Latour on Critique

When Latour posits “things have become things again”, he is referring to the entrance of the inanimate ‘object’ into the public arena, and its subsequent transformation into the malleable, amorphous ‘thing’. Such a transformation is important from a critical standpoint, because it renders the once concrete ‘object’ susceptible to critique and the influence of external forces. Latour provides an etymological basis for this emphasis on semantic distinction by tracing the roots of the word ‘thing’ to its denoting of ancient parliaments, to illustrate the association of the term with the concepts of dialogue and the gathering. A gathering, by its very definition implies the presence of multiple voices, and it is this event that plays a significant role in triggering the evolutionary process that transforms the ‘object’ into the ‘thing’.

The realist approach, as espoused by Latour, is a new type of empiricism; one that also occupies itself with matters of concern, rather than focusing exclusively on matters of fact. The Enlightenment fostered a milieu whereby the impetus of critique was aimed at debunking those phenomena which were unable to be supported by science, and now matters of fact, have in turn, been ‘eaten up by the same debunking impetus.’[p232] As a result, Latour challenges the critical mind to embrace implausibility in order to remain relevant in the contemporary age.