Abstract

In a 2006 interview, Bruno Latour, distancing himself from the French philosopher Alain Badiou, casually remarks, “I’m the only French pragmatist, so it winds up that I have absolutely no contact with the French”. Latour’s remark is curious insofar as the work performed by the coupling reveals his own dissociation of French philosophy with pragmatism. If Latour is French, he cannot possibly be a pragmatist, but if he is a pragmatist, he cannot possibly be French, so better to refer to himself by this new hybrid, “French pragmatist.”Perhaps it is not so peculiar for Latour to describe himself as a “pragmatist,” since references to classical pragmatist figures like William James and John...