Drawing deeply from the example of Michel Serres, Bruno Latour’s work represents a critique of the commitment to critique which has become the dominant mode of much work in the humanities. Latour’s An Inquiry into Modes of Existence attempts to move away from the negative mode of his We Have Never Been Modern into a more positive and generously accommodating stance, which can take more account of objects, and especially earthly objects, than has been common in the humanities, that has become excessively preoccupied with the investigation of its own value. Latour’s proposal for a more generously ecological attitude with regard to different forms of knowledge may, however, constitute a kind of magical thinking, since whether or not we think ecologically or not about forms of knowledge need have no positive impact at all on actual relations between humans and their environments. This mistaking of epistemology for effect is one of the most common of the dream-machines of the humanities. The best way for the humanities to have an impact on ecological problems is to forgo the claim to have an exclusive understanding of the nature and possibilities of “the human.” Allowing other areas of human life, like economics, engineering, and mathematics, to be seen as part of the humanities may allow the question “what future is there for the humanities?” to modulate into the question “what future is there but the humanities?”