Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy

all discussion on the relations between science and politics, between
nature and society. Now we need to understand the logic of these new
aggregates, which have become, in my view, much more comprehensi-
ble, homogeneous, and logical, and which we are going to be able to
use throughout the rest of this book. To be sure, the terms we are go-
ing to adopt in this section will seem a bit strange. This is because they
do not have the benefit of long use; they have not become conceptual
institutions, forms of life, forms of the new common sense. Just as, for
years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, East Germany and West Ger-
many are still recognized even though they are now part of the same
nation, in the same way we shall often have the impression that the
words we are going to pair up would be more at ease if we separated
them once again, or, conversely, that the words we have separated
would do better together. Readers will have to accept this strangeness,
nevertheless, and judge, one chapter at a time, whether the new sepa-
ration of powers is not highly preferable to the old.
The four essential requirements form two coherent sets, something

A NEW SEPARATION OF POWERS

109

Box 3.1. Recapitulation of the two forms of power and the four requirements

that must allow the collective to proceed according to due process to the explo-

ration of the common world.

power to take into account: how many are we?

First requirement (formerly contained in the notion of fact):You shall not simplify the

number of propositions to be taken into account in the discussion. Perplexity.

Second requirement (formerly contained in the notion of value): You shall make sure

that the number of voices that participate in the articulation of propositions is

not arbitrarily short-circuited. Consultation.

power to arrange in rank order: can we live together?

Third requirement (formerly contained in the notion of value): You shall discuss the

compatibility of new propositions with those which are already instituted, in

such a way as to maintain them all in the same common world that will give

them their legitimate place. Hierarchization.

Fourth requirement (formerly contained in the notion of fact): Once the propositions

have been instituted, you shall no longer question their legitimate presence at

the heart of collective life. Institution.