The book is divided into five parts: crisis, system, revolution, relativism and redistribution. This paper puts forward the crisis of cognitive world from the perspective of modernism, expounds the problems and principles of modern system design, explains the inseparability of nature and society, refines the core of the system problem (inconsistent measurement standards), redistributes the roles of nature and society, and the power and identity of escapees.

Next, I will introduce the main points and problems according to my own understanding.

First of all, to demonstrate the problem of modernization, we must first take care of the modernization in the author's eyes.

It is generally believed that modernization began in the middle of19th century, marked by the invention of the steam engine and the beginning of the industrial revolution. This seems to point to a time scale. The author thinks that as far as time is concerned, adjective modernity refers to a new form of control, an acceleration, a separation and a revolution. "Modernity" has double asymmetry: it refers to both the separation of the normal passage of time and the battle full of winners and losers.

This passage is a bit difficult to understand. Let's start with the simplest part. When we use the adjective "modern" to name time, what we really want to express is the division of past, old and traditional time periods. So what is the standard for us to make this division? What is the difference between the named modern time and the past time? Let's go back to the historical reality, that is, the intervention of science and technology represented by Newton and the invention of the steam engine. During this period, a large number of scientific activities and scientific and technological inventions made us break away from the traditional handicraft era, from the ignorance and superstition of the world, and entered the industrial era. That is what we call modernity.

Next, the author decomposes the connotation of modernity. He believes that "modernity" refers to two completely different forms of practice, and we must identify them if we want them to play a role. Recently, people have confused them The first group of practice forms mixed two completely different existing forms-nature and culture through translation, and the second group of practice forms created two completely different ontological fields through purification: human and non-human. In short, one is to constantly establish the connection between nature and culture, and the other is to constantly separate and create barriers between human and non-human, nature and society. The opposition and division between different disciplines in contemporary times is the result of purification.

Therefore, we constantly strengthen the objectivity and transcendence of science and nature, constantly emphasize the free creation and immanence of society, and finally have to use language and symbols as an intermediary to complete the translation and connection between them.

However, the author believes that when we look back, we will realize that these two groups of practices have been working in a certain historical period in the past. That's the science and technology that we are proud of, but it's nothing new.

So how does the author demonstrate this view? He cited two interesting cases.

One is Boyle's air pump. Boyle's air pump experiment is to detect the existence of ether wind that scientists have always assumed. He designed an air pump experiment. The biggest advantage of this experiment is that with a series of ingenious enclosed spaces and containers, they can let observers see the inside of glass test tubes and allow people to guide and even control the development of the experiment. Of course, in the end, under the eyes of the public, he successfully proved that there was no etheric wind, thus proving the existence of vacuum. Did Boyle create scientific facts? He did control the conditions and development of the experiment, but the final result of the experiment was not the result of his control. But is this the case? It seems that we can't prove this, because what we see in Boyle's laboratory is only the vacuum state controlled by local conditions, and we can't know the real natural facts.

However, we have now taken the existence of a vacuum as a definite truth. How did Boyle do it? The author tells us that Boyle did not base his research on logic, mathematics or rhetoric, but relied on a quasi-judicial metaphor: the existence of facts can be confirmed by obtaining the testimony of reliable people, credible people and even rich people at the experimental site, even if people do not understand the essence of facts.

Through deconstruction, we find that science, which we think is absolutely true and objective, seems to be not what we think, but also full of artificial elements.

Another example is Hobbes' naked counting civil and social contract. Hobbes adopted the method of mathematical proof and used a pure computing tool, a computer ahead of his time-mechanical brain. Its famous social contract is only to collect timely mathematical statistics from all citizens who try to liberate themselves from the natural kingdom. Based on this proof, Hobbes thinks that the sovereign is only the agent appointed by the social contract. For the monarch, there is no sacred law or higher power, and the monarch can use them to serve his own rule and get rid of Leviathan.

Social contract is now called the origin and representative of democracy, but its source comes from open computing citizens, which creates the most important available resources for us to analyze various forces (such as society and politics).

So we say that Hobbes' politics and Boyle's science are intertwined with physical science and social politics, and belong to two completely different fields.

In this way, based on this completely separated translation and purification work, modernism has established a modern system, which is based on four guarantors: the first guarantor is nature, which is both transcendental (we can't control nature) and constructive (we can construct nature), the second guarantor is society, although we don't construct society, it seems to be our construction, and the third guarantor is that nature and society must be completely separated. The fourth guarantor was put on hold, that is, God. Modern people have stripped off their faith in God and secular life, and spirituality has been redefined. Almighty God came to the depths of human hearts, but never affected their external things. In other words, we can understand these four kinds of guarantors as the cornerstones of system establishment, and the terms of guarantors can be understood as laws. Transcendentality and immanence exist in both natural law and social law, while the third law is the complete division of nature and society, and the fourth law is the influence of God on human beings.

