Latour is a world famous and widely published French sociologist who has written with great eloquence and perception about the relationship between people, science, and technology. He is also closely associated with the school of thought known as Actor Network Theory. In this book he sets out for the first time in one place his own ideas about Actor Network Theory and its relevance to management and organization theory.

Chapter 1 FROM ORDER TO DISORDER 5 mins. John enters and goes into his office. He says something very quickly about having made a bad mistake. He had sent the review of a paper. . . . The rest of the sentence is inaudible. 5 mins.

In the last few years, researchers have begun to investigate the emergence of novel forms of human communication in the laboratory. I survey this growing line of research, which may be called experimental semiotics, from three distinct angles. First, I situate the new approach in its theoretical and historical context. Second, I review a sample of studies that exemplify experimental semiotics. Third, I present an empirical study that illustrates how the new approach can help us understand the socio‐cognitive underpinnings of (...) human communication. The main conclusion of the paper will be that, by reproducing micro samples of historical processes in the laboratory, experimental semiotics offers new powerful tools for investigating human communication as a form of joint action. (shrink)

Abstract: The standard picture of rationality requires that the agent acts so as to realize her most preferred alternative in the light of her own desires and beliefs. However, there are circumstances where such an agent can predict that she will act against her preferences. The story of Ulysses and the Sirens is the paradigmatic example of such cases. In those circumstances the orthodoxy requires the agent to be ‘sophisticated’. That is to say, she should take into account her expected (...) future choices and prevent her future self to act in certain ways. She should ‘bind’ herself to a certain course of action. This is a form of causal commitment. It is generally recognized that this form of self-commitment is the only one that is available to a rational agent. Rational commitment, where the agent gives herself a reason to act in a certain way rather than making herself act in that way, is considered not feasible. In this paper, I question this verdict. I sketch the broad outlines of a model of rational commitment, which takes as its starting point Michael Bratman’s ‘planning theory’ of intention. There are two important objections against this theory (one by John Broome and one by the Dutch philosopher Govert den Hartogh.) Both criticisms claim that such a theory is a form of ‘bootstrapping’ reasons for action into existence. In the remainder of the paper, I will defend the theory against these objections. This way, I hope to establish that defending the feasibility of rational commitment is not an obvious mistake. (shrink)

Revolutionary developments in economics are rare. The conservative bias of the field and its enshrined knowledge make it difficult to introduce new ideas not in line with received theory. Happiness research, however, has the potential to change economics substantially in the future. Its findings, which are gradually being taken into account in standard economics, can be considered revolutionary in three respects: the measurement of experienced utility using psychologists' tools for measuring subjective well-being; new insights into how human beings value goods (...) and services and social conditions that include consideration of such non-material values as autonomy and social relations; and policy consequences of these new insights that suggest different ways for government to affect individual well-being. In Happiness, emphasizing empirical evidence rather than theoretical conjectures, Bruno Frey substantiates these three revolutionary claims for happiness research. After tracing the major developments of happiness research in economics and demonstrating that we have gained important new insights into how income, unemployment, inflation, and income demonstration affect well-being, Frey examines such wide-ranging topics as democracy and federalism, self-employment and volunteer work, marriage, terrorism, and watching television from the new perspective of happiness research. Turning to policy implications, Frey describes how government can provide the conditions for people to achieve well-being, arguing that a crucial role is played by adequate political institutions and decentralized decision making. Happiness demonstrates the achievements of the economic happiness revolution and points the way to future research.Bruno S. Frey is Professor of Economics at the University of Zurich, Visiting Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and Research Director of CREMA. He is co-editor of Economics and Psychology: A Promising New Cross-Disciplinary Field. (shrink)

Biology and politics have always been permeable to one another, trading metaphors back and forth. This is nowhere more blatant than when people claim to talk about ‘the planet’ as a whole. James Lovelock’s concept of Gaia has often been interpreted as a godlike figure. By reviewing in some detail a critical assessment of Lovelock’s Gaia by one scientist, Toby Tyrrell, the paper tries to map out why it is so difficult for natural as well as social scientists not to (...) confuse Gaia with some sort of Providence. (shrink)

