0:00

hello everyone, i'm stephen west

0:02

this is philosophize this, thank

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to everyone who supports the show on patreon, shoutouts

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to subs this michael fellner, branislav

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hatala, lucas gaylord, jordan,

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turner and judson brooks thank

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again and

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and of the making direct contributions or

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getting marks the website, couldn't actually alive

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without of you so hope i can get something

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to you valuable in your through

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this podcast here today so,

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the the guy we're were about today is bruno

0:28

latour philosopher a sociologist

0:31

an anthropologist a man who went to your

0:33

ninety ninety three releases a book the gets the

0:35

philosophical world are talking a book that

0:37

some people believe solves one of the most

0:39

important heated debates and recent epistemology

0:42

to the title of the book was we have

0:44

never been mater

0:45

no to understand what he means when he says

0:47

we have never been modern

0:49

fuck about modern for a second we talked

0:51

about it on this podcast for years ever

0:53

since we did our first episodes on can't maybe even

0:56

before that what does it mean to be

0:58

a modern person you can use

1:00

the word modern to describe something a normal

1:02

everyday conversation and it

1:05

more or less just means that something was recent

1:07

that it happened close to when we are living right

1:09

now in the philosophical context

1:11

of what we're talking about here today when talking

1:13

about human subjectivity the

1:15

word modern is going to describe an attitude

1:17

of thinking or even a way of being

1:20

that emerged hundreds of years ago near the beginning

1:22

of the enlightened the with that in mind

1:25

the question we really are asking here is not what does

1:27

it mean to be a modern person what

1:29

does it mean to think like a person who is a product

1:32

of modernity you can imagine people

1:34

living during the middle ages the people of this

1:36

time thought about things very differently than

1:38

people do today the thought

1:40

differently because nearly every cultural

1:42

input they received from the cradle to the graves

1:44

was different this is

1:46

an example of this or historian mark block

1:49

famously talks about feudal society as

1:51

being a place where it was practically impossible to

1:53

be an atheist not that

1:55

the laws of physics precluded anyone

1:57

from ever holding that idea in their brain

2:00

the given the fact that almost every

2:02

way that people were taught to view themselves had

2:04

to do with the relationship to god and gods

2:06

decrease for conduct on this earth that

2:09

emily it was just impossible

2:11

for the average person to come out of an average upbringing

2:13

thinking of themselves as an atheist

2:17

smash cut to modernity and we have nature

2:19

fearing almost the exact opposite of that he's

2:21

fearing that the world is becoming a place where it becomes

2:23

almost impossible for thinking person

2:25

to see themselves as and instantiation of god

2:28

and this this one example of what we're talking about

2:31

here today just as the premises

2:33

of the middle ages dictated a lot of the premises

2:35

people used to make sense of the world around them their

2:37

premises that underlie maternity the

2:39

dictate our thought as well you

2:42

can spot them if you look for in fact for bruno

2:44

latour the facts were even able

2:46

to spot them is exciting evidence

2:49

of the fact that we've actually been moving into a different

2:51

era of history more on

2:53

that later we all still have remnants

2:55

of modernity that help us make sense of the things

2:57

around us and i thought to be fun here today

3:00

to play a little game the game i like

3:02

to call on a scale of one

3:04

to ten how modern is your thing alternative

3:07

title i've been working with his on a scale of one to

3:09

jordan peterson how badly do

3:11

you need to rescue your father from father belly of the way

3:14

actually he's more promoter come on it's

3:16

funny anyway here's how the game works give

3:19

