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2 Gain financially from the work in anyway sell the work or seek monies in relation to the distribution of the work use the work in any commercial activity of any kind profit a third party indirectly via use or distribution of the work distribute in or through a commercial body (with the exception of academic usage within educational institutions such as schools and universities)reproduce, distribute or store the cover image outside of its function as a cover of this workalter or build on the work outside of normal academic scholarship Cover ArtThe artwork on the cover of this book is not open Access and falls under traditional copyright provisions and thus cannot be reproduced in any way without written permission of the artists and their agents. The cover can be displayed as a complete cover image for the purposes of publicizing this work; however, the artwork cannot be extracted from the context of the cover of this specific work without breaching the artist s / Purchasing BooksThe PDF you are reading is an electronic version of a physical book that can be purchased through any bookseller (including on-line stores), through the normal book supply channels, or directly.

3 Please support this open Access publication by requesting that your uni-versity purchase a physical printed copy of this book, or by purchasing a copy yourself. If you have any questions Please contact the publisher: Box 40 Prahran, 3181 VictoriaAustralia of NetworksBruno Latour and MetaphysicsGraham HarmanPrince of Networks Bruno Latour and Metaphysics Graham of NetworksAnamnesisAnamnesis means remembrance or reminiscence, the collection and re-collection of what has been lost, forgotten, or effaced. It is therefore a matter of the very old, of what has made us who we are. But anamnesis is also a work that transforms its subject, always producing something new. To recollect the old, to produce the new: that is the task of Anamnesis. a Melbourne 2009 Graham HarmanPrince of Networks: Bruno Latour and Box 40, Prahran, 3181, Melbourne, & Graham Harman 2009 The moral rights of the author are automatically asserted and recog-nized under Australian law (Copyright Amendment [Moral Rights] Act 2000)This work is Open Access , published under a creative commons license which means that you are free to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work as long as you clearly attribute the work to the authors, that you do not use this work for any commercial gain in any form whatsoever and that you in no way alter, transform or build on the work outside of its use in normal academic scholarship without express permission of the author (or their executors) and the publisher of this volume.

4 For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. For more informa-tion see the details of the creative commons licence at this website: Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British LibraryLibrary of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of CongressNational Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication DataHarman, Graham, 1968-Prince of networks : Bruno Latour and metaphysics / Graham : 978-0-9805440-6-0 (pbk.)ISBN: 978-0-9806665-2-6 (ebook)Series: : Includes index. : Latour, Bruno. Metaphysics. and Typeset by A&R This book is produced sustainably using plantation timber, and printed in the destination market reducing wastage and excess page viiINTrODuCTION The LSe e vent 3 Preface 5 PArT I: THe MeTAPHySICS OF LATOur 1.

5 Irreductions 112. Science in Action 333. We Have Never Been Modern 574. Pandora s Hope 71 PArT II: OBjeCTS AND reLATIONS 5. Contributions 996. Questions 11 97. Object-Oriented Philosophy 151 Bibliography 233 Index 239viiAbbreviationsArAramis or the Love of Technology, trans. Catherine Porter, Cambridge, Harvard university Press, Fabrique du Droit. Une ethnographie du Conseil d Etat, Paris, D couverte, Life. The Construction of Scientific Facts, with Steve Woolgar, Princeton, Princeton university Press, Can We Get Our Materialism Back, Please ? , Isis, no. 98, 2007, pp. From realpolitik to Dingpolitik, or How to Make Things Public, in Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel (eds.), Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy, Cambridge, MIT Press, Have Never Been Modern, trans. Catherine Porter, Cambridge, Harvard university Press, On the Partial existence of existing and Nonexisting Objects, in Lorraine Daston (ed.)

6 , Biographies of Scientific Objects, Chicago, university of Chicago Press, s Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies, Cambridge, Harvard university Press, Pasteurization of France, trans. Alan Sheridan and john Law, Cambridge, Harvard university Press, of NetworksviiiPNPolitics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences Into Democracy, trans. Catherine Porter, Cambridge, Harvard university Press, the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory, Oxford, Oxford university Press, in Action. How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society, Cambridge, Harvard university Press, ville invisible, Paris, editions la D couverte, 1998. Available in english at #introduction3 The LSe eventThe initial manuscript of this book was discussed at the London School of economics on 5 February, 2008 at a daylong symposium entitled The Harman review: Bruno Latour s empirical Metaphysics.

7 The host for the event was the Innovation Systems and Information Group in the LSe Department of Management, and warm support was provided by its Head, Professor Leslie Willcocks. Bruno Latour was in attendance to respond to the manuscript. The panel discussion was chaired by edgar Whitley, with additional presentations by Lucas Introna, Noortje Marres, and the author of this book. Frances White provided critical help in organizing the event. The Symposium Organising Committee emphasised further the highly in-ternational flavor of the event, featuring Aleksi Altonen, Ofer engel, Peter erd lyi, and Wifak Houij Gueddana (all doctoral candidates) and Dr. Maha Shaikh. In addition, some forty-five specially invited participants were in the audience that the words of erd lyi: It was such an unusual and unlikely event; even in retrospect it is difficult to believe it actually had taken place.

8 What are the chances of hosting a metaphysical debate between a Heideggerian philosopher and a sociologist known for his dislike of Heidegger on the grounds of a management school, organised by PhD students of an infor-mation systems department? 1 The chances are greatly increased when an energetic and visionary group like ANTHeM is involved. The acronym stands for Actor-Network Theory-Heidegger Meeting . Thanks to erd lyi and his friends in ANTHeM my intellectual life over the last two years 1. Peter erd lyi, remembering the Harman review . Blog post at of Networks4has been greatly enriched, and this book was able to become a public ac-tor long before publication in its current, final format. Though I normally avoid acknowledgments sections in books from fear of making my readers feel bored or excluded, erd lyi s group is not boring and excludes nobody.

9 It is worthwhile to join ANTHeM s mailing list and browse their website: non-boring, non-exclusive person is Latour himself. At vari-ous stages of writing this book I received the warmest possible treatment from Bruno and Chantal Latour in Cairo, Paris, and at the Latour hut in Ch telperron dans l Allier. Latour has responded graciously to my que-ries from as early as 1999, when I was just an obscure and unpublished fresh struggling in Chicago. But there are countless such stories of Latour s openness to the young and the unknown, and readers of this book may one day discover this for book is the first to consider Bruno Latour as a key figure in metaphys-ics a title he has sought but rarely received. Latour has long been promi-nent in the fields of sociology and anthropology, yet the philosophical ba-sis of his work remains little known.

10 While his many admirers are seldom concerned with metaphysical questions, those hermits and outcasts who still pursue first philosophy are generally unfamiliar with Latour. My aim is to bring these two groups into contact by expressing Latourian insights in terms bearing on the basic structure of reality itself. When the centaur of classi-cal metaphysics is mated with the cheetah of actor-network theory, their off-spring is not some hellish monstrosity, but a thoroughbred colt able to carry us for half a century and more. Though Latour s career has unfolded large-ly in the social sciences, his origins lie in a rigorous traditional education in philosophy marked by a strongly jesuit flavour. His choice of topics, his wit, and his literary style are those of a contemporary, yet his works are a contri-bution to disputes over metaphysics traceable to ancient often happens with the most significant thinkers, Latour is attacked simultaneously for opposite reasons.