Actor‐Network Theory is a research lens that has gained popularity in the nursing and health sciences domains. The perspective allows a researcher to describe the interaction of actors (both human and non‐human) within networked sociomaterial contexts, including complex practice environments where nurses and health technology operate. This study will describe Actor‐Network Theory and provide methodological considerations for researchers who are interested in using this sociotechnical lens within nursing and informatics‐related research. Considerations related to technology conceptualization, levels (...) of analysis, and sampling procedures in Actor‐Network Theory based research are addressed. Finally, implications for future nursing research within complex environments are highlighted. (shrink)

Borsboom and colleagues have recently proposed a “network theory” of psychiatric disorders that conceptualizes psychiatric disorders as relatively stable networks of causally interacting symptoms. They have also claimed that the network theory should include non-symptom variables such as environmental factors. How are environmental factors incorporated in the network theory, and what kind of explanations of psychiatric disorders can such an “extended” network theory provide? The aim of this article is to critically examine (...) what explanatory strategies the network theory that includes both symptoms and environmental factors can accommodate. We first analyze how proponents of the network theory conceptualize the relations between symptoms and between symptoms and environmental factors. Their claims suggest that the network theory could provide insight into the causal mechanisms underlying psychiatric disorders. We assess these claims in light of network analysis, Woodward’s interventionist theory, and mechanistic explanation, and show that they can only be satisfied with additional assumptions and requirements. Then, we examine their claim that network characteristics may explain the dynamics of psychiatric disorders by means of a topological explanatory strategy. We argue that the network theory could accommodate topological explanations of symptom networks, but we also point out that this poses some difficulties. Finally, we suggest that a multilayer network account of psychiatric disorders might allow for the integration of symptoms and non-symptom factors related to psychiatric disorders and could accommodate both causal/mechanistic and topological explanations. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose a novel approach to investigating the nature of well-being and a new theory about wellbeing. The approach is integrative and naturalistic. It holds that a theory of well-being should account for two different classes of evidence—our commonsense judgments about well-being and the science of well-being (i.e., positive psychology). The network theory holds that a person is in the state of well-being if she instantiates a homeostatically clustered network of feelings, emotions, (...) attitudes, behaviors, traits, and interactions with the world that tends to have a relatively high number of states that feel good, that lead to states that feel good, or that are valued by the agent or her culture. (shrink)

__Social Network Theory and Educational Change_ offers a provocative and fascinating exploration of how social networks in schools can impede or facilitate the work of education reform._ Drawing on the work of leading scholars, the book comprises a series of studies examining networks among teachers and school leaders, contrasting formal and informal organizational structures, and exploring the mechanisms by which ideas, information, and influence flow from person to person and group to group. The case studies provided in the (...) book reflect a rich variety of approaches and methodologies, showcasing the range and power of this dynamic new mode of analysis. An introductory chapter places social network theory in context and explains the basic tools and concepts, while a concluding chapter points toward new directions in the field. Taken together, they make a powerful statement: that the success or failure of education reform ultimately is not solely the result of technical plans and blueprints, but of the relational ties that support or constrain the pace, depth, and direction of change. This unique volume provides an invaluable introduction to an emerging and increasingly important field of education research. (shrink)

The article addresses the problem of how semantic information can be upgraded to knowledge. The introductory section explains the technical terminology and the relevant background. Section 2 argues that, for semantic information to be upgraded to knowledge, it is necessary and sufficient to be embedded in a network of questions and answers that correctly accounts for it. Section 3 shows that an information flow network of type A fulfils such a requirement, by warranting that the erotetic deficit, characterising (...) the target semantic information t by default, is correctly satisfied by the information flow of correct answers provided by an informational source s. Section 4 illustrates some of the major advantages of such a Network Theory of Account (NTA) and clears the ground of a few potential difficulties. Section 5 clarifies why NTA and an informational analysis of knowledge, according to which knowledge is accounted semantic information, is not subject to Gettier-type counterexamples. A concluding section briefly summarises the results obtained. (shrink)

