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(58)
The Hume Machine. Can associations networks do more than formal rules?
1995

In Stanford Humanities Review Vol.4, n°2 (with G. Teil), pp. 47-66, 1995

Abstract
By pushing to its extreme conclusions recent accounts of formal reasoning in context, this article claims that a machine that cumulates enough context -in the highly reduced forms of co-occurences of words- is able to capture the solidity of most micro-theories; emergent properties are studied of what is a prototype for a work station allowing social science students to treat full texts in a « quali-quantitative” manner.
Translations
No Other Translations Available
Digital Humanities, Quantitative methods, Sociology of Science 🔗
(55)
Pragmatogonies. A Mythical Account of How Humans and Non-humans Swap Properties
1994

In Humans and Others: the Concept of « Agency” and its attribution special issue of American Behavioral Sciences, Malcolm Ashmore (editor), vol.37, n°6, pp.791-808 [third modified part of Article (54)]

Abstract
In a special issue devoted to human-non-human attribution, it uses the former paper to show that the two extreme positions of humans and non-humans are devoid of meaning and should be replaced, instead, by the exchange of properties, competences and performances. There is no sense in which a human or a technique can be said to exist.
Translations
No Other Translations Available
Technology 🔗
(54)
On Technical Mediation
1994

In Common Knowledge Vol.3, n°2 p.29-64. [included in Book (VII)]

Abstract
In this series of three lectures -shortened in one long paper- is presented the philosophical, sociological and mythical account of the links between humans and non-humans; the first section explores the notion of translation in order to give activity back to objects, the second follows empirical examples of technical systems and the third offers a mythical account of how humans and techniques co-evolved. The general purpose of the article is to show that there are many ways to escape the dualist paradigm separating humans and non-humans. To understand techniques and their ties with society we have to be as subtle as the ant to which a thread is attached by Daedalus. The straight line of philosophy is of no use in those matters. It is the crooked and devious labyrinth of machines and machinations that we have to explore. This is what I want to try to do in those lectures dedicated to “the Evolution of Civilization” by Dr Messenger, who added in his will that those lectures should have “the special purpose of raising the moral standard of our political, business, and social life”. Well, I like this brief and take up the challenge, since this is exactly what I intend to do, summarize -modestly!- the Evolution of Civilization and, yes, raise your moral standards -if needs be- by unveiling the most despised artefacts that hold all of us together! Techniques, as we shall see, are not only our source of strength but of morality and politics.
Translations

1998: Allemand / German
« Über technische Vermitlung Philosophie, Soziologie, Genealogie » in Technik und Sozialtheorie, Werner Rammert (editor), Campus Verlag pp.29-82, 1998 [new German translation in Andréa Belliger & David J. Krieger ANThology - Eine Einführendes Hanbuch zue Akteur-Netzwerk-Theorie, Bielefeld, Transcript Verlag, 2006 pp.483-529]

1998: Espagnol / Spanish
« De la mediacion técnica: filosofia, sociologia, genealogia » in Miquel Domènech y Francisco J. Tirado (Eds.) Sociología simétrica Ensayos sobre ciencia, tecnología y sociedad. Barcelona: Gedisa, pp.249-302, 1998

1998: Italien / Italian
« L’evoluzione del collettivo tra scienzia, tecnic e societa » translated by Allessandro de Lachenal in La Medicina di Darwin Pino Donghi (sous la direction de), Laterza, pp.167-208, 1998

2014: Hebrew
על תיווך טכני – פילוסופיה, סוציולוגיה, גנאלוגיה
translated by Avner Ben Zaken
in “Beyond the Object” in Bezalel – Journal of Visual and Material Culture
vol. 1, August 2014, pp. 1-24

Philosophy, Politics, Technology 🔗
(52)
Ethnography of high-tech: about the Aramis case
1993

In Pierre Lemonnier (editor) Technological Choices -Transformations in Material Culture since the Neolithic, Routledge and Kegan Paul, pp.372-398, 1993

Abstract
The first task of the anthropology of techniques is to establish a common ground between those who study traditional techniques and those, called sociologists, technologists, historians of technology or economists, who study modern, central or high-tech pieces of machinery. But even once this common ground is established, the main problem of this type of anthropology remains: how can we understand the social construction of artefacts together with the technical construction of society. After summarizing the Aramis case study, this article tries to understand why it is so difficult to do an ethnography of objects, especially of high tech objects; it analyzes the origin of the dualist model of explanation -not only social but also technical- and shows how another model may account for the common life of techiques and societies
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Ethnografie einer Hochtechnologie (German trans.)application/pdf icon
Aramis oder die Liebe zur Technik (German Republication)application/pdf icon
Translations

