Bruno Latour

Bruno Latour ( born June 22, 1947 in Beaune ) is a French sociologist and philosopher. His work focuses on the science and sociology of technology, he is one of the founders of the actor-network theory. He is currently head of scientific research at Sciences Po Paris.

Life

Bruno Latour, who was born into a winemaking family, studied philosophy, anthropology, and biblical exegesis. He received his doctorate in 1975 at the University of Tours. During his military service in Africa, he developed an interest in the social sciences and wrote an ethnographic study of the French methods of industrial education in Abidjan. Published in 1979, Latour, together with the British sociologist Steve Woolgar, Laboratory Life, the result of his field studies in the laboratory of Nobel laureate Roger Guillemin later. This Latour was able to show what roles rhetorical strategies and technical artifacts in the " construction of scientific facts " play. The published 1987 Science in Action widened Bruno Latour this first social constructivist argument made ​​to the field of technology. He developed along with other sociologists, especially Michel Callon and John Law, the actor-network theory, which goes beyond the social constructivism. Other than this the actor-network theory does not believe that art and reality are socially constructed. Rather, it is assumed that the social and mutually ascribe properties and action potential technology / natural in a network. Latour later developed on the basis of these considerations, we have never been modern and Parliament of the things a critique of "modern" society. In 1982 he became professor of sociology at the École Nationale Supérieure des Mines in Paris. In 1987 his habilitation at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. In the Science Wars of the 1990s Latour was heavily criticized, among others, by Alan Sokal. In the hope of the pandora Latour sat apart with this criticism.

In addition to his scientific work in the narrower sense he was with Peter Weibel Curator of Exhibitions Iconoclash (2002) and Making Things Public ( 2005) at the Karlsruhe Centre for Art and Media Technology.

Bruno Latour was awarded on September 28, 2008 in Frankfurt am Main with the Siegfried Unseld Prize, as " a great innovator in the social sciences ", as " border crossers between natural and social sciences, theory and empiricism, morality and politics, the mechanisms of modern production of truth and its consequences studied "as the jury explained.

On February 8, 2010 Bruno Latour received the Culture Prize of the University of Munich society in the Ludwig- Maximilians- University. The jury based its decision on the fact that " Bruno Latour is one of the most influential, the most intelligent and at the same time the most popular representatives of the scientific research (Science Studies) ".

For 2013, Latour was awarded the 4.5 million Norwegian crowns (for ceremony time about 610,000 euros ) doped Holberg Prize. The prize committee praised his " ambitious analysis and reinterpretation of modernity, concerning fundamental categories such as the distinction between modern and pre- modern, nature and society, human and non - human."

Research and theses

First gained fame Bruno Latour by the sociology of science study Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts, which he brought out in 1979 along with Steve Woolgar. Based on a 1975 started, participant observation in California's Salk Institute, he developed a social constructivist view of research cultures. His goal was to explore the " production " of scientific results at its source, namely the laboratory work of the scientists. Latour and Woolgar came to the conclusion the activities of scientists as a special " capital cycle " to grasp by the scientists actively establish the credibility of their work to "accumulate" to recognition ( " Cycle of Credibility "). Within a cycle funds, data, prestige, problem areas, arguments and publications are interconnected and translates as "loans " into each other. ( A scientist has, for example, discovered a problem area, it provides him with potentially arguments that he can convert publications. These it can in turn bring prestige, which may be relevant eg for the raising of financial external funding so that more data can be collected, etc. ) with their study, Latour and Woolgar were, although Latour moved away to modern classics of social science research science later by the social constructivist point of departure.

In the essay Why Has Critique run out of Steam? from the 2004 Latour also expressed concerns about the impact and appropriateness of sozialkonstruktivistischer criticism. In this context he raised the question whether the danger today may no longer be threatened by ideological arguments that are disguised as fact, but rather the reverse: an " excessive distrust " towards facts that would unjustly held for ideological arguments. Among other things, complained Latour on the example of " artificially kept going " controversy about global warming the misuse of social constructivism by climate skeptics: "Dangerous Extremists use precisely the same argument of social construction to destroy evidence hard-won that could save our lives. " ( "dangerous extremists are using the very same argument of social construction to destroy hard -won evidence That Could save our lives. " )

One of the most important studies Latour is his 1993 published book Aramis or the love of technology (which is yet available in French, since 1996 also in English, but only as a summary in German ). In sequences of interview segments and research notes Latour traces the development of the innovative but ultimately unsuccessful transport project " Aramis ", which should combine the advantages of private and public transport by a computerized PRT system. Based on the conflicting interests and aspirations of different stakeholders Latour shows how social and even sentimental aspects - just the "love of art " - involved in the rise and fall of innovations.

Monographs

• With Steve Woolgar: Laboratory Life. The Social Construction of Scientific Facts. Beverly Hills 1979, ISBN 0-691-02832- X.
• Science in Action. How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society. Milton Keynes, 1987, ISBN 0-674-79291-2.
• On Actor Network Theory. A Few Clarifications. In: Social world. 47 (1996 ), pp. 369-381.
• We have never been modern. Attempt a symmetrical anthropology. Frankfurt am Main 1998, ISBN 3-596-13777-2.
• The Parliament of Things: a political ecology. Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-518-41282-5.
• The hope of Pandora. Essays on the Reality of Science. Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-518-29195-5.
• Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor- Network - Theory. Oxford 2005, ISBN 0-19-925604-7. German: A new sociology for a new society. Introduction to actor-network theory. Frankfurt 2007, ISBN 978-3-518-58488-0.

• English: An Inquiry Into Modes of Existence. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, ISBN 0-674-72499-2.