Remarks on Science, Epistemology and Education in Bruno Latour’s Down to Earth

Abstract

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’.

Keywords

• climate debate
• critical zone
• education
• epistemological stance
• geopolitics
• nature
• science