A Critical Examination of the Epistemic foundations of Actor-Network Theory by Bruno Latour

Bruno Lutour, the French philosopher, anthropologist and sociologist, is a postmodernist theorist who, with the rejection of the universal validity of "social constructivism," believes in the need to focus on the social realm, along with the field of technology and nature. He has put forward the theory of "actor- network" in the field of sociology of science and technology. This theory has strong roots in structuralism and post-structuralism, and as a social theory assumes the participation of individuals, objects, and spaces within a network of social relationships. The actor- network theory argues that in addition to the human actor, non-human elements also play a role as “agents”. While presenting a brief overview of the content of the actor-network theory, this paper uses the perspective of fundamental methodology to extract and criticize its philosophical foundations. According to the research findings, this theory ignores the distinction between agency and structure, and binds the two agents of actors and networks. Ontological reductionism, anthropological and epistemological anti-nominalism, and believing in the relative existence of objects are among the main fundamental criticisms leveled at this theory.