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An Inquiry into Modes of Existence

Bruno Latour's 2013 anthropological-philosophical synthesis — the multiple modes of existence of the modern world

Bruno Latour · 2013 (French), 2013 (English) · French · Anthropological-philosophical treatise

Tradition: Science and technology studies / Modes-of-existence pluralism

Latour's 2013 anthropological-philosophical synthesis — the multiple modes of existence of the moderns

An Inquiry into Modes of Existence: An Anthropology of the Moderns (2013) is Latour's late synthetic statement, the culmination of decades of work. The book proposes fifteen "modes of existence" — religion, science, law, politics, fiction, attachment, etc. — each with its own truth-conditions, felicity-conditions, and characteristic missteps. The argument is that the modernist failure was to mistake any one mode (typically science) for the universal model of truth-claiming.

Author

Editions cited

  • Enquête sur les modes d'existence (La Découverte, 2012); English: An Inquiry into Modes of Existence: An Anthropology of the Moderns, trans. Catherine Porter (Harvard UP, 2013)
Compare this work

School Embodiments

Pluralism · 25%
Pragmatism · 20%
Analytic Metaphysics / Logical Atomism · 10%
Critical Theory · 10%
Postmodernism · 10%
Process Philosophy · 10%
Realism · 10%
Pluralism 25%

Major pluralist-metaphysical statement — multiple irreducible modes of existence.

"There is no one ontology of the moderns; there are at least fifteen distinct modes of existence, each with its own truth-conditions." (An Inquiry into Modes of Existence)
Pragmatism 20%

Strong pragmatist heritage — explicit engagement with William James's "pluralistic universe."

"James gave us the principle: a pluralistic universe is one in which truth-claims are tested in their own appropriate modes, not measured by a single standard." (An Inquiry into Modes of Existence)
Analytic Metaphysics / Logical Atomism 10%

Engages and challenges analytic-metaphysical conceptions of ontology and existence.

"To ask whether God exists, or numbers exist, or actor-networks exist, is to ask the wrong question; the right question is in what mode they exist." (An Inquiry into Modes of Existence)
Critical Theory 10%

Critical-theoretical work on modernity — the modernist mistake of universal truth-modelling.

"The moderns made one mistake — they thought science was the model of all truth — and have lived with the consequences ever since." (An Inquiry into Modes of Existence)
Postmodernism 10%

Post-structuralist-influenced mode-analysis, though developed against deconstructive scepticism.

"Each mode has its own veridiction — its own way of separating truth from falsehood — and the deconstructive critique that there is no such separation is itself a mode-confusion." (An Inquiry into Modes of Existence)
Process Philosophy 10%

Whiteheadian-process-philosophical resonances — beings as processes, not substances.

"To exist is to be involved in trajectories, in mode-specific patterns of perdurance and transformation." (An Inquiry into Modes of Existence)
Realism 10%

Mode-realist position — each mode is real on its own terms, not reducible to others.

"Modes of existence are real in their own right; the project is not to reduce them but to map them faithfully." (An Inquiry into Modes of Existence)

Internal Tensions

The Modes-of-Existence framework has been variously assessed — defenders see proper pluralist-metaphysical synthesis, critics worry about the rigour of the fifteen-mode catalogue.

⧖

I. Time

The 1990s-2010s research programme of which the book is the synthesis.

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Relational Grain: Continuous Freedom: Non-Deterministic Traversability: Non-Linear Direction: Bi-directional Dimensionality: One
✦

II. Space

The mode-specific spaces in which different truth-claims are pursued.

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Relational Curvature: Flat Dimensionality: Three Locality: Non-Local
◉

III. Matter

The mode-specific materials whose existence-conditions differ across the fifteen modes.

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Relational Conservation: Variable Dimensionality: Three Locality: Non-Local
◎

IV. Observer

The mode-attentive anthropologist of the moderns as proper observer.

Attributes
Time Instance: Single Space Instance: Single Knowledge Extent: Partial Knowledge Retainment: Partial Physicality: Embodied Agency: Active Number: Plural Metaphysical Agency: None
⚡

V. Energy

The intellectual-institutional energies of late-Latourian synthesis.

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Substantival Conservation: Variable Dispersibility: Irreversible
⧉

VI. Information

The mode-by-mode catalogue of truth- and felicity-conditions.

Attributes
Ontological Status: Substantival Cosmic Conservation: Variable Personal Conservation: Variable Granularity: Discrete

Personas with the nearest attribute fingerprint

Historical figures whose own classification on the same six-dimensional grid lands closest to this work's. Computed by attribute-agreement on coordinates both address.

