Bruno Latour seminary: New concepts and thoughts

Previous considerations:

1) The actor-network is only one mode of existence among many others.

2) Diplomacy: The way to do that we need now is the diplomat. Drawing on the etymology of diplomacy (bridge builder, you have to negotiate, everything has the same value, we must articulate intelligibility conditions ...). Upon entering the Anthropocene era, you have to link it with Gaia. The agency would be a mediator between the Anthropocene and Gaia.

Tanner 1:

The Agency is not a will or an internal capacity: it is a record of actions. My agency is the record of what I do, the path of what I do; from effects to causes, and not vice versa. To define an agency we make a list, a network.

At the moment that an object is shaped (eg quasar.), All these people transformed signals showed on a display into a quasar, "That is a quasar." It is credited with a value of externality by implementing some technologies which we think is external and that it has always been there; this is the metamorphic zone.

Tanner 2:

Anthropocene: the moment which the human is a tectonic or geological force that can fight face to face lwith nature, at the same level (as planetary boundaries); is a new stage for the social sciences.

Here, we could be confusing Gaia with God, with some global or abstract. But nothing further, Gaia is a reading of Gabriel Tarde applied to nature.

Debate 2-2:

Why capitalism has survived so long despite the criticism it has always been subjected? One answer has to do with the ANT vision:  as a global being, capitalism is a mot d'ordre (empty of meaning). The strength of capitalism is his way to extract value or goodwill from many places and different ways, adapting to all in their micro-level. Thus, capitalism lands in a thousand different ways, and those details is what gives strength to capitalism.

The market is previous to capitalism (the trade is much earlier), but the first one is trapped by capitalism in a very specific way.

Capitalism: a "peaceful" method of generating wealth, moving wealth (goodwill). A capitalist doesn't purchase 20 yachts (in the Middle Ages, wealth was achieved by accumulation). The capitalist is the one who moves wealth to generate more wealth.

The global does not exist, it is articulated by operators (Internet, ozone ...). Capitalism is another operator that articulates the global on the Anthropocene time.

Institution in ANT: The actor-network create many mechanisms to stop to being a precarious actor-network, and thus survive; to be more solidified (the actor-network is always precarious, fragile, unstable). The actor-network is always in a process that allows it to survive. Thus, capitalism has created this sense of original nature (the first nature in Latour). It is a very very armored institution. Ontologically, macro or a large object is merely the sum or combination of micro elements (in the Gabriel Tarde's sense).

Harlequin coat: The Harlequin layer is made of pieces, but overall you see it as a whole, but it is composed of pieces.

Metrology: how big or long are the rails that are put into circulation by the knowledge that a scientific of technological group create (throughout translation processes). The more associated and bigger is your metrology, the freer and more power you are; and also more able you are to disconnect from all networks, linkages and partnerships.

Body in ANT: an interface, my body is a mediator as well. The body is not a beginning neither an end, it's a bridge, it is a intermediate step crossed by a lot of elements. You can be the beginning and the end at the same time in a particular mediation-process.

Photo Credit: Geralt