The materiality of the social: Four solutions for a sociological problem in the work of Bruno Latour

The problem of materiality is the pivot of Bruno Latour's sociology. There are four different solution strategies in his work: the erosion of a symbolically halved society in the early science and technology studies ("materialization"), the time-diagnostic identification of risky contradictions at the nature-culture divide of modern societies ("hybridization"), the balancing out of sociological concepts by actor network theory ("symmetrization") and finally the theoretical foundation of different modes of existence in the multiversum of modernity with an operational concept of meaning ("ontologization"). The systematic reconstruction of Latour's thinking shows four divergent answers to the question of materiality. It could be productive for sociology to reflect upon these opportunities because the discipline is apparently very interested in the materiality of the social in view of anthropogenic climate change and the digitalization of society.