Bruno Latour during a lecture at the University of Gothenburg

Bruno Latour (born June 22, 1947, Beaune, France) is a French sociologist of science best known for his books We Have Never Been Modern, Laboratory Life, and Science in Action. The University of Gothenburg ( Swedish: Göteborgs universitet) is a University in the city of Gothenburg in Sweden. Events 217 BC - Battle of Raphia: Ptolemy IV of Egypt defeats Antiochus III the Great of the Seleucid kingdom. Year 1947 ( MCMXLVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1947 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Beaune is a commune in eastern France, a Sub-prefecture of the Côte-d'Or department in the Bourgogne region This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Sociology of science is the subfield of Sociology that deals with the practice of Science. Laboratory Life The Social Construction of Scientific Facts is a 1979 book by sociologists of science Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar Science in Action How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society (ISBN 0-674-79291-2 is an influential book by Bruno Latour. Although his studies of scientific practice were at one time associated with social constructionist approaches to the sociology of science, Latour has diverged significantly from such approaches. Social constructionism and social constructivism are sociological and psychological theories of Knowledge that consider how social phenomena develop in Along with Michel Callon and John Law, Latour is one of the primary developers of actor-network theory (ANT), a constructionist approach influenced by the ethnomethodology of Harold Garfinkel, the generative semiotics of Algirdas Julius Greimas, and the maverick sociology of Durkheim's rival Gabriel Tarde. Michel Callon is a Professor of Sociology at the Ecole des Mines de Paris and member of the Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation. John Law is a sociologist currently on the faculty at Lancaster University and key proponent of Actor-network theory. Actor-network theory, often abbreviated as ANT, is a distinctive approach to Social theory and research which originated in the field of Science studies What is ethnomethodology Ethnomethodology is a sociological discipline which studies the ways in which people make sense of their world display this understanding Harold Garfinkel (born 29 October 1917) is Professor Emeritus in Sociology at the University of California Los Angeles. Semiotics, semiotic studies, or semiology is the study of sign processes (semiosis or signification and communication signs and Symbols both Algirdas Julius Greimas ( March 9 1917 in Tula – 1992 in Paris) was a Lithuanian linguist who contributed to the theory Émile Durkheim ( April 15, 1858 – November 15, 1917) was a French Sociologist whose contributions were instrumental Jean-Gabriel De Tarde or Gabriel Tarde in short ( March 12, 1843 in Sarlat, France &ndash May 13, 1904

Biography

As a student Latour originally aggregated in philosophy and was deeply influenced by Michel Serres. Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language Michel Serres (born September 1, 1930 in Agen, France) is a French Philosopher and author celebrated for his unusual career He quickly developed an interest in anthropology, however, and undertook fieldwork in the Côte d'Ivoire which resulted in a brief monograph on decolonization, race, and industrial relations. Anthropology (/ˌænθɹəˈpɒlədʒi/ from Greek grc ἄνθρωπος anthrōpos, "human" -λογία -logia) is the study of Côte d'Ivoire (ˌkoʊt divˈwɑː(r ' in English, kot diˈvwaʀ in French) or Ivory Coast, officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a From there Latour shifted his research interests to focus on laboratory scientists. Latour rose in importance following the 1979 publication of Laboratory Life: the Social Construction of Scientific Facts with co-author Steve Woolgar. Stephen Woolgar is a British sociologist. He first worked very close to Bruno Latour, with whom he co-authored Laboratory Life the Social Construction of In the book, the authors undertake an ethnographic study of a neuroendocrinology research laboratory at the Salk Institute. Ethnography ( Greek ethnos = people and graphein = writing is a genre of writing that uses Fieldwork to provide a descriptive Neuroendocrinology is the study of the interactions between the Nervous system and the Endocrine system. Salk Institute2jpg|thumb|right|200px|Salk Institute]]The Salk Institute for Biological Studies is an independent non-profit scientific research institute located in La Jolla California This early work demonstrated that naïve descriptions of the scientific method, in which theories stand or fall on the outcome of a single experiment, are inconsistent with actual laboratory practice, in which a typical experiment produces only inconclusive data that is attributed to failure of the apparatus or experimental method, and that a large part of scientific training involves learning how to make the subjective decision of what data to keep and what data to throw out; a process that to an untrained outsider looks like a mechanism for ignoring data that contradicts scientific orthodoxy. Scientific method refers to bodies of Techniques for investigating phenomena

After a research project examining the sociology of primatologists, Latour followed up the themes in Laboratory Life with Les Microbes: guerre et paix (published in English as The Pasteurization of France in 1984). Primatology is the study of Primates It is a diverse Discipline and primatologists can be found in departments of Biology, Anthropology In it, he reviews the life and career of one of France's most famous scientists Louis Pasteur and his discovery of microbes, in the fashion of a political biography. Louis Pasteur (27 December 1822 – 28 September 1895 a French Chemist and Microbiologist, is best known for remarkable breakthroughs in the causes and Latour highlights the social forces at work in and around Pasteur's career and the uneven manner in which his theories were accepted. By providing more explicitly ideological explanations for the acceptance of Pasteur's work more easily in some quarters than in others, he seeks to undermine the notion that the acceptance and rejection of scientific theories is primarily, or even usually, a matter of experiment, evidence or reason. Another work, Aramis, or, The Love of Technology focuses on the history of an unsuccessful mass-transit project. More recently Latour has turned to more "theoretical" and programmatic works. In the late 1980s and 1990s, he was one of the key thinkers in actor-network theory. Actor-network theory, often abbreviated as ANT, is a distinctive approach to Social theory and research which originated in the field of Science studies His more theoretical books include Science in Action, Pandora's Hope, and perhaps his most popular work, We Have Never Been Modern.

