Reality sui generis: Things in Durkheim’s Ontology

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In this article, I explore the limitations of the critique of Emile Durkheim’s notorious reductionism presented by Bruno Latour in his Actor-Network Theory project, and suggest an approach to the ontology of heterogeneity in Durkheim’s sociology. This ontology is organized around the notion of the thing (chose). What is important in this ontological project is the distinction between material objects and social things such as reality sui generis. Reality here is defined by the complex resistance of various social and material things, emotions, landscapes and other ontological orders. Such a heterogonous ontology requires multiple and situational assemblages and dynamic tensions between things. In Durkheim’s case, not only people, but all things are actors. Things act and perceive. They have a kind of affinity, sensibility, self-consciousness, and other features usually attributed only to human actors. I argue that Latour’s critique of Durkheimian ontology is a friendly fire. In this sense, with a closer reading of Durkheim’s papers, the classic of sociology with his reality sui generis could easily become not a scapegoat, but a potential ally for science and technology studies (STS). A significant advantage of Durkheim’s heterogeneous ontology over the various approaches in STS is that the sociological classicist sees in resistance the conditions of existence of so-called social things.