This paper presents a modified random network model to illustrate how groups can form in the absence of evolutionary forces, assuming groups are collections of entities at any level of organization. This model is inspired by the Zero Force Evolutionary Law, which states that there is always a tendency for diversity and complexity to increase in any evolutionary system containing variation and heredity. That is, in the absence of evolutionary forces, the expectation is a continual increase in diversity and (...) complexity at any level of biological hierarchy. I show that, when modeled, this expectation of increasing variation results not only in the formation of groups, but also in a higher probability of group formation than is found in a model that is purely random. (shrink)

The chapter contributes to unravelling how Actor-Network-Theory as a method of inquiry might inform the archaeological understanding of the contemporary world. To illustrate this, the author engages in an inquiry on Shin Takamatsu’s architecture following Guattari’s fascination with his architectural machines in the 1980s. Drawing on two epistemological figures-the hasty sightseer and the slow ethnographer-the chapter demonstrates two different approaches to contemporary architecture. It is argued that ANT methodologies can help to create a space in which the past, (...) present, and future are combined and are still in the process of becoming. Equipped with ANT-inspired methods, contemporary archaeologists can engage in explorations of vibrant processes and emergent world-making techniques. (shrink)

Traditionally the study of chemical elements has been limited to well-known concepts like the periodic properties and chemical families. However, current information shows a new and rich language that allows us to observe relations in the elements that are not limited to their positions in the table. These relations are evident when reactions are represented through networks, as in the case of similar reactivity of organic compounds sharing functional groups. For the past two decades, it has been argued that (...) class='Hi'>network reactions may be considered the core of chemistry. This network, which constitutes the basic set of chemical knowledge, provides the basis for classification and delivers routes to obtain new and known substances. In order to provide an example, we constructed and analyzed a network of chemical elements from the formation of stoichiometric binary compounds, providing to the chemistry, a formal structure of extracting the chemical knowledge. Thus, we explored all possible presence of relationships among elements. Concepts like degree centrality and centralization, the relationships among metals, semimetal and nonmetal classes, blocks, and chemical families were analyzed. We observed that the network structure had a small core set of elements of high reactivity and also a peripheral set of elements of low reactivity. The classes, blocks and families show the following increasing order of reactivity: nonmetals > semimetals > metals; p > s > d > f; and families: boron, carbon, pnictogens, chalcogens, halogens, lanthanoids > other families. This example shows, from the network perspective, that the elements and their classifications exhibit properties such as the reactivity, order, and similarity. (shrink)

One of the strikingly iconoclastic features of actor-network theory is its juxtaposition of the claim to be a realist perspective with denials that supposedly natural phenomena existed before scientists “made them up.” This paper explains and criticizes such arguments in the work of Bruno Latour. By combining referent and reference in the concept of assemblages, Latour provides a superficially viable way to reconcile these apparently incompatible claims. This paper will argue, however, that this conflation of referent and reference (...) leads Latour’s ontology into difficulties that can only be resolved by abandoning it in favor of a more conventional—critical—realism. (shrink)

This article is organized in four sections. The first section introduces sensing governance in terms of the governance of effects rather than causation, focusing on the work of Bruno Latour in establishing the problematic of contingent interaction, rather than causal depth, as key to emergent effects, which can be unexpected and catastrophic. The second section considers in more depth how sensing governance enables politics by other means through putting greater emphasis on relations of interaction, rather than on ontologies of being, (...) and links the methodological approach of sensing governance closely to actor network assumptions that disavow structures of causation. The final two sections analyze how correlation works to reveal new agencies and processes of emergence and how new technologies have been deployed in this area, providing some examples of how the shift from causal relations to sensing effects has begun to alter governmental approaches. (shrink)

Latour is a world famous and widely published French sociologist who has written with great eloquence and perception about the relationship between people, science, and technology. He is also closely associated with the school of thought known as Actor Network Theory. In this book he sets out for the first time in one place his own ideas about Actor Network Theory and its relevance to management and organization theory.

