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Persona #187

Bruno Latour

1947–2022
French sociologist and philosopher; founder of actor-network theory; principal twentieth-century philosopher of science studies

Actor-network theory — non-humans as actors; "we have never been modern"

Attribute Fingerprint

Rows where personas disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid (32 attributes) is shown.

Attribute Bruno Latour
Time · Extent Infinite
Time · Ontological Status Relational
Time · Grain Continuous
Time · Freedom Non-Deterministic
Time · Traversability Linear
Time · Dimensionality One
Time · Direction Uni-directional
Space · Extent Infinite
Space · Ontological Status Relational
Space · Curvature Flat
Space · Dimensionality Three
Space · Locality Local
Matter · Extent Infinite
Matter · Ontological Status Substantival
Matter · Conservation Conserved
Matter · Dimensionality Three
Matter · Locality Local
Observer · Time Instance Single
Observer · Space Instance Single
Observer · Knowledge Extent Mediated
Observer · Knowledge Retainment Partial
Observer · Physicality Embodied
Observer · Agency Active
Observer · Number Plural
Observer · Metaphysical Agency None
Observer · Moral Authority Constructed
Observer · Theological Method N/A
Energy · Extent Infinite
Energy · Ontological Status Substantival
Energy · Conservation Conserved
Energy · Dispersibility Irreversible
Information · Ontological Status Relational
Information · Cosmic Conservation Conserved
Information · Personal Conservation Non-conserved
Information · Granularity Continuous

Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence

What each persona's writings reveal about their stance on each of the six dimensions.

Time

Bruno Latour

Relational time of network assemblage; the network has its own temporality.

Space

Bruno Latour

Relational space of networks and translation; the lab, the field site, the Earth.

Matter

Bruno Latour

Substantival material actors in networks alongside human and discursive actors.

Observer

Bruno Latour

Plural human and non-human actor-observers. Mediated knowledge through inscription devices. No metaphysical agency in the late religious-ecological work's direct sense.

Energy

Bruno Latour

Standard physics with attention to its political-material assembly.

Information

Bruno Latour

Relational information flowing through actor-networks.

Internal Tensions

Where each persona's working synthesis strains against itself.

Bruno Latour

Latour was attacked from the Right (Sokal-Bricmont) as part of "fashionable nonsense" that licensed climate denial through epistemological constructivism; this charge was always unfair (Latour explicitly opposed climate denial and spent his late career on climate politics) but it stuck. The late ecological turn divided his earlier science-studies admirers, some of whom thought he had become too programmatic and too political.