factish

is concerned with the process of fact creation, which should be of concern for the philosopher of science. It is grounded in the management of practical and ontological constraints which she dubs obligation and requirement.

Borrowing Latour's notion of a 'factish,' Stengers calls on philosopher of science to interrogate science under the rubric of becoming through focusing on the processes of (arte)fact creation. For Stengers' the creation of factishes is grounded in the management of practical and ontological constraints which she dubs obligation and requirement. These constraints seem very different from the ideological or genre constraints commonly studied by rhetoricians of science. At this point I'm going to attempt to sum up what Stengers means by constraints, but I'd be lying if I implied that I understood the concept entirely. Stengers is working with very complex ideas and elucidating tremendously subtle variations. Nevertheless, I'll attempt it:Factishes carry with them an interpretive obligation that is because of the practical event (experiment) that created the factish, one is obliged to interpret said fact according to that practice/discipline.Experimental practice requires the ability to render its object a factish or rather an object that can be factishified. Requirements are addressed to phenomena, obligations to experimental practices.

factish, n.All

factish