Editing Pierre Bourdieu (section)

== Objective (field) and subjective (habitus) ==
For Bourdieu, ''habitus'' was essential in resolving a prominent [[antinomy]] of the human sciences: [[Moral universalism|objectivism]] and [[subjectivism]].

As mentioned above, Bourdieu used the [[Methodology|methodological]] and theoretical concepts of habitus and field in order to make an [[epistemological rupture|epistemological break]] with the prominent objective-subjective antinomy of the social sciences. He wanted to effectively unite social [[phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenology]] and [[structuralism]]. Habitus and field are proposed to do so.

The individual agent develops these dispositions in response to the objective conditions it encounters. In this way, Bourdieu theorizes the inculcation of objective social structures into the subjective, mental experience of agents. For the objective social field places requirements on its participants for membership, so to speak, within the field. Having thereby absorbed objective social structure into a personal set of cognitive and somatic dispositions, and the subjective structures of action of the agent then being commensurate with the objective structures and extant exigencies of the social field, a ''[[Doxa|doxic]]'' relationship emerges.

===Habitus and doxa===
''[[Doxa]]'' refers to the learned, fundamental, deep-founded, unconscious beliefs, and values, taken as [[Self-evidence|self-evident]] [[Universal (metaphysics)|universals]], that inform an agent's actions and thoughts within a particular field. ''Doxa'' tends to favor the particular social arrangement of the field, thus privileging the dominant and taking their position of dominance as self-evident and universally favorable. Therefore, the categories of understanding and perception that constitute a habitus, being congruous with the objective organization of the field, tend to reproduce the very structures of the field. A doxic situation may be thought of as a situation characterized by a harmony between the objective, external structures and the 'subjective', internal structures of the habitus. In the doxic state, the social world is perceived as natural, taken-for-granted and even commonsensical.

Bourdieu thus sees habitus as an important factor contributing to [[social reproduction]], because it is central to generating and regulating the practices that make up social life. Individuals learn to want what conditions make possible for them, and not to aspire to what is not available to them. The conditions in which the individual lives generate [[Natural desire|dispositions compatible]] with these conditions (including tastes in art, literature, food, and music), and in a sense pre-adapted to their demands. The most improbable practices are therefore excluded, as unthinkable, by a kind of immediate submission to order that inclines agents to make a virtue of necessity, that is, to refuse what is categorically denied and to will the inevitable.<ref>Bourdieu, Pierre. 1990. "Structures, Habitus, Practices." Pp. 52–79 in ''The Logic of Practice''. Stanford, CA: [[Stanford University Press]].</ref>{{Rp|54}}

===Reconciling the objective (field) and the subjective (habitus)===
Amongst any society of individuals, the constant performance of dispositions, trivial and grand, forms an observable range of preferences and allegiances, points and vectors. This spatial metaphor can be analysed by sociologists and realised in [[Diagram|diagrammatic form]].<ref group="lower-roman">As when Bourdieu plots "the space of the faculties" in French higher education, in {{cite book|last=Bourdieu|first=Pierre|title=Homo Academicus|publisher=Polity|year=1988|isbn=978-0-7456-0831-0|location=Cambridge, UK|page=50}}</ref> Ultimately, conceptualising social relations this way gives rise to an image of society as a web of interrelated spaces. These are the '''social fields'''.

For Bourdieu, habitus and field can only exist in relation to each other. Although a field is constituted by the various social agents participating in it (and thus their habitus), a habitus, in effect, represents the transposition of objective structures of the field into the subjective structures of action and thought of the agent.

The relationship between habitus and field is twofold. First, the field exists only insofar as social agents possess the dispositions and set of perceptual schemata that are necessary to constitute that field and imbue it with meaning. Concomitantly, by participating in the field, agents incorporate into their habitus the proper know-how that will allow them to constitute the field. Habitus manifests the structures of the field, and the field mediates between habitus and practice.

Bourdieu attempts to use the concepts of habitus and field to remove the division between the subjective and the objective. Bourdieu asserts that any research must be composed of two "minutes," wherein the first minute is an objective stage of research—where one looks at the relations of the social space and the structures of the field; while the second minute must be a subjective analysis of social agents' dispositions to act and their categories of perception and understanding that result from their inhabiting the field. Proper research, Bourdieu argues, thus cannot do without these two together.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C-o4DwAAQBAJ&q=bourdieu+two+minutes&pg=PA403|title=The Science of Qualitative Research|last=Packer|first=Martin J.|date=16 November 2017|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9781108417129}}</ref>

=== Science and objectivity ===
Bourdieu contended there is transcendental objectivity, {{Definition needed|date=September 2020}} only when certain necessary historical conditions are met. The scientific field is precisely that field in which objectivity may be acquired. Bourdieu's ideal scientific field is one that grants its participants an interest or investment in objectivity. Further, this ideal scientific field is one in which the field's degree of autonomy advances and, in a corresponding process, its "entrance fee" becomes increasingly strict. The scientific field entails rigorous intersubjective scrutinizing of theory and data.<ref group="lower-roman">Bourdieu 2004/2002, p. 47–8: "The work of departicularization, universalization, that goes on in the [scientific] field, through the regulated confrontation of the competitors most inclined and most able to expose... any judgement aspiring to validation and, through this, to universal validity, is the reason why the truth recognized by the scientific field is irreducible to its historical and social conditions of production".</ref><ref name=":2">Bourdieu, Pierre. 2004 [2003]. ''[[Science of Science and Reflexivity]].'' Cambridge, UK: [[Polity (publisher)|Polity]].</ref> This should make it difficult for those within the field to bring in, for example, political influence.