Brain imaging studies suggest that truth telling constitutes the default of the human brain and that lying involves intentional suppression of the predominant truth response. By manipulating the truth proportion in the Sheffield lie test, we investigated whether the dominance of the truth response is malleable. Results showed that frequent truth telling made lying more difficult, and that frequent lying made lying easier. These results implicate that the accuracy of lie detection tests may be improved by increasing the dominance of (...) the truth response and that habitual lying makes the lie response more dominant. (shrink)

To become aware of the depth of the ecological mutation, one has to criticize the notion of abstract space. It turns out that, in many of his works, Carl Schmitt has found ways to politicize the production of neutral depoliticized space. This is especially true in “Dialogue on New Space.” The dialogue summarizes Schmitt’s earlier works, but it also tries to relate, audaciously, the character of being human with the different conceptions of space entertained by each protagonist of the dialogue. (...) Especially important in the plot is the interpretation of the expression of “unencumbered technology” that Schmitt associates with the destiny of liberalism and the sort of spatial domination ad infinitum that it implies. The final point of the dialogue is that you cannot be really human in the wrong space. The article does not pretend to make Schmitt a thinker of ecology but to extract from his highly peculiar critique of space something that could be useful to help criticize a depoliticized notion of green space. (shrink)

Taking up Alain Badiou's project of systematizing the invariant traits of antiphilosophy as based on a radical "act" capable of discrediting and outstripping the philosopher's relation to truth, the author discusses the cases of Nietzsche's archi-political act of "breaking the history of the world into two halves" and Wittgenstein's archi-aesthetic act of "showing" that which one cannot speak of but which alone matters for the sense of the world. The difference between the antiphilosophical "act" and the philosophical treatment of an (...) "event" is best understood in terms of "suture" and "disaster," two concepts which in the process must be thoroughly revised. Finally, the author discusses the extent to which Badiou's own philosophy falls prey to, and even thrives on, an irresistible antiphilosophical element of its own. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Nonplaces:An Anecdoted Topography of Contemporary French TheoryBruno Bosteels (bio)In its juridical sense, a non-lieu is a judgment that suspends, annuls, or withdraws a case without bringing it to trial. It is thus a judgment that announces or enunciates that there will be no judgment as to guilt or innocence, a finding that there is no place to judge. It therefore renders justice by refusing to render it under the (...) law, which it does when it pronounces or enunciates the non-lieu.—Peggy Kamuf, "Béance"1Inside the Spatial TurnIf modernity will always be remembered as an era dominated by questions of time and history, then perhaps the steady waning of modern ideals invites us to think of the entry into something called the postmodern as a passage dominated by questions of space and geography. As Michel Foucault once famously observed in a 1967 conference paper, first published two decades ago: "Perhaps we might say that some of the ideological conflicts that animate today's polemics oppose the pious descendants of time and the willful inhabitants of space" ["Of Other Spaces" 22]. This conflict over time and space presupposes a much larger argument that is not only historical but also methodological in nature. What is at stake is both a question of the passage, or transition, from modernity to postmodernity, if that is indeed what we decide to name modernity's aftermath, and a question of the theoretical consequences that follow from giving precedence to space over time in treating this very transition. With regard to this second question, too, Foucault's work stands as exemplary insofar as he was able to show the degree to which a vital emphasis on space, geography, and territoriality [End Page 117] forces us to take leave of the modern paradigm of consciousness—typically associated with the category of time and its unfolding in the mind or spirit—in favor of a situated understanding of knowledge, subjectivity, and power. "Metaphorizing the transformations of discourse in a vocabulary of time necessarily leads to the utilisation of the model of individual consciousness with its intrinsic temporality," Foucault observes in an interview with the editors of the French journal of geography Hérodote, and he continues: "Endeavouring on the other hand to decipher discourse through the use of spatial, strategic metaphors enables one to grasp precisely the points at which discourses are transformed in, through and on the basis of relations of power" ["Questions on Geography" 69–70]. Whether real or metaphorical, a willful displacement of our categorial apparatus from time to space thus might enable one to avoid the idealist temptation inherent in a strictly discursive or textual model, by inscribing all discourses and practices in the geopolitics of power relations.My aim in the following pages is not to go over the much-discussed shift from time to space once more, even as I take advantage of several of its methodological principles along the way. Instead, I want to map out a momentous change of perspective that has been taking place over the past few decades within the parameters of the so-called spatial turn itself. In fact, if and when modernity is coming to an end, both in the sense of completing itself and of revealing its character as a finite historical entity, not only does whatever shape critical thought takes in the face of this turnabout need to be securely fastened onto specific places and spaces but, if we are to believe a growing number of authors, particularly but by no means exclusively in France, the study of art, literature, politics, philosophy, and even anthropology would also require a thorough consideration of so-called "nonplaces" as a rigorous category for critical thinking today [for a brief discussion of the use of "nonplace" in Anglo-American anthropology, including Melvin M. Webber's notion of "nonplace urban realm" from the mid-1960s, see Weiner]. In the end, these proponents of the nonplace confront us with one disarmingly simple question: how can critical thinking in the present time respond to the task of having to work through whatever lies outside of the order that is actually in place?The Exhaustion of... (shrink)

