THE WARNING OF THE PHILOSOPHER OF SCIENCE  BRUNO LATOUR

 

‘Nothing can be reduced to anything else’ B latour  

 

In osteopathy let's not confuse chains of reference with chains of transformation: a scientific model derives its validity from the strength of the inscriptions that link measured phenomena to their representations, while a phenomenological map derives its validity from its power to modify the attention and practice of osteopaths. Confusing these two regimes is like changing the rules of the game in the middle of the game.

 

Why Latour invites us to do so: 

 

Each regime of enunciation has its own ‘conditions of felicity’.

 

In REF mode (scientific reference chain), the crucial question is: does the inscription faithfully render what has been detected?

 

In a phenomenological educational system (similar to the HAB modes, ‘Mode of existence of Habit’ or PRE, ‘Mode of existence of the Prepositional/Predicative’ in Latour; see below for more details), the question becomes: does this map intensify the practitioner's perceptive capacity?

The criteria for success are therefore not the same; sentences only exist fully within their own regime.

 

Modern ‘purification’ is a costly illusion.

Latour shows that wanting to reabsorb all useful discourse into the scientific regime alone leads either to drying up practice (by denying the sensitive training required by osteopathy) or to overloading science with tasks it cannot perform (describing the lived experience of palpation).

 

Maps and territories are not rivals but complementary.

The scientific model provides a metric projection (what forces, what tissues, what objectifiable correlations).

The phenomenological map provides a praxic projection (where to focus attention, what sensory contrasts to cultivate). Moving from one to the other is like changing navigation instruments; trying to superimpose them is like reading a road map on a sextant.

 

Practical consequences for osteopathic teaching

Clarify the teaching contract: explicitly specify to students when you are providing scientific justification (evidence, statistics, biomechanics) and when you are offering them a perception exercise whose value is pragmatic and formative.

 

Respect plurality without implicit hierarchy: recognise that a phenomenological map is not a ‘second-rate science’ but an internal tool for another mode of existence, with its own seriousness.

 

Articulate rather than unify: design bridges (workshops, reflective protocols) that allow us to move from scientific discourse to phenomenological discourse without confusing them, just as we move from a microscope to a stethoscope depending on the question being asked.

 

Thus, following Latour, we avoid the category mistake: the temptation to judge the relevance of a phenomenological map using the criteria of scientific representation, or conversely to ask science to play the role of a master of perceptual learning.

 

For Bruno Latour, modes of existence are distinct regimes through which things exist, are known, and can be said to be ‘true’ or ‘successful.’ He develops them in An Inquiry into Modes of Existence (2012) — often abbreviated to AIME. Each mode has its own rules of validation, its own objects, and its own particular trajectories. They are different ways of being in the world.

 

Here is what HAB and PRE mean:

 

HAB – Mode of existence of Habit

Describes: This mode concerns everything related to embodied behaviour, learned gestures, everyday skills, the body that knows without having to think.

 

Type of being: A persistent existence through reproduction. These are routines, tacit know-how, and ways of being that we incorporate.

 

Condition of felicity (criterion for success): It works as long as the gesture ‘holds,’ is reproduced, and there is uninterrupted continuity in practice.

 

Example in osteopathy: The gesture that ‘finds’ tissue tension without the need for explicit analysis. The hand knows because it has repeated the action.

 

PRE – Mode of existence of the Prepositional / Predicative

Describes: This mode is that of discourse, statements, formulation. It concerns the way in which language constructs propositions, not as fixed assertions, but as ways of positing the world.

 

Type of being: A proposition is an attempt to formulate something that awaits validation in a context of speech.

 

Condition of felicity: To be heard, received, discussed in an interpreting collective. What is said becomes consistent through its repetition and circulation.

 

Example in osteopathy: When a teacher describes an inner image, a metaphor, a sensation to aim for — this is not scientific data but a statement addressed to the perception of the other.

 

Why is this important

Latour insists that there is no single valid mode (the scientific REF mode), but a plurality of regimes of existence, which cannot be translated into one another without loss. In osteopathy:

 

The teaching of perception belongs mainly to the HAB and PRE modes.

 

Scientific research belongs to the REF (reference) mode.

 

Confusing or indiscriminately ranking them risks destroying the coherence of each world.

 

The REF mode (for Reference) is, in Bruno Latour's thinking, the mode of existence specific to modern science. It refers to the specific way in which scientific statements produce truth and robustness through chains of mediation.

 

Definition of REF mode (Reference)

Object: The natural world, as stabilised by science.

 

Type of existence: That which is constructed through well-established chains of reference, i.e. a series of steps that enable a phenomenon in the field (e.g. a fabric, a movement, a behaviour) to be translated into a stable inscription (graph, image, figure, formula, etc.).

 

Condition of felicity (validity criterion): The continuity and fidelity of the chain between the observed phenomenon and the final statement. What matters is that each step allows us to trace the phenomenon back to its source, as if we were following a trail.

 

Example in scientific practice

Let's take the example of joint inflammation:

 

An osteopath collects data (palpation, observation).

 

A biologist measures the concentration of cytokines.

 

A biochemist plots them on a graph.

 

An article publishes the interpretation of the data.

 

Each step is a record (by an instrument, a procedure, a discourse). For knowledge to be scientific (REF), these records must be verifiable and reproducible: the chain must be traceable.

 

The importance of the REF mode in Latour

Latour does not deny the value or power of science, but he emphasises its specific conditions. Contrary to the classical view that science ‘discovers reality’, Latour asserts that:

 

Science produces robust entities by following a rigorous method, but it is the production chains themselves that establish their validity.

 

Essential distinction

The REF mode does not concern direct experience, subjectivity or immediate sensation: it aims to produce objectifiable representations that are detached from the body and transmissible.

 

It is therefore opposed in method (but not in value) to the HAB (incorporation, gesture) and PRE (proposition, embodied speech) modes, which are very present in manual practices such as osteopathy.

 

Ultimately, it is not a question of saying that everything is relative, but that everything is relative to well-established chains, well-constructed worlds and well-learned gestures.

 

What is true in science is not what is true in healthcare, and what heals is not always what can be proven.

 

 

Essential bibliography by Bruno Latour

 

Science in Action (1987)

 

A fundamental work for understanding how scientific facts are constructed, not simply ‘discovered’.

 

Themes: construction of facts, networks of actors, inscriptions, laboratories.

 

We Have Never Been Modern (1991)

 

Latour deconstructs the modern separation between nature and society. Very useful for thinking about osteopathy as a hybrid practice.

 

Themes: purification, hybrids, critique of modernity.

 

Pandora's Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies (1999)

 

Clear and narrative essays on how science ‘manufactures’ reality. Contains very telling concrete stories.

 

Themes: chains of reference, pragmatic realism.

 

An Inquiry into Modes of Existence (2012)

 

The book that systematises his theory of different regimes of truth (including REF, HAB, PRE).

 

Themes: plurality of worlds, validation, experience, diplomacy of knowledge.

 

Petites leçons de sociologie des sciences (1996)

 

A short, educational and accessible book that provides a good introduction to Latour's method.

 

Themes: actors, devices, laboratories.