From: "Simon Beesley" <simonb-AT-beesleys.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Bourdieu and Objectivity
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 10:49:53 +0100


One last, possibly futile, stab at making the point.

George wrote:

"Bourdieu's ideas concerning scientific practice are not so unusual in the
history of philosophy of science. Many similar notions can be found in the
work of Michael Polanyi, for example. E.g., in his Personal Knowledge:
Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. Other examples can be found in the work
of the American pragmatists."

Bourdieu wrote:

"And I can only agree with Rogers Brubaker's analysis according to which what I
aim to produce and transmit above all is a scientific habitus, a system of
dispositions necessary to the constitution of the craft of sociologist in its
universality"


The idea Bourdieu suggests -- puts forward as his overriding aim -- is NOT an
idea about the nature of scientific practice. He is not saying that scientists
are social creatures and that the practice of science does not take place in a
vacuum. He could be thought to be saying the exact opposite, but the main thrust
of his monster sentence is prescriptive. It could be rephrased like this:

1. Scientific practice is governed by the logic of practice. Call those features
of the practice so governed 'scientific habitus'.
2. The logic of practice currently governing sociology is inadequate.
3. My aim is replace it with a system of dispositions.
4. Only when the craft of the sociologist is constituted by my system of
dispositions will the craft achieve universality.

The last statement (assuming I've done justice to Bourdieu's meaning) is fatally
ambiguous. To what will the universality attach -- the craft of the sociologist
or the substance of sociology (sociological knowledge)? It is certainly true
that if Bourdieu succeeds (somehow) in transmitting his system of dispositions
to all sociologists then their craft will have universality, in the sense that
they will all be doing the same thing. But will this unspecified set of
dispositions guarantee universality (scientific truth) to sociology? Let's grant
that the idea of a set of dispositions guiding the production of sociological
knowledge can be made sense of, ignoring for the moment the fact that Bourdieu
gives no indication of what these dispositions are. What are the assumptions
behind Bourdieu's claim? Not that sociology needs to be made more scientifically
rigorous -- i.e. by adopting a set of concepts and a methodology -- but that
sociology as it is currently constituted lacks a true scientific habitus. He
can't be said to be saying that sociology as it is currently constituted has no
scientific habitus at all, because a scientific habitus just is that which
governs the scientific practice; it is no more than the set of practices within
sociology that are socially determined. Bourdieu's claim then reduces to this:
We cannot meaningfully talk about a scientific method, as something which can be
taught and consciously mastered. Instead, my system of dispositions represents
scientific method congealed in the unconscious or the body, method made flesh.
When this (what is it? never mind) is transmitted and produced in all, then the
craft of the sociologist will have universality ... or sociology will have
universality ... well, something will have it and it will be well worth having.

I am losing the thread here, but that's almost impossible not to -- since
Bourdieu's idea cannot actually be explicated or expounded in a coherent way. To
make the point in yet another way, Bourdieu's sentence is not a descriptive
statement about the nature of scientific practice; it cannot possibly be taken
in that way. He says quite explicitly that his aim, his most important aim, is
to do this incoherent thing. Whether you agree it is incoherent or not, you
cannot deny that this is a prescriptive statement, which sets out a program for
establishing "the constitution of the craft of sociologist in its universality"
(whatever that means).

Regards
Simon




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