2015-03 Disassembling ANT PPV.pdf (231.4 kB)
Disassembling actor-network theory
journal contribution
posted on 2015-05-05, 14:51 authored by Dave Elder-VassOne of the strikingly iconoclastic features of actor-network theory is its juxtaposition of the claim to be a realist perspective with denials that supposedly natural phenomena existed before scientists “made them up”. This paper explains and criticises such arguments in the work of Bruno Latour. By combining referent and reference in the concept of assemblages, Latour provides a superficially viable way to reconcile these apparently incompatible claims. This paper will argue, however, that this conflation of referent and reference leads Latour’s ontology into difficulties that can only be resolved by abandoning it in favour of a more conventional – critical – realism.
History
School
- Social Sciences and Humanities
Department
- Social and Policy Studies
Published in
Philosophy of the Social SciencesVolume
45Issue
1Pages
100 - 121Citation
ELDER-VASS, D., 2015. Disassembling actor-network theory. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 45 (1), pp.100-121.Publisher
Sage (© The Author 2014)Version
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Publication date
2014-04-10Notes
The final published version of this paper can be found at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0048393114525858ISSN
0048-3931eISSN
1552-7441Publisher version
Language
- en