Discurso sobre a sociologia à contrapelo: senso comum e antitomismo na obra de Michel Maffesoli

Abstract

The article discusses the general assumptions of Michel Maffesoli's sociological thinking by interpreting it as a break with a latent Thomism in the social sciences and, specifically, as a tension with epistemology as a form of knowledge. Proposing to think of Maffesoli's sociology as a diatopic hermeneutics, the article reviews some of the elements that structure this author's thinking, among which the critique of schematic dualism, the Simmelian idea of “social form”, the assumption of a relativistic sensibility, stylistic inquiry and libertarian commitment. It is understood that these five elements refer to the idea of ordinary, banal knowledge and the notion of common sense, which constitute the core of the sociologist's work.