Bruno Latour, a leading French intellectual who died on October 9, posed a major challenge to modern philosophy’s key assumption: the existence of a distinction between the human subject and the world. His radical alternative suggestion of seeing the world as a collection of actors interacting with each other offered a new framework for understanding science, politics, and the environmental crisis, writes philosopher and Bruno Latour’s intellectual biographer, Graham Harman.

With the death of Bruno Latour from cancer on October 9, the world lost a prominent and paradoxical figure whose deepest contributions are not yet well understood. In one sense it would be absurd to call him “unappreciated,” given his receipt of the 2013 Holberg Prize and 2021 Kyoto Prize, his nearly 300,000 citations by other scholars, and his vast global network of admirers and co-workers. But like so many pivotal intellectuals, Latour was a peg who never quite fit the most prestigious holes. Blocked by enemies from potential appointments at Princeton and the Collège de France, he spent most of his career at the School of Mines in Paris before a late move to Sciences Po in the same city.

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A practicing Catholic who moved with ease in the de rigueur atheism of contemporary thought, Latour eventually developed a system of thought that was basically secular in spirit despite the place reserved for religion near its core. Scolded by American science warriors as the “social constructionist” he never quite was, in France he was struck on the opposite flank by the disciples of Pierre Bourdieu, who viewed his fascination with non-human actors as a form of reactionary realism.

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The reason for Latour's relative lack of success with philosophy readers so far is also the reason for his inevitable future importance in the field: the blow he strikes against the central assumption of modern philosophy.

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