Abstract

Bruno Latour's work represents a powerful attempt to move beyond our usual constructions of knowledge and disciplinarity, as well as of history. Nevertheless, in his often playful appeals to metaphysics, Latour, I argue, sometimes revives that subject/object dichotomy he contests; similarly, at moments, he recurs to an unthematized model of history as periodized to motivate his own project. Latour's discussion of Heidegger, as well as Heidegger's own writings provide the occasion for pursuing these questions — of the disadvantages and advantages of Latour for thought. The advantages, it is further maintained, ultimately direct us towards a radical conception of discourse and an inherently multiple notion of historical becoming or historicity, shorn of history en bloc. The article concludes by questioning Heidegger's own singular conception of an epochal history in his discussions of the thing.