Abstract
The aim of this article is to relate Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy to Bruno Latour’s symmetrical anthropology. Whitehead’s philosophy offers to Latour a metaphysical framework in order to move beyond the modern distinction between objects of history (human cultural constructions) and unhistorical objects of nature itself (non-human beings). Whitehead’s metaphysics, based on the concepts of actual entity and society, allows Latour to postulate the non-hierarchization between human and other-than-human collectives. However, saying that all actors or agents are at the same ontological level, does not imply to affirm that there is no difference between them. Against any form of homogenization, both Whitehead and Latour defend the idea of “heterogeneity” based on the notions of plurality and composition.
Keywords: Whitehead; Latour; agency; moderns; symmetrical anthropology; non-hierarchization; ontology; actual entity; society; historical realism; other-than-human beings; plurality; composition
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