yourself a point if you answer yes to any of the

3:21

following statements do you believe

3:23

that science is the best way of arriving

3:25

at knowledge about the world around you give yourself up

3:28

do you believe that science and politics

3:31

should be to completely distinct purified

3:33

realms of study the scientists

3:35

should study the objective world of nature

3:38

the world of objects and that politics

3:40

to deal with the subject of world of human culture

3:43

people making deals and arrangements the world

3:45

the subjects do you believe that these

3:47

two things belong things their own separate rooms of

3:49

expertise give yourself a point of the answer's

3:51

yes give yourself another

3:53

point if you do not believe in a literal

3:56

supernatural god that has commands

3:58

a we should be building our society

4:00

more than that give yourself a point if

4:03

you think we're living in a fundamentally new

4:05

kind of society and maternity one

4:07

that's distinct from those pre modern

4:09

societies where the people projected their

4:11

humanity onto the natural world around

4:13

them didn't have unbiased scientists

4:15

channeling nature bringing this level of progress

4:17

that we have give yourself another point

4:20

if you believe in the idea that progress is

4:22

linear i guess another point to be

4:24

believed that maternity is the path to that progress

4:27

that the more experiments we run the more science

4:30

and technology progresses the more we progress

4:32

as progress as that since the beginning of the enlightenment

4:35

we solve most of the big problems humanity

4:37

a space throughout history look at medicine look

4:40

at advanced agriculture all we got left

4:42

are a bunch of complex nuance problems to deal

4:44

with and that's in part a testament to

4:46

how far we progressed you're clearly

4:48

on the right track here now

4:51

i get obviously keep going but i think you'll get the point score

4:54

more than four points on this list and congratulations

4:57

you are a product of modern thought the

4:59

wrong with that that i think latour would

5:01

say that if you find yourself so embedded

5:03

in these beliefs that they seem practically

5:06

self evident to you we have a hard time even imagining

5:08

any other way reality could be

5:11

maybe try to be self aware that fact and do some

5:13

digging the to be clear

5:15

the problem here is not with using

5:17

the premises of modernity to make sense of the world

5:20

the problem you point it was with

5:22

the people of the middle ages the problem

5:24

is having too much faith in the premises

5:26

of modernity the reality is

5:28

they haven't exactly produce the world they promise

5:31

to produce if we just bow our heads had

5:33

faith in a the jesus cracker maternity

5:35

has seemingly lead to some of the greatest disasters

5:37

in human history and we gotta be willing to take

5:39

our subjectivity to task if we want to remain

5:42

intellectually honest what

5:44

blossoms have been doing for almost one hundred and fifty

5:46

years trying to figure out what went wrong and how we

5:48

should be moving forward the just

5:50

to keep the tempo here we have the premises

5:52

of modernity which or sometimes calls this

5:54

the modern constitution we have

5:56

the problems created by modernity in the modern

5:58

constitution then we have the reactions

6:01

to the problems of modernity trying to find a way to

6:03

move forward and , this group

6:05

is a couple of big ones that bruno latour is gonna reference

6:07

a lot we have on one hand

6:09

be post modernist reaction to modernity sometimes

6:12

episodes on about loosely classified the idea

6:14

is we need to get beyond the mistakes of modernity

6:17

and on the other side other got scientific realists

6:19

that think yes we've made mistakes

6:22

but the what we need to do with fix the mistakes

6:24

and stick the scientific observation as the way to

6:26

arrive at objective knowledge about the world these

6:29

two groups fighting with each other the

6:31

become a mainstay of our age it's like the mosque

6:34

that grows on the north side of a tree my

6:36

grandma fighting with the neighbors everyday the

6:39

campus in fact at one

6:41

point the post modernists in the scientific

6:43

realists actually went to war with

6:45

each other that's been called the science wars

6:47

of the nineteen nineties the battlefield

6:49

was battlefield pissed a malady how do we know what we

6:51

know and both sides came to the battlefield

6:54

with some pretty heavy artillery as to why the other side

6:56

