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(72)
Socrate’s and Callicles’ Settlement, or the Invention of the Imposible Body Politic
2006

In Configurations, Spring 1997, N°2: pp.189-240

Abstract
A detailed analysis of Plato’s Gorgias allows to see how the famous debate between Might and Right has been rigged, since Socrates and Callicles agree on everything against the people of Athens. But then, once the moral red herring has been pushed aside, it is still possible to see in the dialog the traces of the conditions of felicity proper to politics and ignored by Socrates’ appeal to Reason as well as by Callicles’ appeal to Force. The Body Politic made impossible by their settlement, can be made possible again as soon as other definitions of science and politics are provided.
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L'invention de la guerre des sciences (French trans.)application/pdf icon
Translations

Français / French
«L'invention de la guerre des sciences », Reedited in book form in (VII) Chapter 7

Philosophy, Politics, Semiotics & Literature Studies 🔗
(71)
Trains of thoughts —Piaget, Formalism and the Fifth Dimension
1996

In Common Knowledge Winter 1997, Vol.6 n°3, pp. 170-191 [also published in a slighlty different version « Trains of Thought. The Fifth Dimension and its Fabrication » in Thinking Time (edited by A.N. Perret-Clermont, J.M. Barrelet, A. Flammer, D. Mieville, J.F. Perret & W. Perrig) «Swiss Monographs in Psychology» published by Hogrefe and Hupher Publishers, Gottingen and Bern, 2005, pp.173-187]

Abstract
There is a traditionnal opposition between the time/space categories of physics and the lived space and time of phenomenology. The paper, using Piaget’s understanding of formalism as an anti-model, explores how this dichotomy has been devised, why it cannot be sustained as soon as the study of scientific and technical practice re-embeds time and space production inside metrological networks, and, finally, offers an alternative account of time and space production that is based on another theory of « the exploration » of Being.
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Trains of thought (Swiss version)application/pdf icon
71-version française provisoireapplication/pdf icon
Translations

Traduction: française
Titre: "Jean Piaget, le formalisme et la cinquième dimension", suivi d’un commentaire par Myriam Suchet
Traduction: Lucas Faugère
Revue: Ecritures, 2017, N°9 p. 57-86
Date: 2017

Epistemology, Philosophy, Sociology of Science 🔗
(70)
Do you believe in reality?
2006

News from the Science War Front Line (foreword of Pandora’s Hope)

Abstract
The « Science War » between some scientists and « science studies » oblige to reconsider the basic philosophy of science that has been invented in the past. This paper explores the connection between a quest for absolute truth, the political quest for disciplining the people and, finally, the invention of a mind seieng at the world. Poltics, psychology and epistemology offer a joint configuration which is now being dismantled. It is within this configuration that the defenders of science as well as its ennemies are working. The paper tries to show the philosophical genealogy of that configuration and how it can be replaced by another, which implies a different politics, psychology and theory of science.
Translations
No Other Translations Available
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(69)
Primate Relativity -Reflexions of a Fellow-Traveler
1996

Paper prepared for Changing Images of Primate Societies: The Role of Theory, Method and Gender, Wenner-Gren, Rio, Bresil, Juin 96 (unpublished manuscript)

Abstract
Voir pour un autre texte sur le même sujet / see for another text on the same topic: Article (74)
Translations
No Other Translations Available
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(68)
A Few Steps Toward the Anthropology of the Iconoclastic Gesture
1996

In Science in Context, Vol., 10, n°1 pp. 63-83 [republication in a Chinese art Journal Art Map (http://www.artmap.com.cn) ]

Abstract
The paper -in part related to (67)- is an effort to get away from the conditioned reflex of the critical mode of thinking which highly values iconoclasm, anti-fetishim and anti-idolatry. Instead of another attempt at deconstruction it tries to reinstall the lost operation of « factishes” (that is fact+fetish). It is argued that by resinstating officially those factishes, the theory of action that is linked to construction —and deconctruction- can be replaced by a much more adjusted theory of mediations which provide the critical distance but not the anti-fetishism that usually goes with it.
Translations

Repris très transformé en livre / heavily reedited in book form
in book (VII), for translations see « Books »

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(66)
How to be Iconophilic in Art, Science and Religion
1996

In Carrie Jones and Peter Galison, (editors) Picturing Science Producing Art, Routledge, London, pp. 418-440, 1998.

