in inventing, through the intermediary of instruments and the artifice
of the laboratory, thedisplacement of point of viewthat is so indispens-
able to public life. How can one take new beings into account if one
cannot radically change the position of one’s gaze? Science may claim
to have established residence nowhere, but that is not where the sci-
ences, in the plural, live. They do much better than offer a “detached”
point of view, as if they could abstract themselves and attain a view
from nowhere: on the contrary, they make it possible to shift view-
points constantly by means of experiments, instruments, models, and
theories—and if they succeed in considering the world from the van-
tage point of Sirius, it is through the intermediary of telescopes, inter-
stellar soundings, spectrographic rays, and the theories of physics.
Such is their particular form of relativism—that is, relationism. So,
the sciences are going to put into the common basket their skills, their
ability to provide instruments and equipment, their capacity to record
and listen to the swarming of different imperceptible propositions
that demand to be taken into account.
They will also contribute to the work of consultation (no. 2)
through a competency that has allowed them to get ahead of all the
POLITICS OF NATURE
138Scenarization of the totality6Perplexity ConsultationInstitution Hierarchy124 3UPPER HOUSELOWER HOUSESkill (for example,
of scientists)5 Separation of
powersFigure 4.1 Each of the skills developed by a profession (here, that of the sciences) con-
tributes equally to the six functions of the collective.