Synopses & Reviews
In this new book, Bruno Latour offers answers to questions raised in
We Have Never Been Modern, a work that interrogated the connections between nature and culture. If not modern, he asked, what
have we been, and what values should we inherit? Over the past twenty-five years, Latour has developed a research protocol different from the actor-network theory with which his name is now associated--a research protocol that follows the different types of connectors that provide specific truth conditions. These are the connectors that prompt a climate scientist challenged by a captain of industry to appeal to the
institution of science, with its army of researchers and mountains of data, rather than to "capital-S Science" as a higher authority. Such modes of extension--or modes of existence, Latour argues here--account for the many differences between law, science, politics, and other domains of knowledge.
Though scientific knowledge corresponds to only one of the many possible modes of existence Latour describes, an unrealistic vision of science has become the arbiter of reality and truth, seducing us into judging all values by a single standard. Latour implores us to recover other modes of existence in order to do justice to the plurality of truth conditions that Moderns have discovered throughout their history. This systematic effort of building a new philosophical anthropology presents a completely different view of what Moderns have been, and provides a new basis for opening diplomatic encounters with other societies at a time when all societies are coping with ecological crisis.
Review
[An Inquiry into Modes of Existence] is not just a book; it is also a project in interactive metaphysics. In other words, a book, plus website... Intrigued readers of Latour's text can go online [http://www.modesofexistence.org/] and find themselves drawn into a collaborative project. Collective collaboration--some would call it 'crowdsourcing'--is rare in philosophy, but Latour, a sociologist and anthropologist by training, is used to collaboration with scientists... Latour's work makes the world--sorry, worlds--interesting again. And, best of all, it is a project to which you can attach yourself. Stephen Muecke
Review
Magnificent...An Inquiry into Modes of Existence shows that [Latour] has lost none of his astonishing fertility as a thinker, or his skill and wit as a writer...Latour's main message--that rationality is 'woven from more than one thread'--is intended not just for the academic seminar, but for the public square--and the public square today is global as never before. Thanks to what Bruno Latour describes as the 'formidable discoveries of modernism,' we have come to share a world of material interdependence and incessant communication, just at the time when the threat of climate change gives desperate pathos to our common stewardship of the planet. Latour speaks with urgency when he asks us all to set aside the script of secular modernity--to stop insulting each other and learn to pluralize, apologize and ecologize. We must prepare ourselves for diplomacy, he says: we must talk to one another or die. Los Angeles Review of Books
Review
and#8220;In a world where concepts are so often deployed in an ad hoc fashion, half explored before being displaced by others, it is immensely refreshing to encounter such serious and sustained attention to the building blocks of inquiryand#8212;and to the responsibilities thereby incurred. Designs on the Contemporary is a work of profound importance to the philosophy of anthropology. In conjunction with Rabinowand#8217;s other works, it creates a nonpareil, a configuration of thought with no equal.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Designs on the Contemporary is the narration of a quest, and the quest is double. In one part, it seeks to formulate the means by which and the criteria according to which the anthropologist can legitimately claim to be a diagnostician of our contemporary forms of lifeand#8212;forms marked, among other things, by their irreducible indeterminacy. In another part, it seeks to identify just those forms of contemporary life for whose adequate diagnosis anthropological fieldwork is a necessary point of departure. The latter aim proves constantly to impose itself on the former, and the former aim constantly to have to be reformulated in the face not merely of the recalcitrance but also the inspiration that its encounters yield. Thereand#8217;s an epistemological, ontological, and ethical moral to this story: that collaborative inquiry is essential to coming anthropologically to terms with who we arenand#8217;t any longer, who we are, and who we might be. Were anthropologists to take this seriously, anthropology would be a very different discipline than the discipline it is todayand#8212;all the calls for collaboration notwithstanding. Letand#8217;s hope they take it seriously.and#8221; and#160;and#160;
Review
andldquo;Modes of Uncertaintyand#160;gives an impressive view of powerful and original scholarship, precise research, and strong linkages between theorizing and analyzing data, addressing the question of how humans in a variety of settings are dealing in concrete ways with unknown but highly important near futures that are directly linked to, but not controlled by, their actions.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Modes of Uncertainty provides an acute, bracing, and necessary exploration of key contemporary theoretical debates andmdash;and assumptionsandmdash;around risk, insecurity, and uncertainty. Combining a crisp and clarifying analytical framing with a set of textured and revelatory case studies ranging across multiple domains, this volume isandmdash;in no uncertain termsandmdash;an invaluable contribution.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Modes of Uncertainty is devoted to addressing a distinctive mode of practical wisdom that has become increasingly integral to the visions and pursuits animating our prevailing institutional orders. Its guiding presumption is that the future is unpredictable, a matter of unforeseen and unforeseeable twists and turns. Its strategies rest not on denying or seeking to dispel our according ignorance of what is to come, but instead to cope with and manage it. The contributors investigate its manifestations from one concrete case to the next. Their results demonstrate with sparkling analytical clarity what anthropology has to teach us about our contemporaneity.andrdquo;
Synopsis
In a new approach to philosophical anthropology, Bruno Latour offers answers to questions raised in We Have Never Been Modern: If not modern, what have we been, and what values should we inherit? An Inquiry into Modes of Existence offers a new basis for diplomatic encounters with other societies at a time of ecological crisis.
