To convene the collective, we shall thus no longer be interested in na-
ture and society, but only in knowing whether the propositions that
compose itare more or less well articulated(p. 82). The collective as
finally convened allows areturn to civil peace(p. 87), by redefining poli-
tics as the progressive composition of a good common world.
chapter 3:Do we not find the same confusion again with the col-
lective as we did with the abandoned notion of nature, namely, prema-
ture unification? In order to avoid this risk, we are going to seeka new
separation of powers(p. 91) that makes it possible to redifferentiate the
collective. It is impossible, of course, to go back to the old separation
betweenfacts and values,forthat separation has only disadvantages
(p. 95), even though it seems indispensable to public order. To speak
about “facts” amounts to mixing a morality that is impotent in the face
of established facts with a hierarchy of priorities that no longer has
the right to eliminate any fact. It paralyzes both the sciences and mo-
rality.
We restore order to these assemblies if we distinguish two other
powers: the power to take into account, and the power to put in order
(p. 102). The first power is going to retain from facts the requirement
of perplexity, and from values the requirement of consultation. The
second is going to recuperate from values the requirement of hierar-
chy, and from facts the requirement of institution*. In place of the
impossible distinction between facts and values, we are thus going to
havetwo powers of representation of the collective(p. 108) that are at
once distinct and complementary. While the fact-value distinction ap-
peared reassuring, it did not allow us tomaintain the essential guaran-
tees(p. 116) that the new Constitution requires by inventing a State of
law for propositions. The collective no longer construes itself as a soci-
ety in a single nature, for it createsa new exteriority(p. 121), defined as
the totality of what it has excluded by the power of putting in order
and which obliges the power of taking into account to go back to
work. The dynamics of the progressive composition of the common
world thus differ as much from the politics of humans as from that of
nature under the old Constitution.
chapter 4:It now becomes possible to define theskills of the collec-
tive(p. 128), provided that we first avoidthe quarrel of the two “eco”-
sciences(p. 131), which would confuse political ecology with political
economics. If economics presents itself as the summing-up of the col-
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT
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