1st Edition

Bruno Latour The Normativity of Networks

By Kyle McGee Copyright 2014
272 Pages
by Routledge

272 Pages
by Routledge

272 Pages
by Routledge

The first extended study of Bruno Latour’s legal theory, this book presents a critical reconstruction of the whole of Latour’s oeuvre to date, from Laboratory Life to An Inquiry into the Modes of Existence . Based on the powerful insights into normative effects that actor-network theory makes possible, the book advances a new theory of legal normativity and the force of law, rethinking... Read more

Acknowledgements  Legend  Preface  Chapter One. Between Facticity and Normativity  Chapter Two. Law and cosmopolitics  Chapter Three. Legal anthropologics: Latour’s anti-jurisprudence  Chapter Four. How to speak well of law  Bibliography

Biography

Kyle McGee practises law in the U.S.

"Reading such a perceptive and deep book, the author who is the subject of the commentary feels like a sailboat architect realising that the hull he has painfully designed has suddenly turned into a real boat through the skills of the skipper at the helm. What until then has been no more than a mere proposition has become an exciting adventure to understand the specificity of legal connectors. Even though the design of the boat plays a role, it's the skipper that gets the cup... A perfect fulfilment of the AIME project." Bruno Latour, Sciences-Po

"From time to time, although much too rarely, comes a book that shatters the very foundations of what we believed. Kyle McGee's 'The Normativity of Networks' is one of those books. Not only does it provide the most extensive and accurate description of Bruno Latour's profound renewal of Western metaphysics available to the contemporary reader, but it does so with the help of the most unexpected of instruments: law. Reformulating Latour's Actor-Network Theory (and beyond), it is then the very role and importance of law in Western metaphysics (and its everyday practice) that is thrown radically into question with this magisterial work, and, with it, the research program of any future investigation within the realm of law. Already an absolute classic - written with class and poise." Laurent de Sutter, Vrije Universiteit Brussel