science studies, see Latour 1999b. Nothing proves that reality and unity are synonyms
( James 1996 [1909]). On the contrary, all those studies tend to take realities and plurali-
ties as synonymous and to show in the work of unification a distinct and properly po-
litical labor.
- One should not hasten to say that the social is going to lack transcendence the
way a pigeon enclosed in a vacuum pump would lack oxygen. We shall discover later
on the transcendence proper to thedemos,but not before Chapter 5. In the meantime, it
suffices to remember that the apparent “mere” immanence of the collective is only an
avatar of the allegory of the Cave. - If sociology had managed to inherit from Gabriel Tarde (1999 repr.; see also
Tarde 1969) as well as from Emile Durkheim, this conception of the social world as as-
sociation would never have been forgotten and sociology would always have known
how to cross the artificial border between nature and society without raising an eye-
brow. In any case, that would have given me more courage to define sociology as the
science of associations (in Latour 2002c and even already in Latour 1988). - This is the expression offered by William James (1996 [1909]).
- See the Conclusion for other roles open to the social sciences besides critical de-
nunciation. - See Rothenberg and Ulvaeus 1999, 36–51 (“Will the Real Chief Seattle Please
Speak Up?”) for the story of one of the frauds through which an anthropological docu-
ment about the Indian Chief Seattle concerning the respect owed to Mother Earth was
invented out of the whole cloth This essential of deep ecology was the invention of a
Yankee preacher! - I see a historical turning point in the recent creation of a chair at the Collège de
France, successor to Levi-Strauss’s chair, for “anthropology of nature,” since that disci-
pline had always before dealt withcultures.See Philippe Descola 2001. - Descola 1996, 97. If there is something more astonishing than the almost total
absence of references to sociology or the social history of the sciences in the works
of the philosophy of ecology, it is the even greater absence of comparative anthro-
pology. - Hence the importance for me of Descola 1994 and especially Descola 1996. The
“monist” anthropologist has to be interested, precisely, in naturalism above all. “The
conclusion seems inescapable: suppress the idea of nature and the whole philosophical
edifice of Western achievements will crumble. But this intellectual cataclysm will not
necessarily leave us facing the great void of Being which Heidegger ceaselessly de-
nounced; it will only reshape our cosmology and render it less exotic for many cultures
who are on the verge of embracing the values of what they believe is modernity”
(Descola 1996, 98). It is not certain, however, as we shall see in Chapter 5, that anthro-
pology, even if it is comparative, even if it is monist, can measure up to the new politi-
cal tasks required by the controversial collection of the aforementioned “cultures.” - We shall see in the final section of Chapter 5 how to replay the primitive scene of
the “first contacts” by staging a more diplomatic encounter. - On this entire invention of the “other” by the double politics of Science, see
Latour 1993. The distinction between “them” and “us” arises entirely from the absolute
difference, introduced into facts and values since “they” would not differentiate be-
NOTES TO PAGES 38–45
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