Il richiamo della modernità: sviluppi teorici sull'attuale condizione e definizione della società contemporanea in Bruno Latour

Abstract

The study of modern change is a typical sociological theme. The classical conceptualizations of modernity have forged an image of modern society based on a double fracture: first, a time division that has divided modern society from pre-modern cultures; and second, a space division has divided the modern Westerners by other contemporary not-Western cultures, all defined premodern. This perspective was founded on a uniform concept of modernity and modern society. The modernization intended as linear and irreversible way, which would have gone into the cultures to the modern Western. The contemporary sociological debate was characterized by the critical reviews made to the classical theory of modernity. The important, often overlooked, contribution proffered by Bruno Latour might stimulate further thinking and offer new tools to re-conceptualize the contemporary. For Latour, in fact, modernity is an “invention” made by the Western mind to distinguish from other forms of knowledge. So, given the current crisis of modern knowledge (science), follows the “recall” of the concept of modernity.