Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1999 17:46:33 +0200
From: Carsten Sestoft <sestoft-AT-hum.ku.dk>
Subject: Re: a little more on habitus


Brandon Claycomb wrote:

>Just a stray question from a philosopher (forgive me!) who has been
>extremely interested in the recent discussions on this list about habitus:
>
>Could it be that habitus is simply not an appropriate concept for dealing
>with arguably intrinsically philosophical issues such as the nature of
>personhood and the relationship between self-consciousness and action? That
>is, perhaps "habitus" (as a theoretical concept) finds its home only in the
>sphere of sociological theorizing on the mass scale that statistical
>analysis facilitates, and is not suited for investigations the proceed on a
>personal level (i.e. Karl Maton's query, "What is _my_ habitus?"). And if
>so, perhaps an argument could be made that this whole "personal level" is
>itself just one of the many epiphenomena that springs forth spontaneously
>(perhaps even inexplicably) from the more fundamentally _real_ level of
>sociological, habitized life.
>
>I'm not sure I believe all of that, but it is my best current attempt to try
>to smooth out some of the difficulties that have been aired on this topic
>recently.
>
I really wondered at this: how can one say that what relates to persons is
intrinsically philosophical, whereas habitus as a statistical (or rather
relational) concept is a sociological, i.e. non-philosophical, concept?
Habitus is a concept which explains behaviour in terms of dispositions
(contrary to explanations of behaviour in terms of either the finality of
rational calculation or in terms of mechanic determinism), and this type of
explanation is no less philosophical (even if more vague) than the other
two, as far as I know.

Carsten Sestoft
University of Copenhagen

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