SEGUINDO AS REDES DE BRUNO LATOUR: UM ENSAIO SOBRE A ANTROPOLOGIA SIMÉTRICA E A TEORIA DO ATOR-REDE

Abstract

This theoretical essay is part of an effort to understand the thinking of one of the most important authors of the social sciences in the contemporary times: Bruno Latour. With its hermetic, abstract and philosophical writing, this author offers us a totally innovative lens in the way of thinking about how scientific knowledge is constructed by launching the following question: Why are the Social Sciences very anthropocentric?

The thesis proposed by Latour offers us a vision in which things and nonhumans must be considered in scientific analysis, since they are also part of the social world. Aiming to end the subject-object opposition, he proposes as an solution, the attempt to overcome the abyss between men and things, human beings and nonhumans, society and nature and between social sciences and natural sciences, through a principle of symmetry, which seeks to explain nature and society with equal treatment, giving importance to the hybrids and reconciling the dichotomous separation between subjects and objects that in turn, start to present themselves to social theory in a different way and that undoubtedly shakes the foundations of the modern anthropology .

Key words: Actor-Network Theory. Symmetric Anthropology. Human and Nonhuman. Bruno Latour.