‘‘Objects that we use as standards and signposts, which are elected and stabilized as ‘what’ we perceive, do not faithfully bear witness to what is nature, but they bear witness for nature, thanks to the judicious character of the reason why they have been selected in the first place. Judicious and not justified: nature does not explain nor justify anything, but it is pragmatically implicated in the consequences that verify or falsify the consequences of having chosen this or that signpost, the adequation to this type of attention’’ (Whitehead quoted in Stengers 132, quoted in Latour).

As a thought experiment I want to replace the word “nature” with the word “civil society." Now if I could just figure out what this replacement means, then I could analyze the data for my dissertation.