Politics of nature : how to bring the sciences into democracy / Bruno Latour ; translated by Catherine Porter.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Latour, Bruno.

Standardized Title:

Politiques de la nature. English

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Political ecology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 307 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2004.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Acknowledgments

Contents

Introduction: What Is to Be Done with Political Ecology?

1. Why Political Ecology Has to Let Go of Nature

2. How to Bring the Collective Together

3. A New Separation of Powers

4. Skills for the Collective

5. Exploring Common Worlds

Conclusion: What Is to Be Done? Political Ecology!

Summary of the Argument (for Readers in a Hurry . . .)

Glossary

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780674039964

0674039963

OCLC:

923112721