Rudenko N. More than one - less than two: the concept and methodology of enactment of multiplicity in actor - network theory. Filosofsko-literaturnyj zhurnal Logos, 2018, Vol. 28, Issue 5 (126), pp. 113-136.

Abstract

Attempts to find alternatives to the totalizing (which in the social sciences takes the form of an explanation through society, class, gender, culture, etc.) and the essentialist understanding of the social underlie the modern appeals of the social sciences to the ideas of the plural - that will allow to think the reality is not just diverse and fragmented, but as non-constitutive, complex and differently distributed within itself. Psychology, economics, political theory and many other disciplines have offered their own versions of the conceptualization of the plural. In sociology, the most famous ideas of the set are expressed in the works of neo-Marxists Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri and Paolo Virno, as well as in the tradition of the phenomenological sociology of Alfred Schütz and in the works of Irving Hoffmann. The author of the article offers theoretical and methodological explications of the concept of the plural in actor-network theory. In theoretical terms, it is shown how Annmary Mol and John Law distinguish between the plural and the plural, abstracting from both relativism and social constructivism. The plurality of them is aimed at the analysis of decentralized, distributed objects that combine actual existence with the potential for change. In terms of methodology, the bases of the three methods of articulation of the plural developed in actor-network theory are singled out and analyzed: ethnographic (Annmary Mol, John Lo, Haris Thompson (Cassins)), technological (Nortier Marres, Albena Yaneva) and the method of creating conceptual figures ( Donna Hara Way, Michel Serre, Isabella Stengers). According to the author, the combination of theory and methodology in understanding the plural allows the actor-network theory to propose new actual ways of engaging (enactment) of social reality, and not just its description.