Terence Blake (
Agent Swarm) has been following the
online progress of Latour's Modes of Existence project, blogging about the ideas and critiquing the process, and he attended the two-day evaluation conference that was just concluded. He's now
uploaded his evaluation of the ideas to Academia.edu.
ON THE EXISTENCE OF BRUNO LATOUR’S MODES:
FROM PLURALIST ONTOLOGY TO ONTOLOGICAL PLURALISM
by Terence Blake
Abstract: In this article I take a critical look at the origins and sources of Bruno Latour's pluralism as it is expressed in his book AN INQUIRY INTO MODES OF EXISTENCE and compare it to other similar projects (Wittgenstein, Feyerabend) Badiou). I consider the accusations of reductionism and of relativism) and demonstrate that Latour's "empirical metaphysics" is not an ontological reductionism but a pluralist ontology recognising the existence of a plurality of entities and of types of entities. Nor is it an epistemological relativism but an ontological pluralism affirming the existence of a plurality of types of existence. These two strands, pluralist ontology and ontological pluralism, mutually reinforce each other to produce at least the outlines of a robust pluralist realism.
I've taken a quick look through the essay. It is a substantial piece of work. I note only that Blake is conversant with both Continental and analytical philosophical thought and evaluates Latour in that context.
