Pandora's Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

[Pandora's Hope] brims with insight, and is frequently brilliant. It does what one always hopes for, but so rarely finds, in a philosophy book; it shakes assumptions so deeply held that you hardly knew they were there. It takes the world, reshuffles it, and deals it back; the cards are all the same, but the hand is crucially different...Pandora's Hope, and its author, demand serious attention...Latour asks jarring and important questions and proposes jarring and brilliant answers. Kafka once wrote that a good book ought to have the fearsome impact of an ice ax. Pandora's Hope does this. Having finished it, I am bloodied and befuddled. And I can think of no greater compliment for a book, or heartier endorsement.
--Noah J. Efron (Boston Book Review )

Show Latour an intellectual war zone and he'll leap into the middle, to do battle with both sides...You can rely on [Pandora's Hope] to shake your ideas up. And that's almost never a bad thing, in science or elsewhere.
--Mike Holderness (New Scientist )

Pandora's Hope is Latour's systematic defense of science studies, starting with impressions of his sojourn with five naturalists in Amazonia...His observations of [them] are overwhelmingly persuasive, and without a hint of supercilious hostility to the cause of science. Latour is proud to have been cited as co-contributor to their research report, and they must be equally pleased to figure in his. (Times Higher Education Supplement )

In this book of impassioned and creative explorations into scientific life, Bruno Latour offers himself as a reasonable man who is ready and willing to lead combatants of the "science wars" off the battle plain and onto higher ground...The text is comprised of essays about the genesis of and context for the science wars, case studies of scientific practice and elaboration of his current theoretical stances. His writing can be stimulating, fresh and at times genuinely moving...It is hard not to be caught up in the author's obvious delight in deploying a classic work from antiquity to bring current concerns into sharper focus, following along as he manages to leave the reader with the impression that the protagonists Socrates and Callicles are not only in dialogue with each other but with Latour as well.
--Katherine Pandora (American Scientist )

His work sparkles with wit, sharp scholarship, graceful tropes, homely but apt metaphors, personal anecdotes at his own expense, and other jewels of the art of persuasion. It is always a pleasure to read or listen to Bruno, just for the vitality and fun of his mind.
--John Ziman (Interdisciplinary Science Reviews )

Latour is concerned with making a case for the emerging field of "science studies," a discipline that proposes to study science and the scientific process itself on a philosophical and conceptual level. After an introductory chapter in which he lays the groundwork for science studies and its contributions to our knowledge of the nature of reality, Latour then provides a series of case studies showing scientists from various fields in action. In these case studies, which range from an analysis of a field trip by soil scientists in the Amazon to Louis Pasteur's investigations of lactic acid fermentation in yeast, Latour carefully dissects the seen and unseen components of the scientists' activity and thought. Latour's engaging, clear writing style makes a difficult subject much easier to comprehend.
--R. K. Harris (Choice )

Product Description

A scientist friend asked Bruno Latour point-blank: "Do you believe in reality?" Taken aback by this strange query, Latour offers his meticulous response in Pandora's Hope. It is a remarkable argument for understanding the reality of science in practical terms.

In this book Latour, identified by Richard Rorty as the new "bête noire of the science worshipers," gives us his most philosophically informed book since Science in Action. Through case studies of scientists in the Amazon analyzing soil and in Pasteur's lab studying the fermentation of lactic acid, he shows us the myriad steps by which events in the material world are transformed into items of scientific knowledge. Through many examples in the world of technology, we see how the material and human worlds come together and are reciprocally transformed in this process.

Why, Latour asks, did the idea of an independent reality, free of human interaction, emerge in the first place? His answer to this question, harking back to the debates between Might and Right narrated by Plato, points to the real stakes in the so-called science wars: the perplexed submission of ordinary people before the warring forces of claimants to the ultimate truth.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press; 1 edition (June 30, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067465336X
• ISBN-13: 978-0674653368
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #274,933 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not One For The Purists, March 14, 2000

By	Nick Drengenberg (Australia) - See all my reviews

You have to admire Bruno Latour's persistence in the face of often vicious misunderstanding of what he's about. In many ways the core insights he has brought to the study of science have been available to readers for almost 20 years, yet it is still necessary for him to constantly reframe arguments to try and get the points across. This book shows once again the profound seriousness of his philosophical approach, based in the work of Serres, Deleuze and Whitehead amongst many others, and yet it seems inevitable that its lucid style and empirical foundation will find 'academic' philosophers once again all at sea (and substituting the usual bile for genuine understanding). This is Latour at his most sober, pleading for common sense in an area that is surely the intellectual world's biggest reservoir of wishful mysticism - the relationship between representation and reality. It's not just philosophers who find this banal question interesting, but also scientists, who increasingly adopt the same impoverished schema as those in science studies have developed over the years to judge (not understand) what scientists do. This is one of the great strengths of Latour's book and overall approach, how he respects the work and procedures of both sides, using neither to be reductionist about the other. What emerges is a science fully implicated in the 'social' world, and a social world just as implicated in the world of facts and theories - no puritanical separation, but also not a simple reflection of one in the other either. It will confuse and anger philosophers and scientists alike, but only to the extent that they have disciplinary empires to protect - Latour is interested in the world, and not constant petty claims about who understands it best.

21 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars illustrates how far science studies has come, July 8, 1999

By	kyle keeney (Louisville, KY United States) - See all my reviews

An essential read for anyone who has followed the battles of "science studies." It is a pleasure to FINALLY see someone (Latour, no less) lay down their semantic weapons and attempt to write an honest essay (no sarcasm, word play, or back stab). Latour has long been at the forefront of science studies (and argument). But here we begin to see the emergence of a mature position, one that isn't afraid to look in the mirror or ask tough questions. The intro historical account won't win him any friends in philosophy departments, but that's not his audience this time around. Here we have good science written in an honest, practical, no-nonsense style. The fear and uncertainty of science studies being a "new" or (worse) "post" discipline has faded away. Now, the real work begins. And here is where we're lucky because bruno latour turns out to be a pretty good guide and everyone's ally.

13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Latour for beginners, June 27, 2000

By	Jaakko Leskinen "Finnjävel" (Helsinki) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Latour has written a clear introduction to his current position in the field of STS-studies. Chapter after chapter, patiently, he clarifies the basic premises of his work. Whatever one thinks about Latour's radical redifinition of the field of science and technology studies, this is an enjoyable book: clear and well written.