[Epidemiology, knowledge and practices: a critical analysis]

If research companies need to permanently review their theoretical foundations and objects of study, evidently epidemiology should also consider these demands to pursue a transdisciplinary dialogue, as required by the study of the Health-Disease process. This dialogue should begin with a critique of its theoretical and methodological assumptions. Here, we discuss the concept of causality in epidemiology, exploring the "notions system" that has served as an original matrix for knowledge and practice. We analyze its close links with clinical knowledge, its dominant empirical-analytical orientation with a particular view of "the social", and finally, we present some critiques of the casual-inferential model, which is key in contemporary epidemiology.