Open AccessRemarks on Science, Epistemology and Education in Bruno Latour’s Down to Earth
Author(s) -
Oliver Kauffmann
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
nordicum-mediterraneum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1670-6242
DOI - 10.33112/nm.15.3.3
Subject(s) - constructive , epistemology , climate science , politics , order (exchange) , philosophy of science , philosophy , sociology , climate change , environmental ethics , law , political science , ecology , computer science , process (computing) , finance , economics , biology , operating system
In Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime (2018), Bruno Latour argues that any effort to sustain life in the critical zone of our planet must leave behind the modern epistemologies, which reify and partition nature and science. In order to clear the ground for a proper descriptive stance, he dismisses ‘the view from nowhere’ and corresponding epistemic notions such as ‘Galileism’. I demonstrate why Latour’s fight against ‘the view from nowhere’ is misguided and wrong in the details. At best, his critique is largely irrelevant for the constructive use of science and education in ‘the climate war’.