Facile dismissal of a philosopher is easy. Understanding what they are trying to do, especially when it’s in a very different intellectual tradition from what you’re used to, is the hard thing. I could read Plato, Hegel, Wittgenstein, whoever, and pull the same trick you did by finding some provocative quote that’s impossible to put in context without a detailed explanation of what the guy was up to.
For what it’s worth, I trained in theoretical physics and also read a fair bit of Latour later on. I don’t really like his work all that much, and wish he would be clearer sometimes, but the guy wasn’t an idiot, at least start from there.
In philosophy the usual advice when approaching someone’s work for the first time is to suspend critique on the first reading and just try and take them seriously and understand what they were doing on their own terms. Then you can go back and apply the critical razor later. It’s a useful tool to apply to other areas of life too.
For what it’s worth, I trained in theoretical physics and also read a fair bit of Latour later on. I don’t really like his work all that much, and wish he would be clearer sometimes, but the guy wasn’t an idiot, at least start from there.
In philosophy the usual advice when approaching someone’s work for the first time is to suspend critique on the first reading and just try and take them seriously and understand what they were doing on their own terms. Then you can go back and apply the critical razor later. It’s a useful tool to apply to other areas of life too.