Latour’s well-known opposition to critique is a pretence. Noone critiques as ferociously as Latour, only his de-concepted surface is « diplomatic ». For example, Latour is very critical of both naive realism and relativism, arguing in favour of a realist pluralism.
I defend Latour’s realist pluralism here.
It is only by taking Latour’s de-concepted surface style at face value that OOO can pretend to absorb actor-network theory into its own veritably de-concepted body. Latour’s entire theoretical corpus contains a continuous critique of the sort of metaphysics that OOO represents.
Thus both the relativist reading and the ooo-realist reading are based on a concept-blind hermeneutics that is the very antithesis of Latour’s interpretative strategy. This strategy, considered as a Trojan Horse has unfortunately been a failure, reinforcing the reductionist ontologies that it aimed to displace.
AGENT SWARM 