was full of complete moron doubt

6:59

, and you can see this war still playing itself out

7:01

uncommon sections all across the internet post

7:03

modernists believing that knowledge as that knowledge

7:06

construction may look at a scientific realist posting

7:08

a comment and characterized them as a complete

7:10

idiot that they're essentially like

7:12

a religious zealot on behalf of science

7:15

understanding reality to them just

7:17

means to understand how a bunch of atoms and

7:19

molecules relate to each other that

7:21

, what you don't realize how everything

7:24

down to the language you use the concepts

7:26

you're studying human reality is more

7:28

than just a bunch of adams you don't realize

7:30

how much humanity you're projecting onto

7:32

the natural world your no different than

7:34

your supposedly primitive ancestors a post

7:37

modernist might say say then on the

7:39

other hand a scientific realism one

7:41

of these comments sections might see a post modernist

7:43

and think that they're an idiot as well as

7:45

, some knowledge is entirely a

7:47

social construction like what

7:49

all these different ways as socially constructing

7:51

reality are equally valid we can't

7:53

have any reasonable way of determining how one

7:56

way of understanding reality is better than another

7:58

and what scientists when they conduct the

8:00

scientific experiments aren't accessing anything

8:03

at all that exists subjectively in the universe

8:06

clearly scientists are in contact with something

8:08

enduring that's out there to deny that is

8:10

just a border on insanity and

8:12

you can spend your life battling in these comments

8:14

sections poise on one side of the other of this

8:16

oversimplified debate like

8:18

an atheist that spins their entire life arguing

8:21

against people to believe in god just because

8:23

it's because debate they know they can when they're addicted

8:25

to it stays love that feeling that winning need

8:27

with the same amount of time entrenched in the subsystem

8:29

illogical battle against the cartoon of cartoon post modernist

8:32

or a scientific realist two

8:34

groups keep on arguing with each other and

8:37

to their credit it's certainly not for lack of effort

8:39

there's been a lot of worked on in the field of epistemology

8:42

trying to find some sort of connection between the

8:44

two how can we bring the best of

8:46

both worlds together one is not to

8:48

be one of the other countless books

8:50

have been written and yet they still continue to

8:52

argue and bruno latour would probably want to pop in at

8:54

this point say by the way if

8:56

you're ever expecting these two sides to come

8:58

to any sort a ceasefire in this war that's going

9:00

on your maybe waiting around for awhile

9:03

because not only are both sides completely

9:05

off the reservation not on my grandma who yells

9:08

at the neighbors everyday but more importantly

9:10

they're looking for the solution to their disagreement

9:13

and entirely the wrong place which

9:15

by the way just a general lesson we can take about life

9:18

here from bruno latour whenever there's

9:20

a big problem that people around you are trying to

9:22

solve and even trying to solve it forever and

9:24

can't seem to arrive at any solutions try

9:26

looking not to where everyone seems to be disagree

9:29

prime looking to where everyone agrees because

9:31

sure it would stand a reason on the surface

9:34

that a problem and epistemology is gonna have an

9:36

epistemological solution bruno

9:38

latour think the real problem between the post

9:40

modernist in the scientific realists is

9:42

a metaphysical problem we both

9:44

agree on a metaphysical premise

9:46

that we put way too much faith in since the dawn

9:49

of the enlightened we could see than a lot of places

9:51

we can see it and cons copernican revolution

9:53

we can see it in an early disagreement between thomas

9:56

hobbes and robert boyle about whether the

9:58

truth should have to pass the lab curry

10:00

or whether can be a ride to collectively by culture

10:02

it's a metaphysical premise we're proud of that runs

10:04

deep into the heart of the modern attitude what i'm talking

10:07

about is the assumed separation

10:09

between human and nonhuman entities

10:12

put another way the way this distinction

10:15

manifest in the sciences is that

10:17

this is the purification as latour says

10:19

of the world of objects which are to be studied

10:22

by scientists nature the

10:24

world the subjects which would be studied by politics

10:26

culture written into the constitution

10:29

