zedority t1_is319qd wrote
I see a lot of disagreements with this single quote from the entire article that hasn't quite grasped where Latour was coming from. Latour was aware of, and dismissive of, existing philosophical attempts to bridge the gap between subject and object because he denied there was any special need to bridge it in the first place. He further argued that modern attempts to solve this "problem" still kept the divide implicitly present.
Phenomenology? Solves the "problem" by reducing all experienced reality to the subjective pole and rejecting any independently objective reality. Scientific realism takes the opposite, equally problematic approach of reducing all experienced reality to the objective pole only. Hegel and Marx's dialectical solution posits a mediating process between subject and object but still treats them as ontologically distinct domains. I can't speak to non-modern philosophies like Buddhism.
Latour's solution? Simply, that there was no real need for a solution, because the question was not worth asking in the first place. Gaps between actors are innumerable, moreover, and positing this one alleged gap between subject and object as the most important one vastly overinflated its importance in contrast to all the other gaps between actors that might exist. The later, much less well-understood work of Latour - the "modes of existence" work mentioned in Harman's article - is an attempt to identify and explain the nature of some of these additional gaps and how actors overcome them.
EDIT TO ADD perhaps this quote from A.N: Whitehead, a huge influence on Latour, might help clarify where he coming from a bit better. This is taken from The Concept of Nature (1927, p. 30):
> What I am essentially protesting against is the bifurcation of nature into two systems 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.
Drovbert t1_isjk5rc wrote
I would disagree that phenomenology is pure subjectivism. At least I would argue, the phenomenology of Heidegger in particular is not subjectivistic at all. Entities are real beings for Heidegger, and his entire approach is consequently empirical in nature. There is likewise, no problem of the external world for him, because in each case Dasein is already being-in-the-world and cannot be otherwise. In Being and Time, he describes the phenomenological approach as 'To the things themselves' rather than accepting Kant's contention that we cannot know any thing-in-itself
There is no subject-object distinction to be made in his approach, because there is no such thing as a pure subject or a pure object. Things always appear to someone and disappear for someone. To talk of an object as independent from an object of thought is impossible. Yet being that this someone is in every case Dasein, and is therefore caring being-in-the-world, they are never a pure subject, but rather are engaged in the various activities of life of which 'pure contemplation' is only one among many (for Dasein is a caring being, one who cares about being, i.e is mortal, is anxious, and wants to live in the world.) A person necessarily presupposes the existence of a real world, and exists in that world, prior to any philosophical investigation. That world is ready-to-hand and not present-at-hand, i.e, the world is a place of activity and not a big list of things which exist independent of our cares or involvements. So Dasein cannot be a pure subject, because a pure subject without any cares is the only kind which pure contemplation would be possible for. Tranquil contemplation is the mood which is most peculiarly appealing to philosophers and scientists for grounding their ontologies within, but it is only one mood out of many which humans find themselves in. Yet to believe that pure contemplation is the best way of formulating an ontology is in Heideggers view, a mere prejudice of philosophers, and one which precludes them from uncovering certain truths about being which are impossible to acquire within this mood and must be found through other moods. Heidegger famously analyses the case of anxiety (being afraid of nothing in particular) in order to contrast being and nothingness and thereby explain human mortality and finally connect being and time.
To see phenomenology as mere idealism would therefore be an error. Nor is phenomenology solipsism. What the phenomenology of Heidegger appears to me to aim at is the rational analysis of experience and an investigation of existence. "What is being?" is famously the question Heidegger in particular has concerned himself with, and his method of examining human being (being-there) in order to get to being, necessitates an understanding of the existence of others. Being-with, or being with others, is treated in several sections of Being and Time
Nor does Heidegger adopt a position which does not allow for the positing of truths. Truth for Heidegger, is the proper way of pointing out or uncovering beings or being as they are. Entities cannot be true or false, only propositions (or other ways of pointing at them) can be true or false. It is possible to misrepresent things, but things cannot in themselves be a misrepresentation. Beings simply just are what they are. Even the entity which an erroneous proposition is, is itself not true or false but rather the connection it makes is true or false. That I have uttered a falsehood cannot be determined until one examines the thing itself. In the meantime it is simply a proposition, neither true or false.