Abstract
Starting from the work done in the last fifteen years on the scientific vizualization, the paper connects both with art history -comparing the treatment of mediation in both fields, and from there to theology. The paper argues that it is possible to reopen the science/religion debate if religion is stripped of its belief in belief which has no other ground than a mistaken view of scientific information production. The case study is then deployed of the iconography of the Assomption. The transformation of information is then compared, in a systematic way with that of person transportation. Love talk, the only remnant of theology without belief in subtance, is then reformatted.
Translations

German translation in Jens Schröter (editor) special issue of Zeitschrift für Ästhetik und Allgemeine Kunstgeschichte, ANT as challenge for art history.

Art History, Religion Studies, Viualization 🔗
(65)
On the Partial Existence of Existing and Non-existing Objects
1996

In Biographies of Scientific Objects, Lorraine Daston (editor), Chicago University Press, pp. 247-269, 2000

Abstract
The paper tries to find an intermdiary zone between metaphysics -especially that of Whitehead- and sociology or social history of science. It offers a sketchy but robust vocabulary to define the spatio-temporal envelop of phenomena, without having to take decisions on their existence or non-existence. The notion of network is then given a more precise metaphysics by pursuing how a phenomenon is then extended, through standardization and reformatting, into the classical status of existing or non-existing objetcs.
Translations

Repris très transformé en livre / Heavily reedited in book form
in (VII). See « Books » for translations

Philosophy, Sociology of Science 🔗
(63)
On interobjectivity
1996

In Mind, Culture, and Activity: An International Journal Traduction [English revised and expanded translation of (57). Special symposium with discussion by Marc Berg Michael Lynch, Yrjo Engelström and a response by the author, Vol.3, n°4, pp.228-245 & 246-269

Abstract
This article of social theory reintroduces the object inside the definition of society and shows how this can solve the debate between « micro” and « macro” definitions of social order. It adds to inter-subjectivity the notion of « inter-objectivity” in order to redefine the notion of agency, of action and of actor. It then proceeds to modify the definition of action.
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Об интеробъективности (Russian trans.) application/pdf icon
Translations

2007: Russe / Russian
« Об интеробъективности » in Sociological Review, Tome 6, n°2 (Moscou) traduit par Victor Vakhshtayn, 2007

Actor-Network-Theory, Sociology of Science, Technology 🔗
(62)
Do Scientific Objects Have a History? Pasteur and Whitehead in a Bath of Lactic Acid
1996

In Common Knowledge, Vol.5, n°1, pp.76-91 [Revised English Translation of Article (56)]

Abstract
The philosophical problem of an history of objects, and not only of the history of the « discovery” of an object is tackled in this theoretical article that uses an empirical example -an article by Pasteur- and Whithead’s philosophy. It explores on which conditions, according to Whithead, it would be possible to overcome the limits of « social” explanations of realism without falling back on the realism of the past.
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62-PASTEUR-PORTUGUESE.pdfapplication/pdf icon
Translations

Repris très transformé en livre / Heavily reedited in book form
in (VII), see « Books” for translations

Traduction en allemand dans la version allemande de (VI) / German translation in German version of (VI)

Traduction Portugais / Portuguese
« Os objetos têm historia? encontro de pasteur com whitehead num banho de acido lactico » in Histioria, Ciencias, Saude - Manguinhos Vol. II, n° 1 mar-june 1995, pp.7-26

Epistemology, Semiotics & Literature Studies 🔗
(61)
Social theory and the study of computerized work sites
1995

In Information Technology and Changes in Organizational Work, W. J. Orlinokowski, Geoff Walsham (editors) Chapman and Hall, London, pp.295-307, 1995.

Abstract
This paper tries to understand what has changed in social theory, because of the development of information technology in work sites and because of the analysis of sociologists, specialists of labor relations, of organizations, of situated cognition, etc. It starts with a simple example of practice and tries to analyze it by following new concepts which seems to derive from the redistribution of humans and non-humans due to the pervasiveness of computerized work sites. It then tries to list the services rendered to social theory by those work sites and by the studies made by much more knowledgeable colleagues.
Translations

2006: Allemand / German
In ANThology - Eine Einführendes Hanbuch zue Akteur-Netzwerk-Theorie, Bielefeld, Andréa Belliger & David J. Krieger (editors), Transcript Verlag, pp.529-544, 2006

Actor-Network-Theory, Digital Humanities, Semiotics & Literature Studies 🔗

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