80%
Carneades
8/10
67%
Arcesilaus
6/9
62%
Bruno Latour
21/34
62%
Ernst Mach
21/34
62%
Protagoras of Abdera
21/34
60%
Anaximander of Miletus
18/30

Computed school proximity

The work's attribute fingerprint scored against all schools using the same quiz scorer. Useful as a sanity check on the hand-curated embodiments above.

31%
Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO)
16/26
30%
Nihilism
15/26
30%
Cosmopolitanism
15/26
28%
Postmodernism
15/26
28%
Deconstruction
15/26
28%
Systems Theory
15/26
28%
Anarchism
15/26
28%
Libertarian Socialism
15/26

How An Inquiry into Modes of Existence resolves each dilemma

23 resolved positions across 4 dimensions, including 14 distinctive where the majority of schools go the other way · 34 unaligned.

Each dimension is sorted so minority positions come first. Mainstream positions are folded into an expandable list.

Time · 9 dilemmas · 3 distinctive

Persistence, the future, and the direction of becoming.

Distinctive · only 15% of schools agree (31/202)
Is the universe running out of usable energy?
The heat death of the universe — entropy maxed out, no further work possible — is among the more sobering implications of mainstream physics. Whether it is structurally inescapable depends on what kind of finitude the cosmos has.
Both time and matter are unbounded; 'running out' is misframed.
On this view, the cosmos has neither a temporal horizon nor a material exhaustion point. The framing of running out presupposes bounds that the cosmos doesn't have. Energy gradients perpetuate; new configurations emerge; the categories that make heat-death scary don't apply at the cosmic scale.
Roads not taken Time is unbounded but matter is finite; usable energy can fail without time failing. (47%) · Time both has and lacks bounds depending on the level you ask at; finitude is conventional. (26%) · The cosmos has bounds; heat death is a real horizon. (12%)
Distinctive · only 15% of schools agree (31/202)
Are natural resources fundamentally finite, or only practically so?
Whether we can grow our way out of resource constraints — or whether the cosmos sets limits the economy ultimately must obey — depends on what kind of finitude matter has.
Resources are practically inexhaustible on cosmic scales; terrestrial limits are engineering.
On this view, matter and time are both unbounded at the largest scales. Terrestrial resource limits are real engineering and political constraints but not metaphysical ones; the cosmos can in principle support whatever expansion intelligence is capable of.
Roads not taken Time goes on but matter is bounded; we are eventually constrained even with infinite time. (47%) · The finitude question is level-dependent; resource ethics happens at the level that constrains us. (26%) · Resources are finite in the strict sense; living well requires accepting the limit. (12%)
Distinctive · only 15% of schools agree (31/202)
Could we owe future generations more than is materially possible to provide?
If we owe future people a habitable planet and the material means to flourish, and the cosmos is bounded in ways that make those obligations impossible at some scale, the obligation and the possibility come apart. Where they come apart turns on what kind of finitude we live in.
Both time and matter are unbounded; we cannot in principle owe more than is possible.
On this view, the cosmos has the resources to support whatever flourishing future generations are capable of, given sufficient time and intelligence. The impossibility concern is misplaced; the real questions are about trajectories and choices, not about resource ceilings.
Roads not taken Time is unbounded but matter is not; we can owe more across long time than the matter can provide. (47%) · The owing-and-possibility question is level-dependent; we owe what is appropriate at the level we act on. (26%) · The cosmos is bounded; our obligations to future generations are bounded with it. (12%)
3 mainstream positions
Do you really choose? The future is open and you are a genuine origin of it. 69% Are addicts responsible for their addiction? The addict could have chosen otherwise — that's why recovery is real. 69% Should we hold AI systems responsible for what they do? An AI without a free will is not the kind of thing that can be responsible. 69%
3 unaligned
Do we owe extinct species something we cannot give them? Schools split: 47% / 32% / 17% — How much weight do future people deserve? Schools split: 47% / 32% / 17% — Is regret rational? Schools split: 47% / 32% / 17% —
Matter · 7 dilemmas, all mainstream
Does matter have intrinsic moral standing? — — Is the physical world fully real? — — Is the world created from nothing? — — Should we edit the human germline? — — What is a nation? — — What is money? — — What makes someone male or female? — —

Observer · 37 dilemmas · 5 distinctive

Mind, agency, and the knower's relation to the known.

