Date: Wed, 3 May 2000 08:39:54 +0200
From: Jeremias Blaser <Jeremias.Blaser-AT-iepi.unil.ch>
Subject: Re: HAB: reflexive theory


>
What's Bourdieu's sense of reflexive?

I' am sorry for that, I thought this guy was familiar to everybody so 
please forgive me if this wasn't the case.
To put it shortly Bourdieu speaks about reflexivity as an 
epistemological attitude which especially sociologists should 
develop. Basically he means that one important source of error in 
social science is an uncontrolled relationship between the researcher 
and his object which implies that the researcher tends to project 
this uncontrolled relation in his researchobject. Bourdieu's purpose 
to avoid this type of spontaneaous analysis is a reflexivity in 
social science which consist in analysing it's own position in the 
field of scientific production while analysing objects like 
"education politics", "language" "social mouvement" etc. etc. This 
practice should lead first to a better understanding of what we are 
doing socially when we practice social sciences;  second this 
reflexivity should contribute to a social theory which is aware and 
capable to handle the epistemocentrism of research.

I was wondering if Habermas has made similar reflections concerning 
this issue especially because Bourdieu's purposes come out of his 
empirical research and practice, while Habermas hasn't really done 
empirical research.

If anybody has any comment, please go ahead

regards

Jeremias

P.S. hope my english is understandable

Jeremias Blaser
IEPI
BFSH 2
Université de Lausanne
1015 Dorigny (VD)
Switzerland
Tel. 0041 21 692 31 36
Fax. 0041 21 692 31 45


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