Is the usual materialist and rationalist approach sufficient for the study of cultural and social forms? Marshall Sahlins questions this, and emphasizes the importance of symbols and the symbolic function in the construction of social life at all levels. In contrast to the theories of "praxis" and "utility", his proposal opens up a different reading and greater theoretical implications of the anthropological notion of culture, to conclude that the determination of what is useful necessarily involves the mediation of a symbol. Considered one of the main contributions to the human sciences in recent years, in Culture and practical reason Sahlins addresses one of the central issues of contemporary social theory and formulates the bases for a new interpretation of culture, more adjusted to material restrictions according to a concrete symbolic scheme that to an exclusively utilitarian interest.