of maternity as the tacit agreement the

10:32

best way we're gonna arrive at a progressively

10:34

nuanced understanding of the world around us

10:36

is by separating nature and

10:38

culture politics shouldn't

10:40

be brought into the sciences culture is

10:42

around all it's own to be studied the

10:45

best way to progress is by purifying

10:47

these respective fields the

10:49

hallmark of modern thought this

10:51

is something most people just take for granted and

10:54

this is the metaphysical agreement that

10:56

the post modernist in the scientific realist need

10:58

in order to be at odds with each other specialists

11:01

on either side of the polarity of nature

11:03

and culture but what about

11:05

polarity didn't actually exist what

11:08

of the modern separation between nature

11:10

and culture never actually happened what

11:13

if instead it's just been an illusion an

11:15

illusion that allowed us to intellectually justify

11:17

a faulty way of conducting science and

11:19

incomplete method of analyzing culture and

11:21

as lead to a structure to society that is destroying

11:24

the world as we know it in that

11:26

world than the post modernist and the scientists

11:28

would quickly realized that they are very little to argue

11:30

about give all the sudden they're on the same

11:32

team all the sudden there be no reason

11:35

to assume that we need to keep culture completely

11:37

separate from nature and vice versa in

11:39

that world to bruno latour it's not

11:42

that we need to get beyond our modern constitution

11:44

and any post modern sense or

11:46

do we need to preserve our modern constitution in

11:48

the scientific realist sets neither

11:50

of these a solving any problems with being modern

11:53

because when you look at the reality of the world to latour

11:56

we have never been mater when

11:58

a post modernist an assigned

11:59

the realist argue in the comments section about

12:02

knowledge

12:03

the really just a bunch of confused people entrenched

12:06

in the modern attitude arguing about

12:08

how to find some sort of peaceful common ground

12:10

on the battlefield have been completely metaphysically

12:13

wrong

12:14

the modern constitution is broken

12:16

maybe it's time for us to have a constitutional convention

12:19

to latour oil

12:21

hold on a second for me let me to spread

12:23

around my head around the so the whole

12:26

way that we break things up human versus

12:28

non human as literacy in

12:30

the sciences it'll be culture on the human

12:32

side and nature on the nonhuman

12:34

side right this whole dualistic

12:36

way of breaking things up follow that's

12:38

been wrong from the start what's

12:41

gonna happen there what happens when you ship

12:43

something that's that's fundamental

12:45

and this this jenga tower we've been

12:47

trying to keep up in the sciences what

12:49

does that change about the way we see the world can

12:51

be hard to even envision what that would look

12:53

like in practice we'd have to

12:56

start little or says by trying

12:58

to look at everything in terms of it being on an equal

13:00

metaphysical footing pretend nature

13:02

and culture don't even exist as categories

13:04

for a second human and nonhuman

13:07

not even a thing anymore pretend that all

13:09

there is out there or just

13:11

entities or act in

13:14

as little as gonna call not pretend

13:16

these accidents are all metaphysically

13:18

equivalent to each other and that none of these

13:20

entities can be reduced to any other entity

13:22

or explanation this , be a rock

13:25

a tree this could be a person but

13:28

could also be an idea an word

13:30

the political party a bank account

13:32

and image all of these are examples

13:35

of accidents no picture

13:37

a world would be when all of these through

13:39

a lens where they are metaphysically equal

13:42

not subjects not objects

13:44

not nature not culture just accidents

13:46

that join together to form of the tour calls collectives

13:49

collectives of act and that through their connections

13:52

to other act and sixteen force in the

13:54

world the process of understanding

13:56

the world then through this worldview requires

13:59

among the things for the study were these actions

14:01

go how they combined together when

14:04

collectives break apart how collectives

14:06

emerge out of earlier collectives this

14:09

forms the basis of what latour would later call

14:11

his actor network theory no

14:13

one interesting thing to note years that when you start to remove

14:15

pieces of that modern constitution

14:18