However, the autonomy of the scientific field cannot be taken for granted. An important part of Bourdieu's theory is that the historical development of a scientific field, sufficiently autonomous to be described as such and to produce objective work, is an achievement that requires continual reproduction.<ref group="lower-roman">Bourdieu 2004/2002, p. 47: "Autonomy is not a given, but a historical conquest, endlessly having to be undertaken anew".</ref><ref name=":2" /> Having been achieved, it cannot be assumed to be secure. Bourdieu does not discount the possibility that the scientific field may lose its autonomy and therefore deteriorate, losing its defining characteristic as a producer of objective work. In this way, the conditions of possibility for the production of transcendental objectivity could arise and then disappear.<ref group="lower-roman">See, in particular: Bourdieu, Pierre. 1996. "For a Corporatism of the Universal." Pp. 331–37 in ''The Rules of Art'' Polity.</ref>

===Reflexivity===
Bourdieu insists on the importance of a ''[[Reflexivity (social theory)|reflexive sociology]]'' in which sociologists must at all times conduct their research with conscious attention to the effects of their own position, their own set of internalized structures, and how these are likely to distort or prejudice their objectivity. The sociologist, according to Bourdieu, must engage in a "sociology of sociology" so as not to unwittingly attribute to the object of observation the characteristics of the subject. They ought to conduct their research with one eye continually reflecting back upon their own habitus, their dispositions learned through long social and institutional training.

It is only by maintaining such a continual vigilance that the sociologists can spot themselves in the act of importing their own biases into their work. Reflexivity is, therefore, a kind of additional stage in the scientific epistemology. It is not enough for the scientist to go through the usual stages (research, hypothesis, falsification, experiment, repetition, peer review, etc.); Bourdieu recommends also that the scientist purge their work of the prejudices likely to derive from their social position. In a good illustration of the process, Bourdieu chastises academics (including himself) for judging their students' work against a rigidly scholastic linguistic register, favouring students whose writing appears 'polished', marking down those guilty of 'vulgarity'.<ref>Bourdieu, Pierre, and [[Jean-Claude Passeron]]. 1979 [1964]. ''The Inheritors: French Students and Their Relations to Culture.'' Chicago: [[University of Chicago Press]]. pp. 20–4.<br /></ref><ref name=":3">Bourdieu, Pierre, Monique De Saint Martin, and [[Jean-Claude Passeron]]. 1994. ''Academic Discourse: Linguistic Misunderstanding and Professorial Power''. Cambridge, UK: [[Polity (publisher)|Polity]]. pp. 8–10.</ref><ref>Bourdieu, Pierre. 1988 [1984]. ''Homo Academicus''. Cambridge, UK: [[Polity (publisher)|Polity]]. {{ISBN|978-0-7456-0831-0}}. pp. 194–225.</ref> Without a reflexive analysis of the snobbery being deployed under the cover of those subjective terms, the academic will unconsciously reproduce a degree of class prejudice, promoting the student with high linguistic capital and holding back the student who lacks it—not because of the objective quality of the work but simply because of the register in which it is written. Reflexivity should enable the academic to be conscious of their prejudices, e.g. for apparently sophisticated writing, and impel them to take steps to correct for this bias.

Bourdieu also describes how the "scholastic point of view"<ref>Bourdieu, Pierre. 2000 [1998]. ''Practical Reason: On the Theory of Action''. Stanford, CA: [[Stanford University Press]]. pp. 127–40.</ref><ref name=":4">Bourdieu, Pierre. 2000. ''Pascalian Meditations''. Cambridge, UK: [[Polity (publisher)|Polity]]. pp. 49–84.</ref> unconsciously alters how scientists approach their objects of study. Because of the systematicity of their training and their mode of analysis, they tend to exaggerate the systematicity of the things they study. This inclines them to see agents following clear rules where in fact they use less determinate strategies; it makes it hard to theorise the 'fuzzy' logic of the social world, its practical and therefore mutable nature, poorly described by words like 'system', 'structure' and 'logic' which imply mechanisms, rigidity and omnipresence. The scholar can too easily find themselves mistaking "the things of logic for the logic of things"—a phrase of Marx's which Bourdieu is fond of quoting.<ref group="lower-roman">For example: Bourdieu, Pierre. 1990 [1987]. ''In Other Words: Essays Toward a Reflective Sociology''. Stanford: [[Stanford University Press]]. p. 61.</ref> Again, reflexivity is recommended as the key to discovering and correcting for such errors which would otherwise remain unseen, mistakes produced by an over-application of the virtues that produced also the truths within which the errors are embedded.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|68–70}}