Monday, September 28, 2009

Pots, Mugs, and Jugs

"The problem with philosophers is that because their jobs are so hard they drink a lot of coffee and thus use in their arguments an inordinate quantity of pots, mugs, and jugs — to which, sometimes, they might add the occasional rock. But, as Ludwik Fleck remarked long ago, their objects are never complicated enough; more precisely, they are never simultaneously made through a complex history and new, real, and interesting participants in the universe."

— Bruno Latour, "Why Has Critique Run Out Of Steam?: From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern" in Critical Inquiry 30 (Winter 2004), 233-234