like this purification of nature and culture

14:20

other pieces of the modern attitude start to unravel

14:22

as well for example take the idea

14:25

of linear progress the idea that the

14:27

more experiments we run the more we

14:29

advance through technology so

14:31

that we can harness nature around us to our benefit

14:33

the closer and closer will get to some ultimate

14:36

goal of whatever colonizing the

14:38

galaxy you know the same sort of modern

14:40

thinking that led to parts of europe colonizing

14:42

the globe during the age of exploration under

14:45

this act or network theory there's

14:47

, of a definitive end goal or end

14:49

of history that's being aimed for your more

14:51

or less just studying accents and how they relate

14:54

to each other in chains just interesting

14:56

to consider different looks at the world once you get a bit

14:58

outside that modern attitude were all born into

15:01

something else interesting to consider is that when viewing

15:03

the world through a non dualistic lens

15:06

something weird starts to have the fact

15:08

that as humans we can move around

15:10

and talk and manipulate the environment really

15:13

starts the matter less under this world and

15:16

what you start to realize is that even things that can't

15:18

move around and don't have a human voice to

15:20

have very real impact on everything that's possible

15:23

for us on the human side of things hundred

15:25

examples of this you want to build something as a person

15:28

but there's a giant boulder in your ways you can't

15:30

do it you want to change things politically

15:32

as politically person but you don't have the money to influence

15:35

politics or there's laws against speaking

15:37

out

15:37

you want to go outside and see your friends and hang out

15:40

but there's a virus going around and you need to stay inside

15:43

point is human and nonhuman

15:45

are intrinsically connected you can

15:48

see it the instant you change that modern

15:50

assumption that i'm a human i'm

15:52

one thing and out there well

15:54

that's nature that's the supply cabinet

15:57

that's a place we gather stuff to do our bidding as

15:59

human beings no more on that

16:01

the second but no doubt at this point there's

16:03

gotta be some people listening out there with some

16:05

concerns about treating everything on an equal

16:08

metaphysical foot let's address

16:10

some of those concerns to i think they certainly are legitimate

16:12

it's like like ya the hear ya it or about

16:14

this new potential way of viewing things

16:16

metaphysically why

16:19

actually before i ask why i would ever want to do

16:21

something like that how would i ever

16:23

do something like that when would you want me to do walk

16:26

around the when people as as

16:28

entities rather than people seeing

16:31

things in terms of their relationships to other

16:33

things what am i robot mark zuckerberg

16:37

and probably say back look just calm down for a second it's

16:39

not that we're pluto

16:41

or makes appointed it's really not that foreign of a concept

16:44

if you think about it it's not like if you remove

16:46

the human nonhuman distinction you're all

16:48

the sudden live in on an alien planet we

16:50

already do see the world in terms of

16:53

what he calls hybrids calls the time

16:55

and illustrate what illustrate hybrid is steve this

16:57

example of example newspaper the key

16:59

to mine the same thing applies to news stories

17:01

no matter where you get your news the

17:04

starts are just sitting around his house describing his experience

17:06

of reading the morning paper oh i

17:08

will on page four he says we

17:10

got a story on the hole in the ozone layer

17:12

today things are

17:14

not good apparently in the early nineteen nineties when

17:16

it comes to the ozone layer they ,

17:18

in the article about aerosol measurements then

17:20

they go from chemistry the talking about the ceo

17:23

of monsanto being charged for crimes against

17:25

the ecosphere few paragraphs later

17:27

it's about heads of state that are getting involved than

17:29

it's than dot the meteorologist's and why they don't

17:31

agree with the chemists later on they're

17:33

talking about moratoriums and third world countries

17:36

and all the rest of it now this

17:38

is a normal newspaper article he says

17:40

we really sorts of things every single day

17:43

consider for a second what you're actually reading when

17:45

you read one of these articles he says quote

17:48

the same article mixes together chemical

17:50

reactions and political reactions

