A major work by one of the more innovative thinkers of our time, Politics of Nature does nothing less than establish the conceptual context for political ecology--transplanting the terms of ecology into more fertile philosophical soil than its proponents have thus far envisioned. Bruno Latour announces his project dramatically: ""Political ecology has nothing whatsoever to do with nature, this jumble of Greek philosophy, French Cartesianism and American parks."" Nature, he asserts, far from being an obvious domain of reality, is a way of assembling political order without due process. Thus, his book proposes an end to the old dichotomy between nature and society--and the constitution, in its place, of a collective, a community incorporating humans and nonhumans and building on the experiences of the sciences as they are actually practiced.
In a critique of the distinction between fact and value, Latour suggests a redescription of the type of political philosophy implicated in such a ""commonsense"" division--which here reveals itself as distinctly uncommonsensical and in fact fatal to democracy and to a healthy development of the sciences. Moving beyond the modernist institutions of ""mononaturalism"" and ""multiculturalism,"" Latour develops the idea of ""multinaturalism,"" a complex collectivity determined not by outside experts claiming absolute reason but by ""diplomats"" who are flexible and open to experimentation.
By:
Bruno Latour
Translated by:
Catherine Porter
Imprint: Harvard University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Edition: 1
Dimensions:
Height: 235mm,
Width: 156mm,
Spine: 19mm
Weight: 435g
ISBN: 9780674013476
ISBN 10: 0674013476
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 30 April 2004
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Introduction: What Is to Be Done with Political Ecology? 1. Why Political Ecology Has to Let Go of Nature First, Get Out of the Cave Ecological Crisis or Crisis of Objectivity? The End of Nature The Pitfall of ""Social Representations"" of Nature The Fragile Aid of Comparative Anthropology What Successor for the Bicameral Collective? 2. How to Bring the Collective Together Difficulties in Convoking the Collective First Division: Learning to Be Circumspect with Spokespersons Second Division: Associations of Humans and Nonhumans Third Division between Humans and Nonhumans: Reality and Recalcitrance A More or Less Articulated Collective The Return to Civil Peace 3. A New Separation of Powers Some Disadvantages of the Concepts of Fact and Value The Power to Take into Account and the Power to Put in Order The Collective's Two Powers of Representation Verifying That the Essential Guarantees Have Been Maintained A New Exteriority 4. Skills for the Collective The Third Nature and the Quarrel between the Two ""Eco"" Sciences Contribution of the Professions to the Procedures of the Houses The Work of the Houses The Common Dwelling, the Oikos 5. Exploring Common Worlds Time's Two Arrows The Learning Curve The Third Power and the Question of the State The Exercise of Diplomacy War and Peace for the Sciences Conclusion: What Is to Be Done? Political Ecology! Summary of the Argument (for Readers in a Hurry...) Glossary Notes Bibliography Index
Bruno Latour was Professor Emeritus at Sciences Po Paris. He was the 2021 Kyoto Prize Laureate in Arts and Philosophy and was awarded the 2013 Holberg International Memorial Prize.
Reviews for Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy
Latour's politics is procedural and fluid, not driven by a desire to establish domains. If for no other reason than this, Politics of Nature is important for environmental philosophy. Environmentalism is in crisis partly because of its unexamined attachment to a declensionist narrative about humans and nonhumans. Philosophers too often fall into this trap as well. As we struggle with the question, What is to be done..., many of us expand this question to include the phrase . ..in a world at the tipping point of environmental disaster? We could do worse than allow Latour to remind us that we need to try to not start with what has been lost, but what can be gained. He urges us to make associations, work toward a more universal collective, create a genuinely progressive future, and build the attendant skills to assemble our demos into something better and more interesting than it is now. Isn't this what always must be done? -- Randall Honold Environmental Philosophy (01/01/2007)
- Nominated for Harold and Margaret Sprout Award 2005
- Nominated for Rachel Carson Prize & Ludwik Fleck Prize 2005
- Nominated for Robert K. Merton Book Award 2005