Distinctive · only 13% of schools agree (27/202)
Is reality fundamentally digital?
Pancomputationalism, Planck-scale quanta, simulation theory and Kabbalistic letter-mysticism all say yes — but for very different reasons. The rest of the atlas says no.
Yes — bits, quanta, computational substrate.
On this view, the world is at bottom discrete and law-governed, with no metaphysical agency above or behind the substrate. Reality reduces to bits or their physical analogues; the continuous appearance of fields and flows is coarse-graining over discrete underlying structure.
Roads not taken No — continuous divine sustaining act, the Tao that knows no joints, the One's self-disclosure. (44%) · No — continuous fields, classical limits, analog deep structure. (37%) · Yes — but divinely-discrete: divine letters, momentary cognitions, atomistic theism. (6%)
Distinctive · only 13% of schools agree (27/202)
Are there indivisible units of experience?
Whiteheadian actual occasions, Buddhist moments of mind, Kabbalistic letter-cognitions, IIT phi-units — or the unbroken Jamesian stream? The atomism of experience cuts across naturalism and theism alike.
Yes — naturalist quanta of experience.
On this view, experience comes in discrete units defined by the substrate: information-theoretic phi-units, computational frames, discrete neural events. There is no further metaphysical agency that knits them; the appearance of a stream is the way many discrete events present to introspection.
Roads not taken No — continuous divine presence; consciousness is the unbroken witness. (44%) · No — continuous Jamesian stream, phenomenological lived time. (37%) · Yes, theistic atomism — actual occasions, divine letters, momentary cognitions. (6%)
Distinctive · only 13% of schools agree (27/202)
Is memory stored or reconstructed?
Engrams and traces — or continuous re-narration each time you remember? The cognitive-science debate has a theological cousin: divine memory holding each hair, or the ancestors' continuous remembering.
Stored — discrete engrams, traces, weights.
On this view, memory is the readout of discrete information stored in the substrate: engrams, synaptic weights, file-like records. Reconstruction at retrieval is real but secondary; without the stored bits there would be nothing to reconstruct from.
Roads not taken Held in continuous divine or ancestral remembering — neither stored discretely nor purely reconstructed. (44%) · Reconstructed — continuous re-narrating, no fixed engrams. (37%) · Stored — in divine memory's discrete particulars, or in karmic-record units. (6%)
Distinctive · only 15% of schools agree (30/202)
What is our place in nature?
Whether humans are masters of nature, members of nature, or makers of nature is not a question climate science can settle. It depends on what nature is, what we are, and what kind of relationship is possible between us.
Embedded in a web — partners with the more-than-human world.
On these views, humans were never outside nature, and the question of our 'place in' it is the question of how to live within the relations that already constitute us. Plants, animals, rivers, ancestors, descendants are not resources or stage scenery; they are kin and …
Roads not taken Active in a real nature — we cultivate, steward, transform. (48%) · Nature is partly what we make of it — concepts, practices, and minds shape the world. (15%) · Subject to a real natural order we did not make. (12%)
Distinctive · only 15% of schools agree (30/202)
Should we colonize space?
The drive to extend human presence beyond Earth is sometimes framed as the next chapter of stewardship, sometimes as hubris, sometimes as escape from problems we ought to solve here. Which it is depends on what we take our relationship to nature to be.
Colonisation continues the work that ended the wisdom of seven-generation thinking.
On relational views, space colonisation is the abstract endpoint of the same pattern that produced ecological crisis on Earth: humans treating themselves as separate from the more-than-human world they are actually inside. To go to Mars in the spirit of leaving Earth is to leave …
Roads not taken Cultivating worlds beyond Earth is the next form of stewardship. (48%) · The 'space frontier' is partly what we make of it. (15%) · Nature includes its limits; colonisation is bounded by what the cosmos allows. (12%)
8 mainstream positions
Is genetic engineering of food stewardship or domination? Editing the genome cuts into the relational fabric; we should be very slow. 15% What happens to "you" when you die? You were always a pattern. The pattern propagates. 18% Can prayer for someone far away affect them? Prayer changes the pray-er, not the prayed-for. 49% Are coincidences ever more than coincidence? Coincidence is exactly what the math says it is. The pattern is in the noticer. 49% Is divine omniscience compatible with human freedom? The observer is in time; foreknowledge across times raises real freedom problems. 46% Does meditation reveal something genuinely timeless? Meditators are bounded observers reporting unusual brain states; the 'timeless' is metaphorical. 46% Does prayer change God's mind? If there is an addressee at all, it is in time; prayer is communication, and may genuinely change what comes next. 46% Are the dead morally present to the living? Observers are bounded by their own moment, and no further agency makes the dead present. 44%
24 unaligned
Can a civilization recover from collapse? Schools split: 66% / 17% / 8% — Could a fetal brain organoid in a petri dish be conscious? Schools split: 32% / 29% / 11% — Could an AI have a mind that matters? Schools split: 30% / 30% / 15% — Could causation work backwards? Schools split: 68% / 17% / 8% — Do animals have moral standing comparable to humans? Schools split: 32% / 29% / 11% — Does an LLM 'know' the things it correctly produces? Schools split: 32% / 28% / 17% — Does environmental harm in another country bind me morally? Schools split: 50% / 29% / 12% — Does history have a direction or meaning? Schools split: 37% / 23% / 19% — Does the second law of thermodynamics mean something morally? Schools split: 66% / 17% / 8% — How is knowledge of reality produced? Schools split: 25% / 17% / 13% — If a teleporter copied and destroyed you, would you have survived? Schools split: 36% / 29% / 14% — Is environmental damage ever truly permanent? Schools split: 66% / 17% / 8% — Is religious revelation a real source of knowledge? Schools split: 32% / 28% / 17% — Is salvation, liberation, or fulfillment individual or communal? Schools split: 15% / 14% / 4% — Is the arrow of time a real feature of the cosmos, or only of how we describe it? Schools split: 68% / 17% / 8% — Is the asymmetry between memory and anticipation a real feature of time, or just of us? Schools split: 68% / 17% / 8% — Is the late-stage dementia patient still the person their spouse married? Schools split: 36% / 29% / 14% — Is truth universal, tradition-bound, situated, or constructed? Schools split: 65% / 16% / 10% — Should we trust expert testimony when we can't verify it? Schools split: 32% / 28% / 17% — What is marriage? Schools split: 54% / 16% / 15% — What kind of religious-theological authority does the tradition recognize? Schools split: 44% / 16% / 14% — What makes someone the same person over time? Schools split: 36% / 29% / 14% — When does a person begin? Schools split: 54% / 16% / 15% — Who is the moral primary — the individual, the community, the cosmos, the class, or the species? Schools split: 40% / 28% / 14% —