17:53

a single thread links the most esoteric

17:55

sciences and the most sorted politics

17:57

than later on the horizons the

18:00

the weeks the time frames the actors

18:02

done of these is commensurate there

18:04

they are caught up in the same story

18:07

and then he just goes off

18:09

he started listening news stories on the rest of the paper

18:11

he goes to page by page lists all the

18:13

stories is gonna be reading about that day paid

18:16

six we got a story about aids page

18:18

eight as a story about computer chips being

18:20

owned by the japanese and page

18:22

twelve he says quote the pope french

18:24

bishops monsanto the fallopian

18:27

tubes and texas fundamentalists gather

18:29

together in a strange cohort around a single

18:31

contraceptive in quotes and article

18:33

about birth control and global religious groups

18:36

now here's what he's getting it if we were

18:38

to look at each element of the story individually

18:41

which is to say if we were to look at each thing under

18:43

the premises of the enlightenment where there's a purification

18:46

between the scientific issues and the political

18:48

issues each one of these things would require

18:51

a different expert from a different feel to be

18:53

able to weigh in on them the fallopian tubes

18:55

might need a biologist away and the bishops

18:57

may require a theologian the contraceptive

19:00

may require a doctor that's

19:02

not how we actually experienced reality

19:04

we never have in practice

19:06

we read about these highly complex issues

19:09

all quilted together into these hybrid

19:11

articles as he calls them and none

19:13

of this is confusing to us in

19:16

fact it's something you're so used to doing you do it everyday

19:18

and between getting dressed and habitable a captain crunch

19:21

we don't deal with isolated scientific

19:23

data or isolated cultural analysis

19:26

the to are always blended together into these

19:29

hybrids as he calls them hybrids

19:31

of nature and culture so

19:33

there is no real separation between science

19:35

and politics or economy or

19:37

law or religion or technology

19:39

for that matter them by the way that's

19:42

a good thing the tory gives an example

19:44

a one point when you try to separate

19:46

nature and culture in an attempt to try to

19:48

understand the world better like if that's your

19:50

strategy that's like trying to understand

19:53

war by getting a bunch of people

19:55

in a bunch of weapons putting him in a room and

19:57

the putting all the people on one side of the room and

19:59

all the way then the other side of the room no

20:02

not going to work understanding human

20:04

society is understanding the relationship

20:07

between human and nonhuman beings

20:10

just imagine talking about the whole and the ozone

20:12

layer purely from the perspective of ecology

20:14

he says he can't do it the

20:16

very concept of the whole in the ozone layer

20:18

that were studying is a collective a both

20:20

cultural and natural entities there's

20:23

a sense in which ignoring the cultural significance

20:25

of the ozone layer looking at it only through

20:27

scientific terms would be missing out on a

20:29

huge piece of what the ozone layer even

20:31

is my reason studying the

20:34

point is we already do this all the time we already see

20:36

the world in terms of these blended hybrids

20:38

so to the person from before who's

20:41

worried they're gonna start seeing leper cons or something if

20:43

they switch up the modern constitution don't

20:45

worry about it too much if i remember

20:47

correctly from before that person was first going to ask

20:49

how we can see the world in a new way and

20:51

then what's going to ask why they should be doing the settle

20:54

and yes i realize that person from before was

20:56

in fact

20:57

i am talking to myself but

20:59

i'm self aware of it so can be that

21:02

bad

21:03

any way to fair question why change anything

21:06

generally speaking why six something that's

21:08

working why six the human nonhuman

21:10

distinction it seems to have gotten us

21:12

a lot of stuff over the years we have planes

21:14

and cars and vaccines and all the rest

21:16

of the science and technology that's made our lives

21:18

indistinguishable from the pre modern societies

21:20

of the past i think we're to

21:22

or would want to ask a follow up question about the degree

21:25

to which the modern attitude is working and

21:27

for who exactly it is working i

21:30

think you'd want to draw your attention to what may go down

21:32

