tween the two, that confuses the order of their society with the order of the world,
whereas “we” know how to differentiate between the two orders. In fact, the distinc-
tion between “us” and “them” is no more than the exportation of the fact-value distinc-
tion. Thus we change from one alterity to another as soon as we change from one con-
ception of Science to another.
- Here I am politicizing Whitehead’s critique of the distinction between primary
and secondary qualities, as well as of the strangeness of the role given to the human
mind: “The theory of psychic additions would treat the greenness [of a blade of grass]
as a psychic addition furnished by the perceiving mind, and would leave to nature
merely the molecules and the radiant energy which influence the mind towards that
perception” (Whitehead 1920, 29–30). The same critique, based on Whitehead and
James, of the division between primary and secondary attributes is also found in Naess
1988, but with a very different solution. - See the enormous analytic work summed up in Fox-Keller 1986 on the link be-
tween feminist questions and science studies; see also Schiebinger 1999. - The whole interest of Donna Haraway’s work stems from the fact that she has
brought together two projects, that of feminism and that of political ecology, not in the
simplistic form Carolyn Merchant gave them (1980, 1992), but by taking as the central
point of her investigation in each case the question of science and its uncertainties. See
in particular Haraway 1989 and Haraway 1991. For a fascinating illustration of the
combined debates of feminism, science studies, and sociobiology, see the arguments
brought together in Strum and Fedigan 2000. - Here I am borrowing Whitehead’s striking expression of the bifurcation of na-
ture: “What I am essentially protesting against is the bifurcation of nature into two sys-
tems of reality, which, in so far as they are real, are real in different senses. One reality
would be the entities such as electrons which are the study of speculative physics. This
would be the reality which is there for knowledge; although on this theory it is never
known. For what is known is the other sort of reality, which is the byplay of the mind.
Thus there would be two natures, one is the conjecture and the other is the dream”
(Whitehead 1920, 30). Whitehead nevertheless carefully maintains the notion of na-
ture, which, for reasons of political philosophy that do not concern him, I prefer not to
retain; but see Isabelle Stengers 2002. - It is to this pathetic choice that Luc Ferry and those who engage in polemics
against him would like to reduce us. See, on the contrary, the research that has been
very important to me conducted by Cussins 1996 on the subjectivities of hospitals, and
by Emilie Gomart (1999, 2002) on subjects’ experimentation with drugs. - How to Bring the Collective Together
- I had called this Republic a “Parliament of Things” at the end of my inquiry into
the Moderns (Latour 1993). Since then, thanks to a contract with the Ministry of the
Environment, I have had the opportunity to study “local parliaments on water,” water
district councils charged by the law on water conservation and quality to represent
portions of rivers—see Latour and Le Bourhis 1995.
NOTES TO PAGES 45–54
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