Information · 4 dilemmas · 4 distinctive

Pattern, memory, and what is preserved or lost.

Distinctive · only 9% of schools agree (18/202)
Is anything truly lost when someone forgets?
The memory you don't retrieve, the conversation you can't remember, the face you no longer recognise — is the forgetting a loss of something real, or just the routine operation of a finite mind?
Information persists or doesn't depending on whether the holder is sustained.
On these views, conservation is not a flat cosmic law but a function of the conditions that hold. Memory persists where it is sustained — by divine attention, by community, by ritual, by practice — and is genuinely lost where it isn't. The asymmetry between …
Roads not taken Information is lost when a mind forgets; matter and energy continue, but the pattern is gone. (51%) · Information is conserved — the personal pattern is held even when an individual mind loses it. (39%) · Forgetting is the cosmic case, not the exception; nothing is conserved. (1%)
Distinctive · only 9% of schools agree (18/202)
Does deleting your data online destroy something real?
Account deletion, the right to be forgotten, the obsolescence of file formats, the slow decay of digital archives — whether any of this destroys something that was real depends on whether information is the kind of thing that can be destroyed.
Information persists where it is held; deletion releases what isn't held elsewhere.
On these views, information persists or doesn't depending on whether something is sustaining it. What is held in divine memory or in active communal practice continues; what is held only by the deleted artifact is genuinely released. The variable conservation maps onto a variable moral …
Roads not taken Information is genuinely lost when the substrate that hosted it goes; deletion really destroys. (51%) · Information at the cosmic level isn't destroyed; deletion only obscures access. (39%) · Nothing is fundamentally conserved; deletion is just routine impermanence. (1%)
Distinctive · only 9% of schools agree (18/202)
Could the dead, in principle, be brought back?
If we had perfect information about who someone was — their connectome, their behavioral patterns, their history — could we, in principle, restore them? The question is partly engineering, but the ceiling on the engineering is metaphysical.
What is held by God or sustaining practice can be restored; what isn't can't.
On these views, the conservation of personal information depends on what is sustaining it. The Eastern Orthodox doctrine of resurrection holds that the person is preserved in God's memory and restored in the resurrection by divine action operating on what God has held. What is …
Roads not taken The information dissipates with the substrate; restoration is in principle impossible. (51%) · The information that constitutes a person is conserved; restoration is in principle possible. (39%) · Nothing of what was can be restored; restoration is wishful framing. (1%)
Distinctive · only 9% of schools agree (18/202)
Is forgiveness ontologically possible?
When someone forgives, does the offense actually go away — erased, undone, no longer a fact — or does forgiveness reframe a wrong that persists exactly as it always was?
The offense persists where sustained and releases where conditionally absolved; forgiveness is real ontological work.
On these views, conservation is not a flat cosmic law but a function of what sustains. An offense persists where it is held — by holding-on, by ritual continuation, by divine attention to a particular debt — and is genuinely released where it is conditionally …
Roads not taken The offense is locally constituted by its substrate; when the substrate dissolves, the offense genuinely passes away. (51%) · The offense persists ontologically; forgiveness is real moral work, but it doesn't erase what was. (39%) · Nothing is preserved; the offense is impermanent, and holding it is the suffering. (1%)
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