in history as a revolutionary year for human

21:34

subjectivity the year is nineteen

21:36

eighty nine no you

21:38

can imagine the people living during the middle ages ago

21:41

we talked about before they had a totally different set

21:43

of presuppositions they were building their reality

21:45

from and it's not like they're being forced

21:47

what to think but the way they thought

21:50

definitely allowed them to be more receptive to

21:52

certain ideas more charitable to certain

21:54

questions and more likely to think to think particular

21:56

direction again we have to suspect

21:59

that that see situation applies for our modern

22:01

attitude as well and the you're nineteen eighty nine

22:03

really served as a slap in the face to that reality

22:05

for little nineteen eighty nine

22:08

is the beginning of the collapse of the soviet you follow

22:10

the berlin wall the tour says this

22:12

was a year of triumph for the west

22:15

the victory of liberalism victory of capitalism

22:18

of western democracy the triumph

22:20

a short lived he says because this moment

22:22

in history becomes the first time in a while

22:24

that western culture can stop worrying about some

22:26

global political crisis take a step

22:28

back take an inventory of the problems

22:31

that we now have to solve in

22:35

every single one of them essentially

22:37

has to do with humanity and it's

22:39

relationship to the planet pollution

22:42

overpopulation deforestation

22:44

climate change resource management pandemics

22:47

the list goes on and latour says it is no coincidence

22:50

this is part and parcel of the modern added

22:53

this is what happens when nature

22:55

and culture or falsely seen as being

22:57

to purify domains that operate

23:00

independently this is the attitude

23:02

that we structured our societies around and

23:04

when nineteen eighty nineteen hits people sort of thing man

23:07

we completely messed this what

23:09

do we gotta change about are thinking moving forward

23:12

with were right about a beautifully here he says quotes

23:15

after seeing the best intentions go doubly

23:17

awry we moderns from the western

23:19

world seem to have lost some of our self confidence

23:22

could we not have tried to put an end to mans

23:24

exploitation of been

23:26

could we not have tried to become nature's masters

23:28

and owners

23:29

or noblest virtues were enlisted in the service

23:31

of these twin missions one in the political

23:34

arena and the other and the domain of science and

23:36

technology yet we are prepared

23:38

to look back on are enthusiastic and right

23:40

thinking youth as young germans look to their grandparents

23:42

their grandparents what criminal orders did we follow

23:45

what we say that we didn't know

23:47

what

23:49

structuring our societies around the premise that

23:51

there are two types of entities human and

23:53

nonhuman and that they exist on a different

23:55

level of metaphysical worse practically

23:57

ensures that there's gonna be a dynamic this

24:00

of self versus other and

24:02

when it does the will not just

24:04

be trees and rocks that will be seen

24:06

as the other as the objects for human

24:08

beings to harvest and do their bidding invariably

24:12

little are says groups of people become

24:14

the objects to harvest as well

24:16

people that happened to be born living on top of the wrong

24:18

substance buried in the ground the

24:20

would happen to be born with the wrong skin color

24:22

or gender

24:23

wherever you can find people who are voiceless

24:26

they will be treated more or less the same as

24:29

the voiceless trees and rocks of the world there's

24:32

a further costa when it comes to our relationship

24:34

the science and technology for hundreds

24:36

of years it was possible to think of scientific

24:38

and technological progress is being completely

24:41

separate from culture as operating in it's own unique

24:43

domain of study the new piece of technology

24:45

came out it didn't necessarily have the ability

24:47

to change the lives of everyone on a global

24:49

scale we were dealing with vacuum pumps

24:52

and calculators at that time but

24:54

the more advanced the science and technology

24:56

get the less useful it is to

24:59

understand them in isolation the

25:01

towards us a technology is not just some

25:04

people say people say tool

25:06

that can be used for either good or evil

25:09

it's not just a tool technology

25:11

carries with it a type of latent morality

25:14

and it's not good enough to just understand it on

25:16

it's own we have to have the ability to understand