Philosophers have long tried to understand scientific change in terms of a dynamics of revision within ‘theoretical frameworks,’ ‘disciplinary matrices,’ ‘scientific paradigms’ or ‘conceptual schemes.’ No-one, however, has made clear precisely how one might model such a conceptual scheme, nor what form change dynamics within such a structure could be expected to take. In this paper we take some first steps in applying network theory to the issue, modeling conceptual schemes as simple networks and the dynamics of change (...) as cascades on those networks. The results allow a new understanding of two traditional approaches—Popper and Kuhn—as well as introducing the intriguing prospect of viewing scientific change using the metaphor of selforganizing criticality. (shrink)

Network theory is necessary for the realization of cognitive representations and resulting empirical observations of social groups. We propose that the triadic primitives denoting individual roles are multilayer, with positive and negative relations feeding into cost–benefit calculations. Through this, we advance a computational theory that generalizes to different scales and to contexts where conflict is not present.

Purpose: To show the convergences between Josef Mitterer's non-dualizing way of speaking and actor-network theory. Method: Comparative analysis of Mitterer's non-dualizing philosophy and actor-network philosophy. Findings: Profound convergences between the two accounts may lead to a unified account that could redefine traditional philosophical problems. Benefits: The paper extends the range of Mitterer's non-dualizing philosophy and actor-network theory enabling both to face new problems. Among them, extended non-dualizing philosophy may undergo empirical investigations.

Paul Churchland's philosophical work enjoys an increasing popularity. His imaginative papers on cognitive science and the philosophy of psychology are widely discussed. Scientific Realism and the Plasticity of Mind (1979), his major book, is an important contribution to the debate on realism. Churchland provides us with the intellectual tools for constructing a unified scientific Weltanschauung. His network theory of language implies a provocative view of the relation between science and common sense. This paper contains a critical examination of (...) Churchland's network theory of language, which is the foundation of his philosophy. It is argued that the network theory should be seen as deriving its point from traditional empiricism. The network theory enables the empiricist to resist the phenomenalistic temptations inherent in his position, and to build a realist philosophy on the basis of the representative theory of perception. This interpretation is confirmed by the fact that the representative theory is presupposed by Churchland's main argument in favour of the network view. Churchland tends to conceive of himself as a naturalistic epistemologist. But the philosophical faction to which Churchland belongs is rather that of modern neo?Kantianism. (shrink)

_Researching Education Through Actor-Network Theory_ offers a new take on educational research, demonstrating the ways in which actor-network theory can expand the understanding of educational change. An international collaboration exploring diverse manifestations of educational change Illustrates the impact of actor-network theory on educational research Positions education as a key area where actor-network theory can add value, as it has been shown to do in other social sciences A valuable resource for anyone interested in (...) the sociology and philosophy of education. (shrink)

Rad ukazuje na kljucne momente razvoja teorije aktera-mreze kroz nekoliko najznacajnih dela Bruna Latura. Uocavaju se promene pocetne pozicije autora u odnosu na dela kasnijeg datuma nastanka. Teorija aktera-mreze je prikazana kroz niz?neuralgicnih? tacaka koje se u njoj mogu uociti. Na samom kraju rada su razmatrana resenja koje teorija aktera-mreze nudi za odredjeni broj fundamentalnih problema sociologije, koje je definisao Latur.

In considering two extended examples of educational reform efforts, this discussion traces relations that become visible through analytic approaches associated with actor-network theory (ANT). The strategy here is to present multiple readings of the two examples. The first reading adopts an ANT approach to follow ways that all actors—human and non-human entities, including the entity that is taken to be ‘educational reform’—are performed into being through the play of linkages among heterogeneous elements. Then, further readings focus not only (...) on the material practices that become enacted and distributed, but also on the otherings that occur: the various fluid spaces and ambivalent belongings that create actor-network(s) but also escape them. For educational research, particularly in educational reform and policy, it is argued that ANT analyses are particularly useful to examine the complex enactments in these dynamics. That is, ANT can illuminate movements of ordering and disordering that occur through minute socio-material connections in educational interventions. ANT readings also can discern, within these attempts to order people and practices, the spaces of flux and instability that enable and protect alternate possibilities. (shrink)

