Introduction; An Inquiry into Modes of Existence

 I’m feeling a tad Alice in Wonderlandish… having opened AIME and traversedthe introduction, what can I say?

First, I am keen. I’ve had the book for seven years and now I have the time for a serious read. Reading a French Philosopher translated and which addresses questions I first encountered on reading ‘We have never been modern’ is not for the faint hearted. That one took me two reads before I was able to make any meaning of it.

Second, the introduction posits the question facing current times. We would appear to be at a time of unsurety…. Not a real word but, it will do. How did we come to this place where we are no longer able to assert/ trust in science. And what of our other institutions? Just as untrustworthy, or more. Law, religion, governments…And if people don’t trust in Science then we are in serious trouble. Climate change (or COVID) come at times when we have no ability to appeal to certainty. How then can we respond? How do we configure valid robust shared action? Science is a fragile institution. Are you ready for a change in epistemology?

Page 10; “as for the future, it has been shattered to bits. We shall no longer be able to emancipate ourselves the way we would before. An entirely new situation: behind us attachments; ahead of us, even more attachments.”

Page 18; “There is more than one dwelling space in the realm of reason.”

Yet Latour reiterate’s he is not making a relativist argument. “Only to invite attention to the institutions that would allow them to mainstream a little longer and it is here that the notion of trust comes to the fore.”

Third, the book is supported by an online accompanying space…oddly very legalistic on entry!

Fourth, as I found with ANT, perhaps if I take a small bite, my world would change.