Bourdieu's Concept of Habitus as a Theoretical Substruction of the Monad

CARLOS BELVEDERE

Filadelfia

Conferencia; Annual Conference 2001. Society for Phenomenology and the Human Sciences; 2011

Society for Phenomenology and the Human Sciences

Habitus is the key concept in the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu since it is needed in the explanation of other mayor concepts such as field, capital and social space. Therefore, its critique would have global consequences for his entire sociology because, if it is not well founded, then it would remain dogmatic. In my paper I will argue that this is the case. In other words, I will show that Bourdieu?s notion of habitus remains groundless and consequently he cannot account for the monad, which is the only and concrete substratum of the habitus. Instead, he substitutes the monad for an abstract concept of habitus performing a theoretical substruction. In order to illustrate this, I will start by discussing Bourdieu?s concept of habitus. Then I will compare it with Husserl?s, establishing some main differences. Afterwards, I will draw some conclusions from it, and finally I will end by summarizing the main points of my argument.