Dai fatti ai fatticci: conoscenza scientifica e senso comune oggi

From facts to “factiches”: scientific knowledge and common sense today The article deals with important changes taking place in the sociology of knowledge. Classic sociology had a scientific dream, to mirror “facts”. From Schutz on, social sciences focus rather on common sense than on scientific knowledge, because everyday life is considered as the starting point for every knowledge process. Anyway, it is agreed that facts are always modified by our interpretation, that is by different points of view. NSSK stresses the importance of social context in every scientific operation, both in hard and social sciences. The latter, however, through reflexivity can show how facts are constructed even in laboratories. More radically, Latour suggests the neologism “factiches” (between facts and fetiches) to indicate all human products, both material and non material, in science and everyday life, in western or other cultures. “Factiches” are constructions, but partly transcend us and can modify us. Following Knorr Cetina, this reflexive awareness must have consequences on methodology: if researchers cannot claim to mirror the world or to give a true vision of it, they can involve their communicative context, giving voice to social actors. Objects can be promoted as subjects and interlocutors, with whom a definition of reality can be negotiated and then shared.