In a wide range of contemporary debates on Japanese cultures of technological practice, brief reference is often made to distinct Shinto legacies, as forming an animist substratum of indigenous spiritual beliefs and cosmological imaginations. Japan has been described as a land of Shinto-infused ‘techno-animism’: exhibiting a ‘polymorphous perversity’ that resolutely ignores boundaries between human, animal, spiritual and mechanical beings. In this article, we deploy instances of Japanese techno-animism as sites of theoretical experimentation on what Bruno Latour calls a symmetrical anthropology (...) of nature-cultures. In staging a dialogue between actor-network theory and Japanese techno-animism, we show how Shinto cosmograms provide an enlivening and alternative diffraction device on several of the ontological motifs manifested in Latour’s work. In particular, by mobilizing the territory of a ‘new’ animism debate in anthropology – manifested in the work of Philippe Descola and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro – we attempt to infuse Latourian ‘multinaturalism’ with new, other-than-western analytical energy. Extending actor-network theory, we argue, Shinto cosmograms offer an interesting vantage point for interpreting the immanent, affective, enchanting and enabling powers of non-humans in contributing to collective life. By thus broadening the ‘cosmopolitical’ imagination beyond Latour’s own European-Catholic frame of reference, Shinto techno-animism offers up a wider reflection on contemporary entanglements of science, politics, ecology and cosmos. This reflection, we conclude, opens up a new intellectual territory, allowing us to trace techno-animist streams of thinking both ‘East’ and ‘West’, beyond the confines of the scientific naturalism indigenous to European thinking. (shrink)

This article explores the elective affinities between Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and the sociology of critical capacities. It argues that these two research programmes can be understood as symmetrical twins. We show the extent to which the exchange between Bruno Latour and Luc Boltanski has influenced their respective theoretical developments. Three strong encounters between the twin research programmes may be distinguished. The first encounter concerns explanations for social change. The second encounter focuses on the status of objects and their (...) relationship to places. The third encounter is about the concept of critique. Drawing on their long-term mutual readings, we gain insight into how pleas for symmetrical analysis raised in response to Bourdieu’s theory of fields have evolved within both ANT and the sociology of critical capacity. We conclude by relating the development of the respective research programmes to the issue of disciplinary boundaries. (shrink)

The main purpose of this essay is to build a taxonomy of screens, inspired by Michel Callon’s and Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory. Five fields are considered. Importing a model from the field of epistemology (1) screens will be seen as lenses; importing a model from the field of fictional narratives (2) screens will be seen as doors; importing a model from the field of art (3) screens will be seen as picture-hanging systems; importing a model from the field (...) of reading (4) screens will be seen as tablets; importing a model from the field of leisure (5) screens will be seen as toys. Combination of two, three, four or even five categories is possible, depending from the “situation” in Erving Goffman’s meaning, i.e., the encounter of a technical apparatus, of a kind of image and of a type of gaze. (shrink)

In recent years, actor-network theory (ANT) has become an increasingly influential theoretical framework through which to analyse economic markets and organizations. Indeed, with its emphasis on the power of social and natural concrete ‘things’ to become contingently enrolled in different networks, many argue that ANT successfully draws attention to the complex intermeshing of new technologies and social actors in organizations and markets across spatial divides from the local to the global. This article argues, however, that within its own (...) method of abstraction and research methodology, ANT separates ‘concrete’ and ‘contingent’ economic markets and organizations from their abstract, necessary and virtual capitalist form. This means that ANT will tend to over-identify with how concrete-contingent actor-networks are performed in empirical economic markets and organizations at the expense of analysing how such empirical contexts are also internally mediated through abstract capitalist processes such as that of surplus value extraction. This, in turn, creates a number of difficulties in how ANT investigates economic markets and organizations. These critical points are made by recourse to the Marxist poststructuralism of Deleuze and Guattari as well as through conventional Marxist ideas. (shrink)

