The social and capitalism do not exist: the challenge of Bruno Latour

Bruno Latour, a former philosopher who turned to anthropology and sociology, whose work is so much known as controversial, has been developing a radical restatement of contemporary social sciences,with broad consequences for them, and in particular for sociology. Stating that the social does not exi...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Author: Rochabrún Silva, Guillermo
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2015
Country:Perú
Institution:Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú
Repository:Revistas - Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú
Language:Spanish
OAI Identifier:oai:ojs.pkp.sfu.ca:article/14628
Online Access:http://revistas.pucp.edu.pe/index.php/debatesensociologia/article/view/14628
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:capitalism
immanence
modernity
nature and society
time
capitalismo
inmanencia
modernidad
naturaleza-sociedad
tiempo
Description
Summary:Bruno Latour, a former philosopher who turned to anthropology and sociology, whose work is so much known as controversial, has been developing a radical restatement of contemporary social sciences,with broad consequences for them, and in particular for sociology. Stating that the social does not exist, Latour claims the inclusion as «actants», as well as humans, of all kind of objects. According to Latour, in that way it would not be necessary to appeal to transcendent instances of experience, like huge historical processes, or entities in which a specific agent does not appear. After discovering Gabriel Tarde’s scientific production, who is considered by him as an antecessor of his ideas, Latour has lay down both a critique to the homo economicus, as well as to Marx’s vision on capitalism. This article intends to evaluate those critiques, making each author question the other.