People = Things? Symmetry in actor-network theory

 
16.11.2017
 
Center for Science and Technology Studies (STS Center)

November, 30 at 6.00 p.m. as the part of the STS Center Regular seminar will be head a lucture by Sergei Astakhov "People = Things? Symmetry in actor-network theory".

 

We all know that actor-network theory took the concept of symmetry by D.Bloor. The transformation of this principle is a serious achievement Kallon M., and B. Latour. That symmetry allowed us to equate humans and non-humans, symmetry has made a network of technoscience visible to the researcher. However, in 1999 in a controversy with the Bloor Latour puts his principle into question. What went wrong? The problem in the ontology of time AST? Or Latour secretly believed in the superiority of non-humans? At the seminar, Sergey Astakhov, from the School of philosophy of the HSE will review the main arguments against symmetrical Latour and show where critics miss the mark, and where to hit in the most vulnerable places of the theory.