Niels Kaj Jerne has proposed the “immune network theory” of interactions among anti‐idiotypic antibodies, able to interfere with humoral responses to certain antigens. After the occurrence of the primary generation of antibodies, against an antigenic epitope, idiotypes of these antibodies induce anti‐idiotypic antibodies that modulate the intensity of the first response, and so on. Adverse effects following SARS‐COV‐2 COVID‐19 vaccines are occasionally similar to the symptoms of COVID‐19 infection. Rare events linked to SARS‐CoV‐2 vaccines also resemble some rarely (...) reported COVID‐19 complications. Safety data from product information by European Medicines Agency suggest that spectra do overlap for four main vaccines. The proposition is that vaccine events and COVID‐19 complications are related to anti‐idiotypic antibodies whose spatial shape can lead to interactions with ACE2 molecules, in individuals with a prolonged Spike protein synthesis. The vaccines target cells by their affinity to the vaccine vector, or to engulf lipid nanoparticles. Anti‐idiotypic antibodies shaped similarly to the Spike protein possibly interact with ACE2 molecules and cause diverse signs and symptoms. (shrink)

Much literature surrounding medical technology and adherence posits that technology is a mechanism for social control. This assumes that the medical establishment can take away patients' agency. Although power relationships and social control can play a key role, medical technology can also serve as an agentive tool to be utilized. We (1) offer the alternative framework of Actor Network Theory to view medical technology, (2) discuss the literature on medication adherence and technology, (3) delve into the ramifications of (...) looking at adherence as a network and (4) use Digital Pills as a case study of dispersed agency. (shrink)

A new method of observation is currently emerging in psychiatry, based on data collection and behavioral profiling of smartphone users. Numerical phenotyping is a paradigmatic example. This behavioral investigation method uses computerized measurement tools in order to collect characteristics of different psychiatric disorders. First, it is necessary to contextualize the emergence of these new methods and to question their promises and expectations. The international mental health research framework invites us to reflect on methodological issues and to draw conclusions from certain (...) impasses related to the clinical complexity of this field. From this contextualization, the investigation method relating to digital phenotyping can be questioned in order to identify some of its potentials. These new methods are also an opportunity to test psychoanalysis. It is then necessary to identify the elements of fruitful analysis that clinical experience and research in psychoanalysis have been able to deploy regarding the challenges of digital technology. An analysis of this theme's litterature shows that psychoanalysis facilitates a reflection on the psychological effects related to digital methods. It also shows how it can profit from the research potential offered by new technical tools, considering the progress that has been made over the past fifty years. This cross-fertilization of the potential and limitations of digital methods in mental health intervention in the context of theoretical issues at the international level invites us to take a resolutely non-reductionist position. In the field of research, psychoanalysis offers a specific perspective that can well be articulated to an epistemology of networks. Rather than aiming at a numerical phenotyping of patients according to the geneticists' model, the case formulation method appears to be a serious prerequisite to give a limited and specific place to the integration of smartphones in clinical investigation. (shrink)

Actor-network theory has contributed greatly to the development of science and technology studies. However, recent critiques appear to have left ANT in a gloomy theoretical black box. What is the likelihood of ANT exiting its current theoretical discontent? Is ANT worthy of salvation and on what grounds? Law argues that recent critiques stem from ANT’s development into a particular theoretical strategy. However, this article will argue that by focusing on strategy as messy and impure, ANT can be afforded (...) the opportunity to shift from a fixed approach to an ambiguous and contingent strategy, well placed to carry on. The article achieves such an argument by first highlighting how ANT has contributed to a recent study of strategy in action; second, by outlining the strategic aspects of ANT; and third, by using the study of strategy in action as a means of engaging with ANT’s current theoretical discontent. (shrink)

In this chapter I review empirical studies directly testing the hypotheses of my 1973 paper "The Strength of Weak Ties" (hereafter "SWT") and work that elaborates those hypotheses theoretically or uses them to suggest new empirical research not discussed in my original formulation. Along the way, I will reconsider various aspects of the theoretical argument, attempt to plug some holes, and broaden its base.

