Reassembling the Social is a fundamental challenge from one of the world's leading social theorists to how we understand society and the 'social'. Bruno Latour's contention is that the word 'social' as used by Social Scientists has become laden with assumptions to the point where it has become a misnomer. When the adjective is applied to a phenomenon, it is used to indicate a stabilized state of affairs, a bundle of ties that in due course may be used to account for another phenomenon. Latour also finds the word used as if it described a type of material, in a comparable way to an adjective such as 'wooden' or 'steely'. Rather than simply indicating what is already assembled together, it is now used in a way that makes assumptions about the nature of what is assembled. It has become a word that designates two distinct things: a process of assembling: and a type of material, distinct from others. Latour shows why 'the social' cannot be thought of as a kind of material or domain, and disputes attempts to provide a 'social explanation' of other states of affairs. While these attempts have been productive (and probably necessary) in the past, the very success of the social sciences mean that they are largely no longer so. At the present stage it is no longer possible to inspect the precise constituents entering the social domain. Latour returns to the original meaning of 'the social' to redefine the notion and allow it to trace connections again. It will then be possible to resume the traditional goal of the social sciences, but using more refined tools. Drawing on his extensive work examining the 'assemblages' of nature, Latour finds it necessary to scrutinize thoroughly the exact content of what is assembled under the umbrella of Society. This approach, a 'sociology of associations' has become known as Actor-Network-Theory, and this book is an essential introduction both for those seeking to understand Actor-Network-Theory, or the ideas of one of its most influential proponents.

重组社会》是世界领先的社会理论家之一对我们如何理解社会和 "社会 "提出的一个基本挑战。布鲁诺-拉图尔的论点是，社会科学家所使用的 "社会 "一词已经充满了假设，以至于它已经成为一个错误的名称。当这个形容词被应用于一种现象时，它被用来表示一种稳定的事务状态，一束纽带，在适当的时候可以用来解释另一种现象。拉图还发现这个词被用来描述一种材料类型，与 "木质 "或 "坚硬 "等形容词的使用方式相当。它不是简单地表示已经组装在一起的东西，而是以一种对所组装的东西的性质作出假设的方式使用。它已经成为一个指定两种不同事物的词：一种是组装的过程：一种是不同于其他材料的类型。拉图尔说明了为什么 "社会 "不能被认为是一种材料或领域，并对试图为其他事务状态提供 "社会解释 "的做法提出异议。虽然这些尝试在过去是有成效的（而且可能是必要的），但社会科学的成功意味着它们在很大程度上不再是这样了。在目前阶段，已经不可能检查进入社会领域的确切成分。拉图尔回到了 "社会 "的原始含义，重新定义了这个概念，并允许它再次追踪联系。这样就有可能恢复社会科学的传统目标，但要使用更精细的工具。拉图尔在研究自然界的 "集合体 "方面做了大量的工作，他发现有必要彻底检查在 "社会 "的保护伞下所集合的东西的确切内容。这种方法，即 "关联社会学 "已被称为 "行为者-网络理论"，这本书对于那些寻求了解 "行为者-网络理论 "或其最有影响力的支持者之一的想法的人来说，都是必不可少的介绍。