Abstract
At one point in We will never have been modern Latour notes that his thinking is a “challenge to philosophy”. This article argues that Latour's challenge lies in his repeated claim that his ontology makes us able to think again about the “passing of time”. If this is indeed the case then, this essay looks to Martin Heidegger to think of the question of temporality and ontology. This essay will in effect find that on a deeper level Latour repeats crucial Heideggerian insights with regard to the ontological difference between being and beings. Yet on other points too Heidegger's impact is notable: for Heidegger too, something has gone wary with modernity and our modern constitution. Here too Latour's metaphors point in a rather Heideggerian direction, for the “invisible” modern constitution has become “visible” in certain ontic events—Latour notes the end of communism. This recalls Heidegger's critique of metaphysics. The article will then focus on Latour's distinction between delegation and what is being delegated, a distinction that pervades the conclusion of his 1991 book. Latour thus introduces a difference between (atemporal?) delegation and what is being delegated (humans, hybrids, angels, etc.). How not to recognize a duplicate of Heidegger's ontological difference? And, once recognized, what does this mean for our thinking of being and the thinking of the event of world which has been delegated to us?
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
I follow Graham Harman’s characterization in Harman (2009: 68).
The stress on the scale of modernity is a constant throughout Latour’s book, see (1993: 41), “the Constitution provided the moderns with the daring to mobilize things and people on a scale that they otherwise would have disallowed”.
It is to be noted that in modernity, for Latour, God was the guarantee of the neat distinction between mediation and purification, see (1993: 107). There would be room for an “ontotheology of modernity” in Latour.
Compare (Latour, 1993: 122) on the “cause” of global markets not being global itself.
Latour develops the idea of a truth “in retrospect,” a retrofitting of truth to the facts after the events as it were. Pasteur’s theory, of course still developed after 1858 and this fine-tuning is such that not only Pasteur, quite consciously, “took care” of making a name for himself and extend his theory “into history” but also such that these ferments come to be regarded as the substance that must have lain “beneath other entities” even before its official discovery. This is also why it is awkward to attribute #metoo misdemeanors to people’s behavior before (2017): different times, different standards. Yet there is also some recognition that the phenomenon can be extended to other times and places as well. This ambiguity might mean that what we are witnessing, in this regard, is a truth in the process of being retrofitted. Both quotes are Latour (1999: 170).
A similar line of reasoning can be found in Marion (2002: 165).
Latour’s latest confirms that abandoning humanism altogether would amount to some sort of hit and run, not taking our responsibility for the damage done to the planet, see Latour (2021: 136).
It is no coincidence that some terminology that Heidegger will later associate with ontotheology appears at this stage: an entity that is atemporal yet has more being than any other being would suit any idea of God of the metaphysical tradition.
A reliable guide here is Backman (2015: e.g.: 127, 171 and 279n.10).
This is Heidegger’s famous “Fourfold”: “How does the thing presence? [It] gathers and, appropriating the fourfold, it gathers the fourfold’s stay, its while, into something that stays for a while: into this thing, that thing,” in Heidegger (2001: 172).
For this, see Latour (1993: 138 and 124).
References
Backman, J. (2015). Complicated presence. Heidegger on the postmetaphysical unity of being. SUNY Press.
Caputo, J. D. (2018). Hermeneutics. Facts and interpretation in the age of information. Penguin.
Harman, G. (2009). Prince of networks. Bruno Latour and metaphysics. Re.Press.
Heidegger, M. (2001). Poetry language, thought. Trans. A. Hofstadter. HarperCollins.
Heidegger, M. (2004). What is called thinking? Trans. J. Gray. Harper Perennial.
Heidegger, M. (2022). Vorläufiges I–IV. Schwarze Hefte 1963–1970. Klostermann.
Heidegger, M. (1967). Being and time. Trans. J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson. Blackwell.
Kochan, J. (2010). Latour’s Heidegger. Social Studies of Science, 40(4), 579–598
Latour, B. (1993). We have never been modern. Trans. C. Porter. Harvard University Press.
Latour, B. (1994). On technical mediation. Common Knowledge, 3(2), 29–64.
Latour, B. (1997) [1991]. Nous n’ avons jamais été modernes. Essai d’anthropologique symétrique. Ed. La Découverte.
Latour, B. (1999). Pandora’s hope. Essays on the reality of science studies. Trans. T. Fernandez. Harvard University Press.
Latour, B. (2017). Facing Gaia. Eight lectures on the new climatic regime. Trans. C. Porter. Polity.
Latour, B. (2021). Où suis-je? Leçons du confinement à l’usage des terrestres. La Découverte.
Marion, J.L. (2002). Being given. Toward a phenomenology of givenness. Trans. J. Kosky. Stanford UP.
Funding
The author did not receive support from any organization for the submitted work.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Schrijvers, J. Passing Time: Bruno Latour’s Challenge to Philosophy. Hum Stud 45, 29–45 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-022-09618-6
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-022-09618-6