“An important step, introduced by William James, is to abandon epistemological questions in favour of the care and concern demanded by that which is ‘‘coming into existence’’, and by its milieu, which may nurture or poison it. Poisoning is easy but nurturing is a craft, the neglect of which may be understood in relation to our vulnerability to capitalism.” (Stengers, 2008)

mcneiltrackxc.com

I have found this quote of Bruno Latour reading a paper from Social Studies of Science by Adrian Mackenzie dated on 2003 entitled “These Things Called Systems: Collective Imaginings and Infrastructural Software”. (I must confess I had some difficulties reading that paper though…) Nevertheless, here’s a quote for the quote of the day section from Latour’s Aramis, ou l’amour des techniques:

“The engineer substitutes for the signs he writes the things that he has mobilized; he attaches them to each so they’ll hold up; then he withdraws a little, delegating to another self, in the form of a chip, a sensor, or an automatic device, the task of watching over the connection. And this delegating allows him to withdraw even further – as if there were an object.” (Latour, 1996: 81) -as seen in MacKenzie, A.(2003) SSS, 2003, 33.

schematic from free hardware project ronja.twibright.com