Suppose you intend now to φ at some future time t. However, when t has come you do not φ. Something has gone wrong. This failing is not just a causal but also a normative failing. This raises the question how to characterize this failing. I discuss three alternative views. On the first view, the fact that you do not execute your intention to φ is blameworthy only if the balance of reasons pointed to φ-ing. The fact that you intended (...) to φ does not add to the reasons for φ-ing at t. On the second view, the fact that you do not execute your intention to φ is blameworthy because you violate a requirement of rationality. Both these views have in common that they deny that intending to φ at t creates a reason to φ at t. The third alternative, the one I defend, claims that you often create reasons to φ by intending to φ. (shrink)

Euthymos was a real person, an Olympic victor from Locri Epizephyrii in the first half of the fifth century bc. Various sources attribute to him extraordinary achievements: he received cult in his own lifetime; he fought with and overcame the ¿Hero of Temesa¿, a daimon who in ritual deflowered a virgin in the Italian city of Temesa every year; and he vanished into a local river instead of dying (extant iconography from Locri shows him as a river god receiving cult (...) a century after his death). By taking an integrative approach to Euthymos¿ legend and cult iconography, this article proposes a new interpretation of the complex. It is argued that Euthymos received cult already in his lifetime in consequence of his victory over the Hero and that he took over, in a modified form, the Hero¿s cult. Various considerations, including the role of river gods as the recipients of brides¿ virginity in prenuptial rites, point to an identification of the Hero as a river deity. In this light it is suggested that the contest between Euthymos and the Hero was conceived as a deliberate emulation of Herakles¿ fight with Acheloos. The case of Euthymos at Locri, for all its peculiarities, draws our attention to some important aspects of the heroization of historical persons in the Classical period. First, the earliest attested cult of a living person in Greece is to be placed around the middle of the fifth century. Second, heroized persons in the Classical period were not always passive in the process of their heroization, but could actively promote it. And third, a common pattern in the heroization of contemporaries in the Classical period was to accommodate them into existing cults. (shrink)

A comparison between the standard adiabatic piston dynamics and that of a perfectly conducting (diathermal) piston helps to clarify their different behaviors and, in particular, the anomalously large random displacement of the adiabatic piston as compared to the diathermal one. It is shown to be associated with a situation where the presence of a single massive “particle” (the piston), acting as an internal constraint in a many-particle system, plays a somewhat unexpected relevant role. A significant physical insight accounting for the (...) above difference is gained by means of a simple analysis of the phase space available to our system. (shrink)

