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Document Details : Title: Second Nature, Habitus, and the Ethical Subtitle: Remarks on Wittgenstein and Bourdieu Author(s): LOVIBOND, Sabina Journal: Ethical Perspectives Volume: 22 Issue: 1 Date: 2015 Pages: 131-149 DOI: 10.2143/EP.22.1.3073460 Abstract : The present contribution offers a comparative discussion of Wittgenstein and Bourdieu on the themes of ‘second nature’ and habitus. It seeks to distinguish something in Bourdieu that I applaud, namely the project of using sociological enquiry to facilitate social critique, from certain (to my mind, hyperbolical) views he holds about the bodily as distinct from mental nature of some of his key theoretical categories. An idea which we can readily agree to be essential to both thinkers is that of the grounding of rule-governed, socially informed activity of all kinds in our ‘natural history’ or in the life of the body. But does this grounding make it right to postulate a special kind of belief or knowledge that belongs to practice, and an associated ‘logic of practice’, as in the title of one of Bourdieu’s books? Or with regard to Wittgenstein, does it mean that we must learn from him to recognize a level of normativity below the level at which we operate when we describe an aspect of someone’s behaviour as an instance of using this or that concept, or as engaging in this or that type of intentional action? These questions are answered in the negative by writers such as John McDowell and Joseph Margolis, whom I use for orientation here. On the other hand, there seems to be much in Bourdieu’s thinking about habitus that can be detached from the dubious philosophy of mind – the ‘hyperbolical antischolasticism’ – and placed in the service of a more familiar variety of social commentary. This will be a style of commentary whose aim is to enhance our powers of resistance to the various specific deterministic processes disclosed by empirical study. |
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