Bruno Latour. From the critique of modernity to the reestablishment of sociology

Abstract

The paper discusses main ideas of Bruno Latour, one of the most interesting sociologists in the field of sociology of science, as well as some other fields of thought such as anthropology, history of science and philosophy. His contribution to modern sociology has been even more provocative and controversial because it was established during the major debates about modernity and postmodernity, and it was often met with criticism, which sometimes even disputed his relevance for the discipline of sociology. The paper covers and interprets three main issues which dominate Latour’s opus: the problem of modernity, because Latour claims that “we were never modern”; the problem of political ecology, because Latour insists on its great importance and attempts to formulate a completely new and diff erent concept of political ecology; the problem of sociology, because Latour relies on the belief that there is a demand for change, not only from the contemporary society but also from sociology as the science of society. He, therefore, problematizies the traditional concept of society as well as the science of sociology itself. He shows that sociology should be reestablished and thinks that the establishment of sociology should go in the direction of actor-network theory or the sociology of associations.