1994: Espagnol / Spanish
« Ethnografia de un caso de ‘alta tecnologia’: sobre Aramis » in Politica y Sociedad, Madrid, n°14/15, pp.77-97

2002: Traduction suédoise en recueil de texte voir / Swedish translation in reader see CT(ii)

2006: Allemand / German
« Ethnografie einer Hochtechnologie: Das Pariser Projekt 'Aramis' eines automatischen U-Bahn-Systems » in Werner Rammer and Cornelius Schubert (editors) (translated by Werner Rammer) Technografie. Zur Mikrosoziologie der Technik. Campus Verlag, pp. 25-60

Actor-Network-Theory, Technology 🔗
(51)
Pasteur on lactic acid yeast- a partial semiotic analysis
1993

In Configurations Vol.1 n°1, pp.127-142, 1993 [heavily reedited in book form in (VII)]

Abstract
A semiotic study of one article by Pasteur in order to elicit from the text the many philosophies and sociologies of science mobilized in the narration. Semiotics is used to show how non-humans can be analyzed in details and how the text as event can then be connected to historical explanations. A more complete analysis in a draft form, is accessible here.
Downloads
SUMMER SCHOOL-LACTIC-ACID-GB.pdfapplication/pdf icon
Translations

An inventory of semiotic agents present in Louis Pasteur’s famous Memoir on Lactic Acid with special considerations to Simon Schaffer’s criticisms leveled against the ‘hylozoism’ of Latour

History of Science, Semiotics & Literature Studies 🔗
(50)
Where are the missing masses, sociology of a few mundane artefacts
1992

In Shaping Technology-Building Society. Studies in Sociotechnical Change, Wiebe Bijker and John Law (editors), MIT Press, Cambridge Mass. pp. 225-259, 1992 [new expanded and revised version of article (35). Republication in the reader Johnson, Deborah J., and Jameson M Wetmore, eds. Technology and Society, Building Our Sociotechnical Future. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2008 pp. 151-180]

Abstract
According to some physicists there is not enough mass in the universe to balance the accounts that cosmologists make of it. They are looking everywhere for the “missing mass” that could add up to the nice expected total. It is the same with sociologists. They are constantly looking, somewhat desperately, for social links sturdy enough to tie all of us together or for moral laws that would be inflexible enough to make us behave properly. When adding up social ties it does not balance. Soft human and weak moralities are all sociologists can get. The society they try to recompose with bodies and norms constantly crumble. Something is missing. Something that should be strongly social and highly moral. Where can they find it? Everywhere, but they too often refuse to see it in spite of much new work in the sociology of artefacts . I expect sociologists to be much more fortunate than cosmologists since they soon will discover their missing mass. To balance our accounts of society we simply have to turn our attention away from humans and look at non-humans. Here they are, the hidden and despised social masses who make up our morality. They knock at the door of sociology requesting a place in the accounts of society as stubbornly as the humans masses did in the 19th century. I will start my enquiry by following a little script written by anonymous hands. On a freezing day this February, posted on the door of La Halle aux Cuirs at La Villette, in Paris, where Robert Fox's group is trying to convince the French to take up social history of science, could be seen, a small hand-written notice: “The groom is on strike, for God's sake, keep the door closed” (groom is Frenglish for an automated door-closer or butler).
Downloads
Le groom est en grève (French trans.)application/pdf icon
Automatischer Türschließer (German trans.)application/pdf icon
Где недостающая масса? (Russian trans.)application/pdf icon
Translations

1992: Italien / Italian
« Dove sono le masse mancanti ? Sociologia di alcuni oggetti di uso comune », translated by Michela Nacci, Vol.XIII, n°2, pp.221-255 [Republished in a volume edited by Alvize Mattozzi, Il senso degli oggetti tecnici, Melteme, Roma, 2006 pp. 81-124]

1991: Néerlandais / Dutch
« Na de social e wending het roer nogmaals om” in Kennis und Methode, Vol.XV, N°1, pp.11-37 [Translation of Article (48)]

2004: Russe / Russian
« Где недостающая масса? Социология одной двери » in Neprikosnovennyj zappas ». Debaty o politike i kul'ture no. 2(34)/2004

2006: Traduction française partielle / Partial French translation
« Le groom est en grève. Pour l’amour de Dieu, fermez la porte » in La clef de Berlin et autres leçons d’un amateur de sciences, pp. 56-76 [see book(VI)]

