File spoon-archives/bourdieu.archive/bourdieu_2000/bourdieu.0006, message 20


From: "Simon Beesley" <simonb-AT-beesleys.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Bourdieu and Objectivity
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 08:28:12 +0100


Kent,

You wrote:

"simon says" does a scientific habitus exist anywhere in the world" this is like
a koan...if it does exist are you insinuating its part of nature? If not then
well all of science is not part of the world and B. is giving a thorough
analysis of it THROUGH language. Which is something B. as a post-structuralist
you forget. the problem of language...I hope you are not proposing the belief in
the 19th century belief in the transparency of language that needs to be rid of
rhetoric that I sense in your last several posts."

Not at all. I am merely trying to point out the oddity of the concept of a
scientific habitus. As far as the philosophy of science is concerned, I am happy
with Feyerabend's position. We don't need a philosophy of scientific method:
science exists, it works, and, as Feyerabend shows, you can use any method you
like to arrive at a new scientific truth.

The question "Does a scientific habitus exist anywhere in the world?" does NOT
imply anything about science -- for the simple reason that it is ironic. Quite
obviously my implication is that the concept of a scientific habitus is
incoherent. The question neither insinuates that a scientific habitus is part of
the world, nor that it not part of the world: it plainly implies that there is
no such thing as scientific habitus -- and this is not at all the same as saying
"science is not part of the world". How could science not be part of the world?
What could that possibly mean?

What's the problem of language when it's at home? Far from proposing a belief in
the transparency of language, I have little confidence in any philosophical
views on language. If I had to pin my colours to the mast of a philosophy of
language it would be Wittgenstein's without necessarily finding his notions of
language-game and form of life entirely convincing. Incidentally, in
"Wittgenstein: On Rules and Private Language", Saul Kripke demolishes the idea
that these Wittgensteinian concepts amount to a philosophy of dispositions and
he also demonstrates that the notion of a disposition, at least as applied to
mind, is untenable, incoherent, makes no sense. F.R. Leavis seems to me a far
better guide to the nature of language, not least for his observation that
"philosophers are always weak on language" - by which he did not mean that they
can't write poetry.

My point is really very simple: How can you square the idea of science as a
cognitive practice with the idea of a set of dispositions for generating
scientific truths? And what does it mean to talk of "transmitting and producing"
such a set of dispositions? How do you do it?

You talked of the "19th century belief in the transparency of language that
needs to be rid of rhetoric". As far as I am concerned, this is a meaningless
concept. Language is neither transparent nor opaque, so there is no sense in
talking of ridding it of rhetoric. Language simply is not that sort of unitary
thing -- as even the most cursory reading of Wittgenstein or Austin makes
abundantly clear.

Possibly I have got the wrong end of the stick. But in this case it
should be possible for someone to enlighten me. Can someone explain to me what a
system of dispositions would consist in and how one could go about transmitting
and producing it? What sense do you make of this? Airy abstractions about the
transparency of language - or this mythical thing "the problem of language" - do
not shed any light on the rather concrete, practical questions I raised.

Regards
Simon




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