Politics of Nature

How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy

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by Bruno LaTour,

Translated by Catherine Porter

Harvard University Press

Due/Published March 2004, 320 pages, paper

ISBN 0674013476

Politics of Nature seeks to do 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.

Contents

 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 Exteriority4. 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

Review

“Let me put it bluntly: political ecology has nothing to do with nature. To put it even more strongly, at no time in its short history has political ecology had anything to do with nature, with its defense, or protection.” -- Bruno Latour

No doubt, these are strong words from Bruno Latour (see above), however, his objections to political ecology and environmental movements are motivated by philosophical concerns rather than political or economic reasons. In his bold new work, Bruno Latour argues that notions of nature and politics have been developed over centuries in ways that make any juxtaposition, any combination of the terms impossible. Latour offers new ways to think about the concepts of nature, politics, and the role of science in shaping our understanding of the environment. He also proposes an end to the dichotomy of nature and society, replacing it with the idea of a collective that incorporates humans and nonhumans. While Latour sets his aim on the epistemological and philosophical issues connected to science and politics, including the distinction between fact and value, he is also keenly aware of the practical and political implications of his argument. Eschewing the prophetic and prophetic tone that frequently hangs over discussions about the environment, Latour offers an intriguing and invaluable vision of political ecology.