Latour and Woolgar produced a highly heterodox and controversial picture of the sciences. Drawing on the work of Gaston Bachelard, they advance the notion that the objects of scientific study are socially constructed within the laboratory—that they cannot be attributed with an existence outside of the instruments that measure them and the minds that interpret them. Gaston Bachelard ( June 27, 1884 &ndash October 16, 1962) was a French Philosopher who rose to some of the most prestigious They view scientific activity as a system of beliefs, oral traditions and culturally specific practices— in short, science is reconstructed not as a procedure or as a set of principles but as a culture. Latour's 1987 book Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society is one of the key texts of the sociology of scientific knowledge. The sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK closely related to the Sociology of science, considers social influences on Science.

After spending more than 20 years at the Centre de sociologie de l'innovation at the École des Mines in Paris, Latour moved in 2006 to the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris, where he is the first occupant of a Chair named for the aforementioned Gabriel Tarde. The Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation (CSI (Center for the Sociology of Innovation is a research center at the Ecole des Mines de Paris, France. The École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris (also known as Mines ParisTech, École des Mines de Paris, ENSMP, Mines Paris or simply Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city Latour is related to a well-known family of winemakers from Burgundy and is not associated with the similarly-named estate in Bordeaux. Burgundy (Bourgogne Burgund is a region historically situated in modern-day France and Switzerland, inhabited in turn by Celts ( Gauls) ( Gascon: Bordèu) is a port city in southwest France, with one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area at a 2008 estimate In recent years he has also served as one of the curators of successful art exhibitions at the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie in Karlsruhe, Germany, including "Iconoclash" (2002) and "Making Things Public" (2005). Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie ( ZKM) (Center for Art and Media Technology in Karlsruhe, Germany is an interdisciplinary research institution Karlsruhe (ˈkaɐ̯lsʁuːə population 285812 in 2006 is a city in the south west of Germany, in the Bundesland Baden-Württemberg, located near Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe.

On May 22, 2008, Latour has been awarded a honorary doctorate by the Université de Montréal, on the occasion of an organizational communication conference held in honor of the work of James R. Taylor, on whom Latour has had an important influence. Organizational communication, broadly speaking is people working together to achieve individual or collective goals James Renwick Taylor is Professor Emeritus at the Department of Communication of the Université de Montréal, which he founded in the early 1970's

Central concepts

• actant
• actor-network
• Obligatory passage point
• Translation
• Black box (systems)

See also

• Actor network theory
• Aramis
• Technological determinism
• Science wars
• Social construction of technology
• Graphism thesis

References

• Latour, Bruno and Woolgar, Steve (1979). In Sociology, AI and Programming language theory, actants are the principal concern of the Actor-network theory, the activity of which is described Actor-network theory, often abbreviated as ANT, is a distinctive approach to Social theory and research which originated in the field of Science studies The concept of Obligatory passage point ( OPP) was developed by sociologist Michel Callon in a seminal contribution to Actor-network theory: Callon Translation is the interpreting of the meaning of a text and the subsequent production of an equivalent text likewise called a " translation Black box is a technical term for a device or system or object when it is viewed primarily in terms of its input and output characteristics Actor-network theory, often abbreviated as ANT, is a distinctive approach to Social theory and research which originated in the field of Science studies The Aramis Personal rapid transit project in Paris, by aerospace giant Matra, started in 1967, spent about 500 million francs and was cancelled Technological Determinism is a reductionist doctrine that a society's technology determines its cultural values social structure or history The Science wars were a series of intellectual battles in the 1990s between " Postmodernists " and " realists " (though neither party would likely Social construction of technology (also referred to as SCOT) is a theory within the field of Science and Technology Studies (or Technology and society) In Sociology of science, the graphism thesis is a proposition of Bruno Latour that Graphs are important in science Laboratory Life: the Social Construction of Scientific Facts, Sage, Los Angeles, USA.
• Latour, Bruno (1987). Science In Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass. Science in Action How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society (ISBN 0-674-79291-2 is an influential book by Bruno Latour. , USA.
• Latour, Bruno (1988). The Pasteurization of France, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass. , USA.
• Latour, Bruno (1992). "Where are the Missing Masses? The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts", pp. 225-258 in: Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change, edited by W. E. Bijker & J. Law, MIT Press, USA.
• Latour, Bruno (1993). We have never been modern, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass. , USA.
• Latour, Bruno (1996). Aramis, or the love of technology, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass. , USA.
• Latour, Bruno (1999). Pandora's hope: essays on the reality of science studies, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass. , USA.
• Latour, Bruno (2004). Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy (translated by Catherine Porter), Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. Politics of Nature How to Bring the Sciences Into Democracy (2004 ISBN 0-674-01289-5 is an influential book by the French theorist and philosopher of science , USA.
• Latour, Bruno and Weibel, Peter (eds. ) (2005). Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 0262122790.
• Latour, Bruno (2005). Reassembling the social: an introduction to actor-network-theory. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199256044.  

External links

• Mark Fisher on Bruno Latour
• Web site of Bruno Latour