Ontology of Technique in Bruno Latour’s Thought

On the Mode of Existence and Non-Human Actors

Abstract

Bruno Latour’s line of thinking is marked by the Actor-Network Theory (ANT), which contemplates the relationships between humans, non-humans and other actors. Among the non-human elements are the technical artifacts or, in other words, technical objects. In Latour’s thought, this article aims to explain what concerns the ontology of such objects. Through the analysis of some of the texts that the author dedicated to this topic and by comparing it with Simondon’s ontology of technique, we arrive at the hypothesis that, in Bruno Latour’s line of thinking, the question of ontology does not directly apply to technical objects, but to the relations that establish them and by which they affect the other elements of the network.