David L. Swartz

The Sociology of Habit: The Perspective of Pierre Bourdieu

The work of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has stimulated new interest in habituated forms of conduct. His concept of habitus has become a leading reference in the growing sociological literature on theories of human action as practices. This article presents Bourdieus concept of habitus by calling attention to its intellectual context and identifying the features that relate to the sociology of habit. The article identifies common characteristics of action regulated by habit and offers four programmatic implications for occupational therapy interventions.

From critical sociology to public intellectual: Pierre Bourdieu & politics

By the late 1990s, Pierre Bourdieu had become the primary public intellectual of major social scientific status at the head of the anti-globalization movement that emerged in France and in other Western European countries. This article discusses how Bourdieu became a leading public intellectual, a role that seems to contrast with his early years as a professional sociologist. It explores what seemed to change in Bourdieu’s activities and outlook as sociologist and what seems to have remained constant. It identifies several institutional conditions that seemed necessary for Bourdieu to be able to play the kind of public intellectual role he did in his later years. Bourdieu’s movement from a peripheral position to a central location in the French intellectual field, the changing character of the field itself, the growing influence of the mass media in French political and cultural life, the failures of the French Socialists in power, a cultural legacy of leading critical intellectuals in France, a unifying national issue of globalization, and the political conjuncture in 1995 all intersected in ways that opened a path for Bourdieu to choose new and more frequent forms of political action. His responses to that combination of factors at different moments reveal both a striking continuity in desire to preserve the autonomy of intellectual life and a change in view and strategy on how best to do that. The article concludes with a brief evaluation of Bourdieu’s public intellectual role.

Drawing inspiration from Bourdieu’s sociology of symbolic power

Paying homage to a great sociologist comes in many forms, that of disciple on the one hand and critic on the other. Disciples carry and propagate the faith, transmitting it to new generations.Whereas some o¡er valuable insights into the practices and thoughts of the great social scientist, there can be costs to discipleship. Defense of conceptual and methodological orthodoxy can sti£e further intellectual development and lead to sectarian allegiance.

Max Weber’s Theory of Modernity: The Endless Pursuit of MeaningMax Weber’s Theory of Modernity: The Endless Pursuit of Meaning, by SymondsMichael. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2015. 208 pp.

In his famous 1917 lecture, ‘‘Science as a Vocation,’’ Max Weber argues that science is incapable of answering the fundamental questions posed by Tolstoy: ‘‘What shall we do and how shall we live?’’ These ultimate questions of life and death escape our highest expressions of rationality. Indeed, the development of rationalization epitomized by science, instrumental reason, bureaucracy, and secularization has contributed to a disenchanted modern condition of meaninglessness—at least in the West, where religion no longer provides the answers. Thus, in the eyes of many, Max Weber is a modern prophet of doom who helps lay the foundation for understanding our modern condition as one that no longer permits thinking of death and undeserved suffering (theodicy) in any meaningful way. We moderns are bereft of any strategy of seeking answers to these questions short of some return to religion— a strategy that Weber denounces as incompatible with the development of modern scientific rationality. This is a familiar line of argument to Weber scholars such as Robert Bellah, Charles Taylor, and Jürgen Habermas, who contend that meaning for moderns will need to be found beyond or against Weber’s fundamental opposition between reason and religion. In Max Weber’s Theory of Modernity: The Endless Pursuit of Meaning, however, Michael Symonds falls into a second camp of scholars, such as Steven Seidman, Lawrence Scaff, Ralph Schroeder, and Nicholas Gane, who take up Weber’s theme of meaning, even in modernity, as central in their work. Indeed, Symonds argues that Weber offers an overall and coherent theory of meaning that is insufficiently appreciated by much scholarship, including this second group of scholars. That theory, however, will have to be pieced together from Weber’s writings on religion and his two vocation essays (‘‘Science as a Vocation’’ and ‘‘Politics as a Vocation’’). The methodological contention of this book is that by looking carefully at Weber’s original texts one can discover ‘‘a surprisingly comprehensive, consistent theory of meaning and modernity’’ within Weber’s writings. In terms of a Bourdieusian intellectual field perspective, this is an ‘‘internalist’’ analysis. Symonds explicitly refuses to consider other theorists Weber may critically dialogue with, biographical considerations, or ‘‘external’’ rallying points like individual freedom and choice. Whether a secondary analysis can ever fully bracket such considerations, this reviewer doubts. But a careful and systematic reading of a selection of original texts is bound to offer some insight. A second noteworthy qualification: Symonds constructs Weber’s theory of meaning just from his texts on western religion. Weber’s broader comparative work on India and China, for example, are not included here. The starting point is really The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (PE). Two key concepts organize Weber’s sociology of meaning: paradox and brotherliness. Symonds sees paradox as a central feature of Weber’s thinking and tries to catalogue its various usages. It is Weber’s philosophical anthropology that humans have two fundamental ‘‘ideal interests’’ in seeking answers to the meaning of death and to the theodicy question of undeserved suffering. The pursuit of these ideal interests generates a series of paradoxes. The big paradox in the West is that the meaningless of modernity is the outcome of the dogged pursuit of meaning itself. Only religion can provide answers to these Tolstoyan questions; but with secularization and the increasing rationalization in the modern world, religious answers no longer work. Still, humans seek meaning within the meaninglessness of modernity. Weber sees this happening within and across each of the leading spheres of modernity: the economic, the political, the intellectual, the aesthetic, and the erotic. These spheres of modernity function as a kind of ‘‘polytheism’’ where meaning is sought in the absence of the overarching presence once held by religion. However, the meaning Reviews 221

109.95 cloth. ISBN: 9781472462862.

Pierre Bourdieu is a prominent social theorist and researcher in contemporary sociology. In this critical examination of his oeuvre David Swartz focuses on a central theme in Bourdieus work - the complex relationship between culture and power, and explains that sociology for Bourdieu is a mode of political intervention. Swartz clarifies Bourdieus difficult concepts, noting where they have been misinterpreted by critics, and where they have fallen short in resolving important analytical issues. The book also shows how Bourdieu has synthesized his theory of practices and symbolic power from Durkheim, Marx, and Weber, and how his work was influenced by Sartre, Levi-Strauss, and Althusser.

Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu.

Preface. Part I: Pathways:. 1. a Fieldwork in Philosophya . 2. Landmarks. Part II: Confrontations: . 3. From Rules to Strategies. 4. Codification. 5. The Interest of the Sociologist. 6. Reading, Readers, the Literate, Literature. 7. A Reply to Some Objections. Part III: New Directions:. 8. Social Space and Symbolic Power. 9. The Intellectual Field: A World Apart. 10. The Uses of the a Peoplea . 11. Programme for a Sociology of Sport. 12. Opinion Polls: A a Sciencea Without a Scientist. Conclusion. 13. A Lecture on the Lecture. Bibliography on the Works of Pierre Bourdieu, 1958--1988. Index.