25:18

how that technology is gonna impact

25:20

other impact and once it's released out into the

25:22

world how will it affect existing

25:24

technologies will it affect the way people

25:26

live their lives how will it affect the rest

25:29

of the planet the think of

25:31

science technology and culture as

25:33

distinct separate rooms from each other

25:35

is not to some cute mistake

25:37

anymore whole your so adorable for

25:40

don't like an outdated modern person again

25:42

this , be an adorable mistake in the world a vacuum

25:45

pump seen calculators but in a world of gene

25:47

therapy facial recognition and atomic

25:49

bombs cannot have cannot way to

25:51

study and understand the relationship between

25:53

science technology and culture is

25:55

downright immoral to bruno latour something

25:58

like climate change early in the twentieth so three

26:00

was something we could delude ourselves into believing was purely

26:03

an ecological issue the be studied

26:05

in dealt with solely by experts in the field

26:07

of a college the torso climate

26:09

change is no longer just a question of ecology

26:12

no it's become a question a survival if

26:15

the goal that were shooting for on this planet is human

26:17

flourishing the latour things we have to

26:19

understand that the flourishing of nonhuman entities

26:22

is an absolutely essential part of that as well and

26:24

he started talking about planting trees and

26:26

stick in your disgusting reusable

26:29

straw everywhere he actually floats

26:31

the hypothetical idea of there being what he calls a parliament

26:34

of things you know the same

26:36

way same parliament brings parliament brings

26:38

to speak on behalf of various constituencies

26:40

various groups of people with different interests a

26:42

parliament of things would aim to give

26:44

voice to a different kind of voiceless entity

26:47

people could come and speak on behalf of the interests of these

26:49

nonhuman entities that can't speak for

26:51

themselves but nonetheless play an

26:53

important role in the politics of the flourishing

26:56

of the planet one interesting

26:58

idea of many you , there's so

27:00

much more to cover even just in this book we

27:02

have never been modern let alone in the rest of the work

27:04

of bruno latour who thankfully still

27:06

alive and well here today god bless highly

27:08

recommend doing your own reading on him or

27:11

even just harassing me to do more episodes on because

27:13

more so than most other thinkers out there

27:15

latour always gets me to question how

27:18

will people be thinking about things in the next couple

27:20

hundred years and why would they almost certainly

27:22

see me the same way i see people in the middle

27:24

ages

27:25

every time a scarf it's something that he says and then

27:27

later think would

27:29

that be the way people are going to think about stuff

27:31

this is one of the things i love about philosophy and

27:33

there aren't many things more difficult to see past

27:36

then this modern subjectivity that were all born

27:38

into but something else i

27:40

love about the toward that he doesn't seem to get much credit

27:42

for is just how optimistic

27:45

his theory of knowledge is you know

27:47

in the world of the other metaphysical premise

27:49

were post modernists and positivist brackley

27:51

wanna kill each other even if you

27:54

win that argument you're still left at the end of the

27:56

day trying to answer skeptics about how we can ever

27:58

know anything for certain the the old

28:00

of things in themselves always lies

28:02

beyond that veil of subjectivity the

28:05

tour's worked as a little more hope i think

28:07

the tour scientists are not

28:09

studying the raw isolated phenomena

28:12

of nature

28:13

the more accurate description to him is

28:15

it scientists are entering into relationships

28:17

with nonhuman thinks forming

28:20

connections

28:21

the maybe robot mark zuckerberg as anderson

28:24

do we need a a social network for active?

28:27

maybe if we study how scientists

28:29

perform these relationships and how those relationships

28:32

form together with other relationships to create

28:34

these social facts that we

28:36

all acknowledge it true if we can do that then

28:39

mean we can gain a a lot of information about how

28:41

knowledge works from a new perspective one

28:43

that doesn't on us being about accessing

28:46

the intrinsic structure of the universe by

28:48

way no

28:50

disrespect was intended to robot

28:52

mark zuckerberg in any way the course