2006: Allemand / German
Translation of the semiotic annex in Andréa Belliger & David J. Krieger ANThology - Ein Einführendes Handbuch zur Akteur-Netzwerk-Theorie, Bielefeld, Transcript Verlag, 2006 pp.399-406 [Republication of the German translation « Automatischer Türschließer » in Arch+ Zeitschrift für Architektur und Städtebau, März 2009, n° 191-192, pp. 29-33 (reprise de la traduction de Gustav Roßler in Berliner Schlüssel)]

Actor-Network-Theory, Semiotics & Literature Studies, Technology 🔗
(49)
Don’t throw the Baby out with the Bath school! A reply to Collins and Yearley
1992

In Science as Practice and Culture, A. Pickering (editor), Chicago University Press, Chicago, pp. 343-368 (with Michel Callon)

Abstract
Two papers by Callon on scallops and Latour on door closers are discussed by Collins and Yearley and accused of bringing back naturalism and technical determinism; this paper explores the claims, situates the social relativism vis à vis constructivism and shows how our research program is the only way out of the quandary in which Collins and Yearley have put themselves.
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Chinese translationapplication/pdf icon
Translations

Chinois / Chinese

Actor-Network-Theory, Social Theory, Sociology of Science 🔗
(48)
One More Turn after the Social Turn: Easing Science Studies into the Non-Modern World
1992

In Ernan McMullin (editor), The Social Dimensions of Science, Notre Dame University Press: Notre Dame pp.272-292, 1992 [New edition slighly abridged in Mario Biagioli (editor) Science Studies Reader, London Routledge, 1999]

Abstract
After swift advances the field of social studies of science is now stuck a corner; this deadlock is due to the acceptance by social scientists of the Kantian copernican revolution; the paper shows how to do a counter-copernican revolution, and offers a precise way to deconstruct both nature and society without getting into post-modernist philosophy and offers a map to sort out the various research programs in science studies.
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Un giro mas despues del giro social (Spanish trans.)application/pdf icon
Translations

Espagnol / Spanish
« Un giro mas despues del giro social » in post scriptum de l’édition espagnole du livre (III), pp.245-261

1991: Néerlandais / Dutch
« Na de sociale wending het roer nogmaals om » in Kennis und Methode, Vol.XV, N°1, pp.11-37

Anthropology, Sociology of Science 🔗
(47)
A Note on Socio-Technical Graphs
1992

In Social Studies of Science Vol.22 pp. 33-58 et 91-94, 1992 (with Philippe Mauguin and Geneviève Teil)

Abstract
From examples in the history and sociology of techniques, a method is drawn to map out the double displacement of human and non humans assemblies: association and substitution; indicators are then calculated and it is then shown how a data bank could implement those mappings
Translations

Langue: traduction allemande
Titre: « Eine Notiz zu sozio-technischen Graphen » » in Tristan Thielmann & Erhard Schüttpelz (editors) Akteur-Medien-Theorie, Transcript, p-107-13
Editeur: Bielefeld
Date: 2013

Quantitative methods, Semiotics & Literature Studies, Technology 🔗
(46)
Technology is Society Made Durable
1991

In J. Law (editor) A Sociology of Monsters Essays on Power, Technology and Domination,Sociological Review Monograph N°38 pp. 103-132, 1991 [derived from (44)]

Abstract
Social theory always had difficulty in explaining social order and especially power; the article contends that part of the difficulty comes from not understanding the entry point of non-humans and artefacts into the fabric of social order; they are responsible for the durability of social forces. A method to follow those common associations is offered.
Translations

1998: Espagnol / Spanish
« La tecnologia es la socideda hecha para que dure » in Miquel Domènech y Francisco J. Tirado (Comps.) Sociología simétrica. Ensayos sobre ciencia, tecnología y sociedad. Barcelona: Gedisa pp.109-142, 1998

Traduction suédoise en recueil de texte voir / Swedish translation in reader see book CT(ii)

2006: Allemand / German
In Andréa Belliger & David J. Krieger ANThology - Ein Einführendes Handbuch zur Akteur-Netzwerk-Theorie, Bielefeld, Transcript Verlag, 2006 pp.369-398

2013: Polonais/ Polish
Translated by: Lukasz Afeltowicz
Reference:«Technologia jako utrwalone społeczeństwo»
Journal: Avant. Pismo Awangardy Filozoficzno-Naukowej 1/2013 

Technology 🔗

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