Date: Wed, 16 May 2001 09:01:14 -0500
Subject: Re: Leibniz


> > It seems to me after some reflection to be a quite difficult question,
> > even profound.  Simon, you referred to Bourdieu's study of Leibniz--can
> > you share with us some of your specific insights on this connection?  In
> > any case, your reference suggests that there might be some connection.
> > You have not even begun to show that the question is meaningless, if
> > that was your intent.
>
>My point was NOT that this was a meaningless question (and nor did I intend
> a personal attack). Rather I took the form of the question as representative
>of what I called "misplaced concretism".

Can you please explain what you mean by this phrase?

>I haven't got any insights into the
>connection between Bourdieu's thought and Leibniz -- and, once again, this was
>my point: that, given Bourdieu's equivocal relationship to philosophy, even to
>begin to unravel the strands here would be a fantastically difficult task,
>strewn with all sorts of false trails, snares and decoys.

Your point would be?  Isn't that a valid, if "fantastically 
difficult," intellectual enterprise?  Isn't part of any intellectual 
enterprise "strewn with all sorts of false trails, snares and decoys"?

>So to approach the
>question as if it could yield an answer in terms of direct lines of 
>influence --
>as in Spinoza's presumed influence on  Althusser, "presumably in terms of lack
>of free will and monism" -- would be to get off very badly on the wrong foot.

Perhaps not pedally challenged, but perhaps naive?  As perhaps has 
already been suggested, what if one could demonstrate that Bourdieu 
had taken a course on Leibniz, that his book collection contained 
Leibniz's oeuvre with detailed annotations in Bourdieu's own hand, 
that he was an enthusiastic channeler of Leibniz in some occult 
spiritualist frenzy? :)  And why cannot one read Bourdieu by means of 
Leibniz in the same way that one might read Joyce by means of Homer?

>Incidentally, the way in which the question was posed means that it 
>could not be
>seen as a simple request for information -- "However I have been doing some
>reading (starting from a point of almost total ignorance) and wanted to try to
>get some suggestions for further reading. I thought that not an unreasonable
>request". It wasn't as innocent as that.

I think you're correct ... to me it sounded like a student trying to 
do an impossible assignment at the last minute ....

> > The question is all the more provocative given the paragraph from Le
> > Monde that begins: "C'est surtout par rapport aux philosophes que Pierre
> > Bourdieu ... a voulu se situer."
>
>No one, I think, has maintained that Bourdieu does not have a very complicated
>relationship with philosophy. "Rapport", however, is the kind of journalistic
>simplification Bourdieu has often inveighed against.

And your point would be?  So what if Bourdieu inveighed against 
journalistic simplifications?

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