From: "Simon Beesley" <simonb-AT-beesleys.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Bourdieu and Objectivity
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 08:33:22 +0100


Henry,

> Simon, I can't see what you are getting so het up about.  All that I read
> Bourdieu as saying is that, in order to be a sociologist you have to *do*
> some sociology, that in order to *do* it you need certain conditions - not
> the least of which is to have a discipline and have discipline.

Oh, that's what he is saying! I'll have to think about this. What seems like a
vacuous tautology -- In order to be an X, you have to do some X stuff -- is no
doubt more profound. Brubaker's paper, "Social Theory as Habitus", the sole
paper Bourdieu wholeheartedly agreed with, is then no more than the elaboration
of truisms.

>One needs
> to develop a set of dispositions to do sociology and what those are you
> will learn as you do it.  He aims to produce and transmit these by
> providing the environment in which a range of studies can be carried out.

Develop a set of dispositions? I suppose it's too late for me to ask what you
mean by a "disposition" here or whether in your usage of the word, a disposition
is necessarily unconscious or embodied. Also, I know what his aims are because
he has told us quite explicitly. My problem is in understanding how he means to
achieve them and what achieving them would amount to.

But in the face of the overwhelming consensus that I am confused and befuddled,
I am beginning to doubt my own reasoning. Back to the drawing board, more
struggling with the texts.

> The proof is in the pudding:  the, now quite substantial, range of
> empirical studies carried out in engagement with his work.  I think you
> have to ask yourself what he is saying we must not do: well, we can't do
> sociology if one sits around worrying about how many angels one can
> accomodate on the head of a pin i.e. theoreticist theorising. Better to go
> and ask some angels.
>

Ergo: Bourdieu is beyond criticism. Empirical studies exist, the pudding is
edible.


Regards
Simon


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