Book Reviews : The Human Nature of Science: Researchers at Work in Psychiatry. Stewart E. Perry (New York: Macmillan, 1966) 289 pp. Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts. Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1979) 271 pp

Knowledge ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 437-440
Author(s):  
Ron Westrum
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Nature Of Science ◽  
Bruno Latour ◽  
The Social ◽  
Scientific Facts ◽  
Laboratory Life

Latour’s Prosaic Science

1991 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Robert Brown
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Sociology Of Science ◽  
Detailed Knowledge ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Bruno Latour ◽  
The Social ◽  
Field Notes ◽  
Scientific Facts ◽  
Laboratory Life ◽  
Work First

The most embarrassing thing about ‘facts’ is the etymology of the word. The Latin facere means to make or construct. Bruno Latour, like so many other anti-realists who revel in the word’s history, thinks facts are made by us: they are a social construction. The view acquires some plausibility in Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts (hereafter LL) which Latour co-authored with Steve Woolgar.1 This work, first published a decade ago, has become a classic in the sociology of science literature. It is in the form of field notes by an ‘anthropologist in the lab.’ This may seem an odd place for an anthropologist, but Latour finds his presence easy to justify. ‘Whereas we have a fairly detailed knowledge of the myths and circumcision rituals of exotic tribes, we remain relatively ignorant of the details of equivalent activity among tribes of scientists … ’ (LL, 17).

scholarly journals Has Latour Real-ly Unravelled the Real: The Journey from Laboratory Life to Down to Earth?

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 22-41
Author(s):  
Charles Lawson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
The Real ◽  
Truth Claim ◽  
The Social ◽  
Truth Claims ◽  
Scientific Facts ◽  
Laboratory Life

This article traces Bruno Latour’s answer to the question ‘what is real?’ from Latour and Steve Woolgar in Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts (1979) through to Latour in Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climate Change (2018). This intriguing question arises because Latour’s hypothesis in Down to Earth presumes that climate change is ‘real’, while in Laboratory Life, hard facts were considered constructions. The journey reveals Latour’s own ‘real’ lies between the extreme science realists (facts are either true or false) and extreme social relativists (facts are a social construction), although favouring the relativists. A closer analysis, however, shows that Latour’s project is really about truth claims and that the real question is couched in terms rejecting the modernist settlement of ontological assumptions and basing truth on credibility determined by the strength of associations; the more associations, the more ‘real’ the truth claim. Ultimately, Latour elegantly sidesteps the real question and how he does this is real-ly unrivalled.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document