As a result, modern people are invincible. Because they drift between four kinds of explanatory resources and change with different objects at any time, although they look very scientific, the result is that modern people will become an island, and he has cut off the connection with the past and the future. He will satisfy an illusory sense of superiority and satisfaction, but he can't find the real belonging.

Now, let's go back to the purification and translation methods mentioned at the beginning. In the chapter of "Revolution", the author redefines purification and translation, trying to show how these two groups of practices of modern people are different from those of pre-modern people. The original text is rather obscure. According to popular saying, purification is a division and translation is a connection. These two practices coexist in our world. Pre-modern people only focus on translation, and nature and society coexist in life. Modern people completely separate purification from translation, trying to purify any world into nature and society, and then seeking the translation and connection between them. However, the modern system, which seems to be perfectly balanced, is facing an increasingly mixed crisis. Those hybrids involving human beings and pure nature cannot be purified into two levels: nature and society. In order to bridge the widening gap between nature and society, modern people have to turn to symbolic things, such as language and symbols. However, if we admit the autonomy of language, we must regard it as the roof of the world alongside nature and society. How do we view the relationship between language semantics and translation? Contradictions and crises here make the foundation of modern system shaky.

The solution given by the author is to give up using natural and social factors to explain everything, and regard nature and society as the translation products of quasi-objects and quasi-subjects (including hybrids), so that nature and society become the things that need to be explained most, instead of explaining others. The argument that objective, non-human and neutral characteristics are attributed to science and nature, while fallacies, fanaticism and irrationality are attributed to society should be abandoned.

In the chapter of "Relativism", the author summarizes the characteristics of the theoretical basis of modernism about nature-society: asymmetry. That is, truth and objectivity are explained by nature, while fallacy and subjectivity are explained by society. He believes that both social constructionists and natural realists have made one-dimensional mistakes, explaining one resource with another. He agrees with Michel Caron's principle of generalized symmetry: that is, both nature and society need explanation, and explanation begins with quasi-object.

In the same chapter, the author reflects on a very interesting phenomenon, that is, where the superiority of westerners to other civilizations comes from. West Renye Fang has created a huge gap between itself and others. The author believes that the superiority that the West relies on is actually based on the mobilization of science: we are the only people who can clearly distinguish between nature and culture, science and society, while others can't really distinguish between knowledge and society, symbols and things, natural products and cultural products. The author thinks that westerners only mobilize more translation with the help of the air pump experiment similar to Boyle's, which is called so-called impersonality and nature in translation, making their arguments look like objective truth. Between western science and other people's ignorance and superstition, they also constitute nature and culture, but the differences in collective scale mobilize more non-human differences. It is this difference that causes the global and local differences of some problems.

In view of this series of problems, the author gives his own views: that is, to restore things themselves, starting from the connection of things, nature and society are the result of the connection and translation of quasi-objects and quasi-subjects. In other words, both translation and purification are viewed comprehensively, and purification is regarded as the result of translation.

Then, after demonstrating the impossible modernization, how should we view the world? How to treat nature and society? How to know human and non-human? The author puts forward the viewpoint of redistributing power and resources. The author hopes to redefine humanism and stop treating people as purely subjective, free and changeable products. The definition and connotation of human beings are determined through a series of translations and actions. In this way, human beings are in their own homework, in the process of passing away, in the process of communication, and in constant communication. In this process, the transcendence and objectivity of nature and the immanence and subjectivity of society are all produced in the work of escape, rather than relying on the division of each other to produce a nature or society. Therefore, human beings are no longer the cause of fallacies, and science is no longer the natural representative of truth.

There is no denying that latour's view is flawed. The most obvious point is how nature and society are purified in the translation of quasi-object and quasi-subject, how this result is caused, and what standards are used to measure this result. The author didn't fully explain the details.

But at least, latour provides us with a useful thought: Is the modernity we take seriously really modernity? Is it really reasonable when we use science or society to explain some phenomena without testing? What did these concepts look like at first? Do they really represent the truth?

Just like the internet and new media, perhaps this novelty is just a representation.

Off-topic: some thoughts on public opinion intervening in litigation

Public opinion involved in litigation is naturally regarded as a social phenomenon, but sometimes we find that public opinion involved in litigation does not seem to be guided or changed at will as we imagined. So, can we also try to restore the starting point of public opinion? From one opinion to many opinions. The formation of opinions is influenced by these factors. Is there any objective reason? Or is it completely subjective in people's minds? Why can some cases develop into public opinion, while others cannot? Can it be explained by collective scale?