively in the context of a "political solution" which is compromising and nonviolent, or descriptively as "the art or science of government", but also often carries a negative connotation.. The concept has been defined in various ways, and different approaches have fundamentally differing views on whether it should be used extensively or limitedly, empirically or normatively, and on whether conflict or co-operation is more essential to it. A variety of methods are deployed in politics, which include promoting one's own political views among people, negotiation with other political subjects, making laws, and exercising internal and external force, including ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

2004 Non-fiction Books
4 (four) is a number, numeral (linguistics), numeral and numerical digit, digit. It is the natural number following 3 and preceding 5. It is the smallest semiprime and composite number, and is tetraphobia, considered unlucky in many East Asian cultures. In mathematics Four is the smallest composite number, its proper divisors being and . Four is the sum and product of two with itself: 2 + 2 = 4 = 2 x 2, the only number b such that a + a = b = a x a, which also makes four the smallest squared prime number p^. In Knuth's up-arrow notation, , and so forth, for any number of up arrows. By consequence, four is the only square one more than a prime number, specifically 3, three. The sum of the first four prime numbers 2, two + 3, three + 5, five + 7, seven is the only sum of four consecutive prime numbers that yields an Parity (mathematics), odd prime number, 17 (number), seventeen, which is the fourth super-prime. Four lies between the first proper pair of twin primes, 3, three and ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


We Have Never Been Modern
''We Have Never Been Modern'' is a 1991 book by Bruno Latour, originally published in French as ''Nous n'avons jamais été modernes : Essai d'anthropologie symétrique'' (English translation: 1993). Content The book is an "anthropology of science" that explores the dualistic distinction modernity makes between nature and society. Pre-modern peoples, argues Latour, made no such division. Contemporary matters of public concern such as global warming, the HIV/AIDS pandemic and emerging biotechnologies mix politics, science, popular and specialist discourse to such a degree that a tidy nature/culture dualism is no longer possible. This inconsistency has given rise to post-modern and anti-modern movements. Latour attempts to reconnect the social and natural worlds by arguing that the modernist distinction between nature and culture never existed. In other words, it would be more useful to consider ourselves "amodern" or "nonmodern". He claims we must rework our thinking to conceive ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Science In Action (book)
''Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society'' () is a seminal book by French philosopher, anthropologist and sociologist Bruno Latour first published in 1987. It is written in a textbook style, proposes an approach to the empirical study of science and technology, and is considered a canonical application of actor-network theory. It also entertains ontological conceptions and theoretical discussions making it a research monograph and not a methodological handbook per se. In the introduction, Latour develops the methodological dictum that science and technology must be studied "in action", or "in the making". Because scientific discoveries turn esoteric and difficult to understand, it has to be studied where discoveries are made in practice. For example, Latour turns back time in the case of the discovery of the "double helix". Going back in time, deconstructing statements, machines and articles, it is possible to arrive at a point where scientif ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Steve Woolgar
Stephen William Woolgar (born 14 February 1950) is a British sociologist. He has worked closely with Bruno Latour, with whom he wrote '' Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts'' (1979). Education Stephen Woolgar holds a BA (First Class Honours) in engineering and a PhD in sociology, both at the University of Cambridge. Career Woolgar was Professor of Sociology and Head of the Department of Human Sciences and director of CRICT (Centre for Research into Innovation, Culture and Technology) at Brunel University until 2000. He then held the Chair of Sociology and Marketing at the University of Oxford where he was a fellow at Green Templeton College. He is the former director of Science and Technology Studies within Oxford's Institute for Science, Innovation and Society. He is (2022) now retired from Oxford, and also from Linköping University where he worked more briefly in the late 2010s. Contributions Woolgar is an important contributor in the fields of science ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Laboratory Life
''Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts'' is a 1979 book by sociologists of science Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar. This influential book in the field of science studies presents an anthropological study of Roger Guillemin's scientific laboratory at the Salk Institute. It advances a number of observations regarding how scientific work is conducted, including descriptions of the complex relationship between the routine lab practices performed by scientists, the publication of papers, scientific prestige, research finances and other elements of laboratory life. The book is considered to be one of the most influential works in the laboratory studies tradition within Science and Technology Studies. It is inspired by but not entirely dependent on the ethnomethodological approach. In turn, it served as the inspiration for Actor–network theory (or ANT); many of ANT's core concepts (like transcription, inscription, translation, and the deployment of networks) are pr ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Social Constructivism
Social constructivism is a sociological theory of knowledge according to which human development is socially situated and knowledge is constructed through interaction with others. Like social constructionism, social constructivism states that people work together to construct artifacts. While social constructionism focuses on the artifacts that are created through the social interactions of a group, social constructivism focuses on an individual's learning that takes place because of his or her interactions in a group. A very simple example is an object like a cup. The object can be used for many things, but its shape does suggest some 'knowledge' about carrying liquids (see also Affordance). A more complex example is an online course—not only do the 'shapes' of the software tools indicate certain things about the way online courses should work, but the activities and texts produced within the group as a whole will help shape how each person behaves within that group. A ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Sal Restivo
Sal Restivo (born 1940) is a sociologist/anthropologist. Work Restivo is a leading contributor to science studies and in particular to the sociology of mathematics. His current work focuses on the sociology of mind and brain, and the sociology of god and religion. He has also done work in the sociology of social and sociable robotics. He helped launch the ethnographic study of science in the 1970s, and is a founding member (1975) and former president (1994/95) of the Society for Social Studies of Science. He was a founding member of the Association for Humanist Sociology, and was also involved with Science for the People in its formative years and active in the Radical Science Movement. His pioneering work in the sociology of mathematics has been a key factor in bringing social constructionism into mathematics education and the philosophy of mathematics education. He also helped to develop the science and technology studies curriculum which has become a popular major at universi ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]