In Chapter 6, Latour's theory of actants as the producers of science was mainly examined at a purely methodological level. However, Latour holds that an ontologically neutral vocabulary is not just a methodological convenience in analyzing natural science and technology, but actually captures reality in the most fundamental manner. He tries to bring this out by a critique of the traditional subject-object dichotomy in Western thought, and the Society-Nature distinction that is its counterpart at the macroscopic level. These distinctions are upheld with particular tenacity in Modernism; however, Latour urges that societal practice, even in Modernity, belies these metaphysical dogmas. Latour sketches out an alternative metaphysics of a radically monistic kind; it is actualist, nominalist and particularist, rejecting all potentialities and possibilities. Actants are in themselves without any positive features; whatever features they possess come to them by attribution, earned through their participation in networks with other actants. But even apart from its vagueness, it is difficult to see how this radically heterodox ontology solves the problems facing Latour's conception of science. This applies in particular to the strongly anti-realist and localist construal of the theoretical entities of science. The problems with this approach are particularly apparent with respect to scientific claims concerning the past.