BRUNO LATOUR, AMERICAN PRAGMATISM, AND THE IDEA OF NON-HUMAN DEMOCRACY

Authors:

• Leszek Koczanowicz

Abstract

The article is a venture into Bruno Latour’s concept of politics especially into his idea of democracy. The author examines the concept of “phantom public” which originated in Walter Lippmann’s political thought and was polemically discussed by John Dewey. Latour uses extensively this concept for his own purpose and recently one has noticed a shift in his thought from Dewey’s notion of public to Lippmann’s concept of limited democracy. This shift is interpreted against the background of French political philosophy as well as Latour’s growing interest in non-human factors of democratic system.