Abstract
History tends to show that, in sociology, there is a set of explanations perceived as truly satisfactory. Our hypothesis is that such explanations have a satisfactory status because they postulate a real mechanism which allows the understanding of a given system of social action. Thus our discussion aims at the revitalization of social ontology, revisiting the problem of mechanisms. It is here stated that this ontological turn has been possible due to the sociologists’thinking about the processes of the social systems, the intermediate entities of the social world. Attention is also called to the fact that analytical sociology leads the efforts in this direction, considering particularly a general model of social interaction, the Hedström'ʹs DBO. Finally, some other mechanisms, well known in the history of the sociology, are mentioned — they might be conceived as consensus mechanisms.
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