Latour On Critique

Latour On Critique

1. Latour discusses Heidegger’s ‘thing’. He says ‘a thing is, in one sense an object out there and, in another sense, an issue very much in there…. At any rate a gathering(pg 233).’ Latour argues that this same word thing designates matters of fact and matters of concern. Hence, ‘The thinging of the thing.’ Latour says “Things have become things again, objects have re entered the arena, the Thing, in which they have to be gathered first in order to exist later as what stands apart.” It seems Latour has a habit of putting words in italics in order for them to become concepts. Perhaps it is in understanding what Latour means by a gathering that reveals this thinging?

2. Latour celebrates a realist attitude that matters of fact are totally implausible, unrealistic, unjustified definitions of what it is to deal with things. (pg 244) Entity aquires physical status as the ultimate texture of nature. A realist attitude might offer a way into interpreting and freeing the Thing where the object becomes actualized and theory is able to avoid irrelevant histories.