Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern

This article proposes a revision of the notion of critique developed in the social sciences at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Bruno Latour suggests that criticism has largely lost its explanatory potential and has become an obstacle to responding to new challenges and threats. He suggests a radical revision of both the instruments and targets of critical analysis while observing the emergence of the “instant revisionism” phenomenon with its pseudo-critical analysis that challenges the facts established by science or jurisprudence, thus imitating the procedures of the sociology of science that Latour, himself, extensively used in his work of the eighties and nineties. He equally signalizes the transformation of critical procedures from an attribute of elitist academic culture to a key element of the conspiracy theories that have proliferated with the advent of social media and alternative information sources.

Latour emphasizes that conspiracy theories and “instant revisionism” have become instruments in the hands of political forces challenging the established scientific consensus on the key role of anthropogenic factors in climate change. Simultaneously, he disapproves of returning to the pre-critical realism that does not consider the complex procedure of the “production” of facts, which does not amount to so-called “social constructivism.” To overcome this crisis, Latour proposes a gradual transition from the outdated notion of “facts” to a new concept, “matters of concern.” This new approach will account for the complex procedure of producing new entities and the interactions of human and non-human actors. Meanwhile, it will enable the recognition of the irrelevance of objections to already established states of affairs and adopt an authentic realist attitude that combines the virtues of critical methodology and the new pragmatism.