All this being said, I fail to see how Latour's actor-network theory is at the outset incompatible with the phenomenological approach. Though I have not read Latour, I would tentatively argue that many of his sensibilities seem compatible with Heidegger's. For instance, their shared opposition to Bergson, opposition to metaphysical explanations of reality which act as though there is force in itself, or thought in itself, etc. Likewise, their shared concern with 'delusions' of modernity and technology, their orientation towards explaining entities in terms of the totality of their activities (the world for Heidegger is the totality of involvements of ready-to-hand equipment and Dasein) rather than falling back on essentialism, the empirical approach as opposed to a deductive or rationalist approach, etc.
zedority t1_islmu2q wrote
I have not read much of Heidegger, and I did get the impression that Latour was over-simplifying things in his criticisms of other approaches. I've seen Graham Harman (author of the original post, and a philosopher who has spent considerable time arguing that Latour fully deserves the title of "philosopher") claim elsewhere that he found Latour and Heidegger surprisingly compatible, but I have not had time to pursue the details of such a claim.
As near as I can tell, Latour is highly suspicious of the privileging of "Dasein" in Heidegger's work. I'm not sure how strongly related this is to his criticism of the subject/object distinction. It is related to another aspect of Latour's work, which is that no single actor is inherently privileged in any way at the outset (some actors become privileged in some situations, but this is always an outcome of an earlier act, not something that inheres in any "reality-in-itself"). More broadly, Latour strongly insists he is not "anti-modern", which is true insofar as he does not reject the usefulness of science or technology - he simply views dominant accounts of how they work as very problematic. I have read Heidegger's famous "Question of Technology" essay, and I find it very hard to reconcile with Latour's much more pragmatic and anti-essentialist approach.
Drovbert t1_ism2fa5 wrote
I am not an expert on Heidegger, just reading through Being and Time atm (I have studied philosophy for seven years, sometimes in school sometimes on my own. My main focus is on Nietzsche, but I go to school in English, and nobody teaches 'Continental' stuff here) Some of it makes sense to me, other bits do not. Heidegger's style is obscure and often obtuse, and unreasonably so in my opinion. It is probably cleverer (though not necessarily much less obscure) in German from what I have seen from footnotes, etc. in my translation, but my German is not at all good enough to appreciate it. There is nevertheless, some method to it, even if it means we have to read his works with a solid dictionary in hand which explains the etymological connections which are not readily apparent in a more surface level reading. It is a difficulty I am familiar with however, due to my study of Nietzsche, who knew multiple ancient languages inside and out, and who likewise had a similar understanding of his own German.
I figured Latour would probably object to the centrality of human being in Heidegger, regardless of any subject-object framing of the problem. That makes sense from my 15 min reading of Latour's wiki page. Moreover it is a generally fair objection, even if I would personally disagree with it. It seems to me presuming to approach anything philosophical from the standpoint of an outsider such as a dog or a cat is simply dubious at best, and so we must start from an analysis of human being if we are to get at being in any sense. Certainly it is probable that animals share much in common with humans in their being in the world, but we are far less certain of all the details. Humanity is obscure enough as it is. It would also be fair to level this charge against Heidegger because he seems to presume a commonality between all humans which may at times be in error. Heidegger offers no proofs as to a great number of the insights he offers in Being and Time, instead relying on self examination and analysis and simply hoping that the reader will agree with him. It would also be fair to object to this. Yet deducing things we cannot know from what we do know does seem to me an error in methodology, and Heidegger's creative approaches to circumventing artificial barriers to our knowledge is perhaps the most interesting thing about his thinking.
Heidegger's later work is suspect to me for obvious reasons, and it's been a while since I have examined it, having first encountered his 'Question of Technology' in my second year of university. The last time I have read it was probably six years ago. I remember being impressed by his profound understanding of Aristotle and his grandiloquent doomsaying (we are after all, in grave danger due to technology,) but I am uncertain whether I would agree with the way he thinks about technology today. It probably did not help that the main objection to Heidegger's prophecisations against technology which we studied in that class was Emannuel Levinas' 'Heidegger, Gagarin, and Us,' whose religious framing of the problem and whose emphasis on the human utility of technology as overagainst any environmental concerns, struck me as chauvanistic and vulgar at the time and further galvanised me in favour of Heidegger's approach. I have not read that in years either, however. Today I am also more pragmatic, it is not a god which will save us from nuclear war or climate change or anything else technological, but rather humans, and possibly technology itself, if such saving is possible at all. From what I have seen of the literature most Heidegger scholars seem to argue that he himself is not a Luddite, though he is suspicious of technology. Again however, that was years ago for an undergrad paper. I were to be superstitious I would guess that Heidegger's sentiments against technology are more deeply ingrained in his own personal, romantic view of agrarian living, which beneath all his poetic posturing and profundity is really grounded on the bases of little more than his own parochial nostalgia for the old-fashioned rural communities he grew up in, which may and probably does even boarder on the fascistic.
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