Bruno Latour quotes

Bruno Latour was a French philosopher, anthropologist, and sociologist, widely recognized for his work in science and technology studies. His theories, including Actor-Network Theory, challenged traditional views on the relationship between science, society, and nature. He helped redefine how we understand the production of scientific knowledge and the role of non-human actors. Here are 13 of his quotes:

India is a reservoir of alternative interpretations of what the global is, and these ways of viewing the world need to be exposed.

Bruno Latour

Scientists are very much entangled in their culture and this culture is not pristine, untouched by other cultures and practices.

Bruno Latour

Change the instruments and you will change the entire social theory that goes with them.

Bruno Latour

We would be better off thinking of nature as a tiger than as a docile and compliant automaton that can never threaten our survival.

Bruno Latour

My interest is that there is a disconnect between the science and the size of the threat that people mention about nature, the planet and the climate, and the emotion that this triggers. So we are supposed to be extremely frightened people, but despite that we appear to sleep pretty well.

Bruno Latour

The composition of a common world would be the definition of politics.

Bruno Latour

If one looks at the works of Newton to Einstein, they were never scientists in the way modernity understands the term.

Bruno Latour

Reality is what resists.

Bruno Latour

Technology is society made durable.

Bruno Latour

You who are on the inside, don't condemn my lack of faith too quickly; you who are on the outside, don't be too quick to mock my overcredulity; you who are indifferent, don't be too quick to wax ironic about my perpetual hesitations.

Bruno Latour

The only shibboleth the West has is science. It is the premise of modernity and it defines itself as a rationality capable of, indeed requiring separation from politics, religion and really, society. Modernisation is to work towards this.

Bruno Latour