Actants, Symmetry and Circumstance:
Ortega y Gasset and Actor-Network Theory (ANT)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5944/endoxa.47.2021.24734Keywords:
Latour, Ortega y Gasset, Technique, Actor-Network Theory, STS, TechnologyAbstract
This article compares actor-network theory (ANT) with the ratio-vitalist thinking of Ortega y Gasset, focusing on his ideas about technology. ANT has its origins in the social studies of science and technology (STS) and has proposed a novel way of understanding all that is social. Ortega’s thought on technique, however, could be interpreted as complementary to ANT, or going further, Ortega could have even foreseen some of ANT’s fundamental principles, such as the notion of the inseparability of the technical and social, or the notion of technological mediation. This article seeks to show how Ortega’s thinking can be useful for an area of sociology such as STS.
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