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2. A Question of Agency | Series 2012-2013 | College of Humanities and Social Science
Once nature and the natural sciences are fully ”secularized”, it becomes possible to revisit also the category of the supernatural. The… -
Begins with a David Hume quote. #blgiff
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Blind watchmaker against blind watchmaker. Foundations based purely on who built what.
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Latour’s ‘translation table’ gets another showing.
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God as an unstable entity.
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Requires endless translations and transformations.
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Theos (entity) Nomos (agency) Demos (people).
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At no point in Hume’s dialogue does he encounter the very way of acting religiously.
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One regime of truth. Umbrellas, mistresses, religion (!) One size fits all for Hume.
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Latour’s litanies at work as ever.
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Natural religion sweeps across all 16 dimensions in the table.
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Mention of von Trier’s Melancholia.
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Nature 1 and Religion 1 alongside each other. ‘natural religion’.
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Features of nature imparted on religion and poured back over nature.
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Chain of references darting between each. Table to follow.
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To call something scientific – taking a risk.
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Cannot rely on universality.
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Must rely on translation after translation.
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Relativism brings anxieties to scientists (!)
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Damages claims to objectivity.
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Humble material activity vs. Mysterious nature of scientific revelation.
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Accept the humble nature of scientific endeavour. Nothing wrong in admitting this.
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Climatologists: stand on your own ground!
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Rich anthropological reportoire – how would we know the world without it?
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No outside supreme court of nature. Talking about matters of fact.
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Last table apparently! http://pic.twitter.com/RA3s2Fia -
Multiverse / secularity / non-naturalists / non-modern collectives.
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Latour has been using Hume’s Dialogues as a framework for this lecture today.
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Aaand over. Questions to follow. Again, apologies for the stream of tweets.
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Question 1: main points of the lecture?
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Rearrangement of the categories of nature and religion.
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Q2: why religion and not humanism?
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Not the name but the attributes that matter. No anthro in anthropocene per se. Classic Latour in a nutshell.
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As an aside, Latour is rocking a lively Jackson Pollock-esque tie today. #blgiff
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Another question on anxiety/(lack of) authority of scientific worldviews.
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More Qs on social sciences and Catholicism.
Sam Hind 