Epistemographer

Bruno Latour’s talk tonight, sponsored by NYU’s Center for Religion and Media, was an interesting extension of his argument from We Have Never Been Modern. In essence, he was arguing for the same kind of symmetry in approaching religious belief as he has been with regard to scientific knowledge. Rather than claiming that religions are constructed, which has a negative connotation as well as the embedded implication that the speaker is able to judge that some things are constructed while others aren’t (a vestige of the modernist rationality he’s trying to eschew), Latour claimed that we should talk of gods (the subjects of religious belief) simply in terms of how well-constructed they are.

The talk was well-argued, and from a philosophical standpoint made quite a bit of sense. Latour, ever his charming self, did however punt on one question, when he was asked essentially how useful this theoretical shift in how to discuss religion might prove when confronted with fundamentalists who chose not to engage philosophically with it. Not unlike the Science Wars, I wonder if this sort of approach would simply be dismissed as “relativism,” driving those who follow Latour’s argument into a reactionary posture out of sheer defensiveness when under siege by others who choose not to engage on his terms.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 21st, 2003 at 12:21 am and is filed under The Academy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.