The aim of the present thesis is twofold. First we propose a constructive solution to Frege's puzzle using an approach based on homotopy type theory, a newly proposed foundation of mathematics that possesses a higher-dimensional treatment of equality. We claim that, from the viewpoint of constructivism, Frege's solution is unable to explain the so-called ‘cognitive significance' of equality statements, since, as we shall argue, not only statements of the form 'a = b', but also 'a = a' may contribute to (...) an extension of knowledge. Second, we study this higher-dimensional account of equality from a constructive (computational) standpoint and, based on these considerations, we offer a new perspective to the project proposed by Peter Aczel of developing conventions and notations for an informal style of doing mathematics in type theory. To that end, we adopt the cubical type theory of Angiuli, Favonia and Harper, a framework that can be seen as constructive refinement of the ideas of homotopy type theory. (shrink)

Cet article propose une synthèse des travaux consacrés à l’analyse économique de la responsabilité civile. Après une discussion des finalités du droit de la responsabilité civile, est exposé le modèle économique général qui permet de comparer les principaux régimes basés ou non sur la faute. Quelques extensions du modèle sont proposés ainsi qu’une discussion de la portée normative de l’approche présenté. L’objectif est de démontrer que l’analyse économique de la responsabilité civile comporte une promesse, celle d’éclairer la raison d’être de (...) nombreux principes de cette branche du droit civil. L’interprétation des concepts et des raisonnements juridiques conduit le plus souvent à conforter le savoir du juriste sur une base économique. D’un point de vue historique, l’analyse fournit également les outils nécessaires pour comprendre comment le droit s’est adapté aux circonstances changeantes des sociétés depuis la création du code civil de 1804 jusqu’à aujourd’hui. L’analyse économique du droit est ainsi un bon moyen de renouer avec la grande tradition civiliste. (shrink)

Several countries maintain universal health coverage, which implies responsibility to organize delivery formats of healthcare services and products for citizens. In Brazil, the health system has a principle of universal access for more than 30 years, but many deficiencies remain and the country observes a day practice for those seeking judicial decisions to determine provision of healthcare.

Is it possible to have a materialist definition of the subject which nonetheless separates the latter from any given type of object? In this article I start from the criticism – which both Alain Badiou and Gilles Deleuze provide – of the identification of the subject with a given type of substance, provided with specific modes of correlation with other objects. Namely, I try to show how for both authors the identification of the subject with a res – be it (...) the res cogitans, the human animal, or even the conditions of the possibility of experience of the latter –, pins down the subject to a specific place and function, and in this way ultimately provides a representation of the subject as a specimen of a given category of objects. More precisely, the identification of the subject with a specific class of objects is exposed by Deleuze as the very structure that tends to reduce the transformative capacity of the latter into the limits of a finite form; in a similar way, Badiou exposes this identification as one of the fundamental features of reactionary ideology. The article also shows how it is in this sense that one needs to read Deleuze’s refusal of the subsumption of the subjective process under the sole name ‘subject’, especially when the latter is identified with the cognitive structures of the human animal. Aiming nonetheless at maintaining a materialist definition of the subject, both authors stress the idea that the subject is an always singular process in which a new figure is created via a process of disidentification from a specific class of objects. This article then follows in particular three formal characteristics that Deleuze and Badiou find for the subjective process: first, that a subject appears as (or under condition of) a fracture or an inconsistency in the mode of organization of a class of objects; second, that a subject tends to turn such an evanescent fracture into a new body; and finally that a subject exposes such moments of disidentification and of production of novelty as being infinitely repeatable and universally valid. Starting from this, the article concludes by identifying a set of internal limits and contradictions in Badiou’s and Deleuze’s positions (namely a re-naturalization and re-anthropologization of the category of the subject) and by highlighting a series of developments in contemporary philosophy that allow the further elaboration of further the idea of the subject as an always singular (and yet universally repetable) practice of disidentification from a specific class of objects. (shrink)