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We Have Never Been Modern

Bruno Latour

Modernity critique

It is a pivotal modernity critique, reframing the relationship between science, society, and the nonhuman world.

Synopsis

An argument that modernity's strict split between nature and society is an illusion, since the world is full of hybrids that cross both.

Core passage idea

Paraphrase · Modern copyrighted work

Moderns claim to separate nature from culture even as they multiply hybrids of both, so the modern divide was never truly achieved.

It dissolves a foundational dichotomy of modern thought, reshaping how we understand science, politics, and the things that mix them.

To avoid a bubble

Pair with The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity.

Reading note

Read it as a short, dense argument in science studies; its provocation is conceptual, aimed at how moderns describe themselves.

Best paired with

The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity

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