Mais humano que um humano: a halitose como emblema da patologização odontológica

Abstract

The theoretical perspective of the analysis conducted is linked to the fact that dental awareness should not be seen as something universal, independent from reality, though participating in its construction. This paper explores the idea symbolized in the colonization of contemporary Dentistry awareness to beyond « the more human than human ». With the example of the increasing pathologization of halitosis, as an objective disorder not only of oral health, but that affects individuals, this work develops an analysis of the (re)invention of pathologies, through visualization technologies in late modernity. It concludes that the veracity of dental awareness, among the main actors, its discourses and its social practices, is never neutral, but always articulated to the interests with which it is permanently involved. The sense of smell moves from knowledge memory and from space to time and certainly from things to beings. Halitosis is, most of the times, unlikely, mixed, singular, and uncertain in time and place.