Suri and Gross's 2022 connectionist emotion theory can be considered as one version of a family of theories known as network theories of emotion. It presents similarities and differences with older...

There are many case studies showing the benefits of the conceptual framework of Actor– Network Theory. It is enough to mention the classic texts by Bruno Latour on the Amazon forest and Michel Callon on scallop fishing. However, there are not many case studies discussing the circulation of knowledge in the humanities with the use of vocabulary taken from ANT. This text tries to partially fill the gap, analyzing a case encompassing the areas of both literary studies and (...) philosophy. The main topic of the paper is the circulation of Jacques Derrida’s views – or the views attributed to Derrida – as exemplified by one of his theses. The purpose of the text is not to reflect on the value of Derrida’s reflections, but only to show how the knowledge of his thought spread from France, through the USA, to Poland, from the 1960s to the beginning of the 21st century. Besides proving that the ANT vocabulary is suitable for studying the phenomenon of the circulation of knowledge in the humanities, the case study also shows that this vocabulary should be enriched. The author of the text proposes the concept of symbolization to better understand how Derrida and the ideas attributed to him have been perceived in various texts. (shrink)

This article situates actor-network theory in the history of evolutionary anthropology. In the 1980s, this attempt at explaining the social through the mediation of nonhumans received important impulses from Bruno Latour’s conversations with primatologist Shirley Strum. In a re-articulation of social evolutionism, they proposed that the utilization of objects distinguished humans from baboons and that the use of a growing number of objects set industrialized human populations apart from hunter-gatherers, enabling the formation of larger collectives. While Strum’s and (...) Latour’s early work presented baboons as almost human and suggested that we moderns had never been modern, the Anthropocene has reawakened curiosity about the original question of anthropology: how do modern humans, including modern scientists, differ from premoderns and animals? This 18th-century question is gaining new significance and urgency as we recognize our transmutation into a super-dominant species. But the answer might not lie solely in the use of more objects. (shrink)

The idiotypic network theory (INT) was conceived by the Danish immunologist Niels Kaj Jerne in 1973/1974. It proposes an overall view of the immune system as a network of lymphocytes and antibodies. The paper tries to offer a reconstruction of the genesis of the theory, now generally discarded and of mostly historical interest, first of all, by taking into account the context in which Jerne’s theoretical proposal was advanced. It is argued the theory challenged, in (...) a sense, the supremacy of the clonal selection theory (CST), this being regarded as the predominant paradigm in the immunological scenario. As CST found shortcomings in explaining certain phenomena, anomalies, one could view INT as a competing paradigm claiming to be able to make sense of such phenomena in its own conceptual framework. After a summary outline of the historical background and some relevant terminological elucidations, a narrative of the various phases of elaboration of the theory is proposed, up to its official public presentation. (shrink)

A fundamental claim associated with parallel distributed processing theories of cognition is that knowledge is coded in a distributed manner in mind and brain. This approach rejects the claim that knowledge is coded in a localist fashion, with words, objects, and simple concepts, that is, coded with their own dedicated representations. One of the putative advantages of this approach is that the theories are biologically plausible. Indeed, advocates of the PDP approach often highlight the close parallels between distributed representations learned (...) in connectionist models and neural coding in brain and often dismiss localist theories as biologically implausible. The author reviews a range a data that strongly challenge this claim and shows that localist models provide a better account of single-cell recording studies. The author also contrast local and alternative distributed coding schemes and argues that common rejection of grandmother cell theories in neuroscience is due to a misunderstanding about how localist models behave. The author concludes that the localist representations embedded in theories of perception and cognition are consistent with neuroscience; biology only calls into question the distributed representations often learned in PDP models. (shrink)