Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 09:01:17 -0500
From: mdeneire-AT-mtu.edu (marc deneire)
Subject: Re: Bourdieu and Wittgenstein


>Jo Helle-Valle wrote:
>>
>
>>
>> I have read some of Bourdieu's work and find him stimulating (but unnessary
>> vague and 'French').
>
>What is "french" ? Could you define precisely what you mean by that ?
>I'm interested in the perception of Bourdieu's work in the anglo-saxon
>world, and your qualification of him as "french" could mean a lot to me,
>if you were so kind as to give me some precisions about your feeling. If
>anyone on the list has the same kind of comments about Bourdieu, please,
>let me know.

I tend to agree that Bourdieu's work is very French (just as the work of
ALL French intellectuals).  Most of it can only be fully understood in the
context in which it was written.  It is full of allusions and presupposes a
certain knowledge of the social and political contexts of the time when it
was written.  It is true that French intellectuals do not always clearly
give their sources.  The reader is supposed to know them (in an interview,
Foucault was once accused of being "marxist" and answered that he had
always used Marxism but some people did not even notice!).  This is why, I
believe, people believe that he is "unncessarily vague."
Marc Deneire


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