discovery of acknowledged facts, it loses some of its trenchancy, its arbitrariness, and
becomes the “discovery” of the solution that isimmanentin the situation. Machiavelli
becomes a scientist: the Sovereign becomes a lab technician; the word “decision”
changes meaning and no longer alternates between the sovereign arbitration of the
facts and the arbitrariness of the Sovereign.
- In Chapter 5, I shall come back to this essential definition of the enemy that
must not be humiliated because it might become an ally. In effect, we are going to make
it a synonym for externalization. - The Plato ofGorgias,still close to the political capacities that he is in the process
of stifling one by one, uses the superb expression “autophuos,” self-generation (513b) to
describe and mock this immanence particular to the conditions of felicity of public life
(Latour 1999b). On this vocabulary of sophistics, see Cassin 1995. John Dewey trans-
lated this skill particular to politicians most directly with his very reflexive notion of
“public,” an artificial elaboration that models for itself the unexpected consequences of
its actions (Dewey 1954 [1927]). - We can measure once again the difference between society and the collective;
the notion of society, so cherished by sociologists of the social,eliminatesin advance all
the problems of composition, modelization, reflexivity, and agitation that I am obliged
to deploy one after the other. With the transcendence of nature already there and that
of society always already present as a totality, neither the skill of scholars nor that of
politicians is visible. - On this difference in the two regimes of enunciation, see Latour 2002b.
- Polanyi 1944, 249: “After a century of blind ‘improvement’ man is restoring his
‘habitation.’” - In John Dewey’s sense (Dewey 1954), that is, as something that has to be con-
stantly refreshed and, so to speak, re-represented to its own eyes, since experts are ex-
actly as blind as citizens as to the unexpected consequences of collective action. - This reversal had already been carried out by the beginning of the last century
by Gabriel Tarde, in a book as little known as it is astonishing, on “passionate interests”
(Tarde 1902). - By extending Simmel’s reflection on money, one can imagine, moreover, that the
generalization of the numerical will offer “social metaphysics” other possible summa-
ries besides the language of money. See, for example, the fascinating effort in “cyber-
geographies” in Rogers and Marres 1999. If we follow them, we note that economics is
not necessarily the definitive form for publicizing calculations and hierarchies. - On externalities, I am following here the introductory essay of Callon 1998b and
the political consequences drawn in Callon, Lascoumes, et al. 2001. - This whole argument is comprehensible only on condition that we take the term
“calculation” literally and not metaphorically: either one can carry out a calculation,
and accounting instruments in the broad sense are required, or else these instruments
are lacking and the ties in question remainincalculable;see Callon and Latour 1997.
This is what precludes any metaphorical use of “calculation” or “economic capital,” es-
pecially to explain social life (Favereau 2001). - The economists alternate between excessive modesty and excessive pretension:
if one praises the intensity of their influence on the economy, they humbly claim to
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