Synopsis
Designs on the Contemporaryand#160;pursues the challenge of how to design and put into practice strategies for inquiring into the intersections of philosophy and anthropology. Drawing on the conceptual repertoires of Max Weber, Michel Foucault, and John Dewey, among others, Paul Rabinow and Anthony Stavrianakis reflect on and experiment with how to give form to anthropological inquiry and its aftermath, with special attention to the ethical formation and ramifications of this mode of engagement.and#160;
and#160; and#160; and#160; and#160;
The authors continue their prior explorations of the contemporary in past works: How to conceptualize, test, and give form to breakdowns of truth and conduct, as well as how to open up possibilities for the remediation of such breakdowns. They offer a surprising and contrasting pair of case studies of two figures who engaged with contemporary breakdowns: Salman Rushdie and Gerhard Richter. Approaching Richterand#8217;s artistic struggles with form and technique in the long wake of modernism and Rushdieand#8217;s struggles to find a narrative formand#151;as well as a form for livingand#151;to respond to the Iranian fatwa issued against him, they show how both men formulated different new approaches to anthropology for the twenty-first century.
Synopsis
The notion of risk, while receiving a great deal of scholarly attention, cannot fully explain the forms of uncertainty that we see around the world today. Distinguishing between danger, risk, and uncertainty, the essays in this book, by a group of leading junior scholars, consider problems of uncertainty in various domainsand#150;finance and markets, security and humanitarianism, environment and health. While not ignoring previous scholarship on risk, this volume provides new analytical tools and case studies for understanding the many forms of uncertainty prevalent today. What kinds of truth claims about the future are common? What interventions are considered appropriate? What modes of subjectivity are produced within these policy frameworks? Modes of Uncertainty clears the path to answering these questions, among others, advancing our understanding of the forms of uncertainty that concern us all.
Synopsis
Modes of Uncertainty offers groundbreaking ways of thinking about danger, risk, and uncertainty from an analytical and anthropological perspective. Our world, the contributors show, is increasingly populated by forms, practices, and events whose uncertainty cannot be reduced to riskand#151;and thus it is vital to distinguish between the two. Drawing the lines between them, they argue that the study of uncertainty should not focus solely on the appearance of new risks and dangersand#151;which no doubt aboundand#151;but also on how uncertainty itself should be defined, and what the implications might be for policy and government.
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
Organizing contributions from various anthropological subfieldsand#151;including economics, business, security, humanitarianism, health, and environmentand#151;Limor Samimian-Darash and Paul Rabinow offer new tools with which to consider uncertainty, its management, and the differing modes of subjectivity appropriate to it. Taking up policies and experiences as objects of research and analysis, the essays here seek a rigorous inquiry into a sound conceptualization of uncertainty in order to better confront contemporary problems. Ultimately, they open the way for a participatory anthropology that asks crucial questions about our contemporary state.and#160;
Synopsis
and#160;This book is the final installment of three volumes to grow out of Rabinowandrsquo;s and his studentsandrsquo; experiences with attempting to introduce an ethical and philosophical component into research in synthetic biology. The first book, co-authored with Gaymon Bennett, Designing Human Practices (2012), is a more or less descriptive analysis of the nitty-gritty of Rabinow and Co.andrsquo;s tenure at SynBERC, a large synthetic biology engineering center in Berkeley. The second, Demands of the Day (2013), co-authored with Anthony Stavrianakis, did not focus directly on the day to day workings of SynBERC but rather on the implications that could be drawn out for anthropological inquiry. Briefly, the present work, also co-authored with Stavrianakis, Designs on the Contemporary, probes deeper than Demands into the question of how pragmatic anthropological knowledge should be produced. Taking inspiration from Weber, Foucault and Dewey, among others, the authors reflect on the labor involved in andldquo;giving formandrdquo; to the contemporary, always attentive to the importance of the ethical substance of the inquirer. Their proposition for how to practice anthropology in a contemporary manner tacks between philosophy and anthropology. It is a kind of philosophy understood as a persistent practice of anthropology and anthropology understood as a persistent practice of philosophy. The practice is philosophical in so far as it foregrounds various forms of truth and conduct as a problem and a check on what one is doing; it is anthropological in so far as it insists on form-giving as disciplined and engaged inquiry that is prior to the traditional focus on beliefs, symbols, and values. Such a practice, they argue, prepares us to engage the contemporary and give it form.and#160;
About the Author
Paul Rabinow is professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author or coauthor of many books, including
The Accompaniment and
Designing Human Practices, both published by the University of Chicago Press.
Anthony Stavrianakis received his PhD in anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. Together they are coauthors of
Demands of the Day, also published by the University of Chicago Press
Table of Contents
Preface
Part One: After the Actual
Introduction
One. Problematization of the Modern: Bios
Two. Logic
Three. Forms
Part Two: Toward the Contemporary
Introduction
Four. The Rushdie Affair: Truth and Conduct
Five. Gerhard Richterand#8217;s Pathos
Conclusion: Checking the Contemporary
Terms of Engagement
Notes
Bibliography
Index