Speculative Grace: Bruno Latour and Object-Oriented Theology

5. An Experimental Metaphysics

5 An Experimental Metaphysics For Latour’s part, a genuinely contemporary metaphysics ought to be shaped by its refusal to countenance any conspiracy theories. As a result, a contemporary metaphysics ought to be ironically characterized by a deeply antimetaphysical stance. Of course, Latour’s metaphysical project , like all metaphysical projects, must begin with some axiomatic assumptions, but Latour means to turn the need for such assumptions on its head by banning, axiomatically, any axiomatic decisions about the nature of the real. For Latour, nothing should be decided or assumed in advance —with the exception of this stern decision to decide nothing in advance. In this way, Latour says, ‘‘I want to reduce the reductionists’’ (PF 191). It is this ban on advance decisions that authorizes Latour to describe his approach as an experimental metaphysics. His metaphysics is experimental both in the sense that its conclusions are provisional and in the sense that it proceeds 12 by way of actual experiments. ‘‘We should not decide a-priori what the state of forces will be beforehand or what will count as a force’’ (PF 155). Rather, whatever we can say about the nature of the real must be justified locally and in on-going fashion by the objects themselves. ‘‘We do not have to decide on our own, as one did under the old speculative metaphysics, about the furnishing of the world; we have only to define the equipment, instruments, skills, and knowledge that will allow the experimental metaphysics to start up again’’ (PN 136). This leads, as Latour points out, to ‘‘a classic problem of bootstrapping’’ (PN 60). In order to ‘‘substitute the experimental metaphysics we are talking about for the arbitrariness —or the arbitrage—of nature [i.e., traditional metaphysics], we shall have to begin by defining a sort of vital minimum, a kind of metaphysical ‘minimum wage’’’ (PN 61). This ‘‘vital minimum’’ will ultimately be articulated in great detail in terms of what Latour calls the principle of irreduction, but for the moment it is sufficient to say that the metaphysical minimum needed amounts to a ban on the preemptive conspiracy theories that allow traditional metaphysical systems to explain such varied phenomena in such simple terms and with such astonishing speed. If, methodologically, traditional metaphysics is analogous to smoothing out and paving over objects in order to maximize the speed and ease of explanations, Latour’s experimental methodology amounts to repurposing metaphysics itself as a brake on our drive for purity and reduction. Where ‘‘the old system allowed shortcuts and acceleration, but it did not understand dynamics,’’ an experimental metaphysics ‘‘aims at slowing things down’’ in order to follow more carefully the movements of the objects themselves (PN 123). An Experimental Metaphysics 13 Ironically, it is precisely the ‘‘speed’’ with which a conspiracy theory reduces an object to some underlying common factor that tends to generate an illusion of substance and permanence that the actual phenomena lack. In order to understand the dynamics of objects, a metaphysical commitment to experimentally ‘‘slowing things down’’ is needed. Only in light of a metaphysical irreduction can the flux and impermanence of objects come into focus. To this end, Latour imposes a ban on any metaphysical, macroaccount of change, but he does so in order to facilitate an experimental, micro-account of changes at the level of the objects themselves. Latour advocates a kind of methodological ‘‘actualism’’ that does not rule out change per se, but instead confirms and accounts for the empirical reality of change. Importantly, Latour’s axiomatic commitment to ‘‘slowing things down’’ will characterize not only his metaphysical position but the gist of his approach to religious practices as well. Indeed, his approach opens the door not only to an experimental metaphysics, but to a kind of ‘‘experimental religion’’ that is similarly grounded in certain minimal instruments and practices rather than in prefabricated answers. For Latour, even ‘‘the big questions concerning matter and divine power can be subjected to experimental resolution’’—though, given the nature of the real, ‘‘this resolution will always be partial and modest’’ (WM 22). 14 An Experimental Metaphysics ...