How to talk about the body? The normative dimension of science studies

Bruno Latour (1)

1 médialab - médialab (Sciences Po)

Science studies has been often against the normative dimension of epistemology, which made a naturalistic study of science impossible. But this is not to say that a new type of normativity cannot be detected at work in science studies. This is especially true in the second wave of studies dealing with the body which has been aiming at criticizing the physicalisation of the body without falling nonetheless in the various traps of a phenomenology simply added to a physical substrate. This paper explores the work of Isabelle Stengers and Vinciane Despret in that respect and show how it can be used to rethink the articulation between the various levels that make up a body.

Domains: Humanities and Social Sciences; Sociology; Humanities and Social Sciences; Psychology

Bruno Latour. How to talk about the body? The normative dimension of science studies. Body & Society, 2004, 10 (2-3), pp.205-229. ⟨hal-01019910⟩