A bath of empiricism: from Hume / Deleuze to the radical empiricism of Bruno Latour

Abstract

Philosophical bases of Bruno Latour Actor-network-theory are put near to the classical empiricism of David Hume. In this approach rescues Gilles Deleuze's own philosophical concepts such as Virtual, Actualt and Plan of Immanence, providing accommodation for other related concepts of Alfred Whitehead, Henri Bergson and William James in the same plane of immanence. In the image of thought built and grounded by Hume, the notion of cause and effect is reviewed because, in the name of the principle of causality, one says very often, more than we see and continually overcomes the immediate experience. The breakdown of causality of classical empiricism creates new, revolutionary and essential concepts to the studies of contemporary science. Latour revisits the classic empiricism thus tailoring a "second" empiricism to his Actor-network-theory . The reading of Hume by Deleuze three centuries later allows us to understand second empiricism of Bruno Latour.