Subject: Re: Quest. Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 12:47:58 -0400 <html><DIV> <P>In my view, email lists like this are supposed to be a way of generating informal and free information sharing. There's plenty of space for conference papers and journals where one can be taken to task for one's position. That said, Mr. Beesley's post creates a straw man, then vigorously demolishes it. Should the initial question precipitating this discussion be taken hyper-literally? Certainly, Bourdieu has touched on many philosophical issues in his work. At the same time, the social sciences have had an impact on philosophical topics. I mentioned epistemology as one example (one could cite the application of psychology to ethics, for instance). I never stated that naturalized epistemology is dominant in epistemology today. Instead, I was attempting to point out one way in which scientific and social scientific thought has influenced philosophy. Perhaps philosophy should distance itself from these concerns. I wasn't addressing that point. <BR><BR></P></DIV> <DIV></DIV> <DIV></DIV>>From: Simon Beesley <SIMONB-AT-BEESLEYS.FREESERVE.CO.UK> <DIV></DIV>>Reply-To: bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu <DIV></DIV>>To: bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu <DIV></DIV>>Subject: Re: Quest. <DIV></DIV>>Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 15:34:46 +0100 <DIV></DIV>> <DIV></DIV>>I see the question that started this thread was: <DIV></DIV>> <DIV></DIV>>"What is Bourdieu's most significant contribution to philosophy?" <DIV></DIV>> <DIV></DIV>>This is a distinctly tricky or double-edged question, which I can only understand as <DIV></DIV>>prompted either by naivety or disingenuousness. Naive because it seems to suggest that <DIV></DIV>>Bourdieu should have made a contribution to philosophy. (Does the questioner think <DIV></DIV>>Bourdieu is not a sociologist but a philosopher?) Disingenuous because it ignores a number <DIV></DIV>>of large and glaring facts about Bourdieu's position. It ignores the great deal of space <DIV></DIV>>Bourdieu has devoted to explicitly discussing his relation to philosophy. (Doesn't the <DIV></DIV>>questioner know that Bourdieu turned to sociology after being trained in philosophy?) It <DIV></DIV>>would be presumptious to try to say anything more specific about Bourdieu's relation to <DIV></DIV>>philosophy -- precisely because he has dealt with this question at such great length and, <DIV></DIV>>to my mind, so very effectively -- but I think it wouldn't be altogether wrong to say <DIV></DIV>>Bourdieu's primary concern has been to deny or resist philosophical efforts to encroach on <DIV></DIV>>sociological thought (or to defend the autonomy of the sociological field). In fact, there <DIV></DIV>>is scarcely a single work by Bourdieu which doesn't at some point deal with this theme. <DIV></DIV>>What else is the discussion of the scholastic fallacy about -- if not the status of <DIV></DIV>>philosophy and the philosophical illusion of being ahistorical, of being outside the <DIV></DIV>>historicity of reason? <DIV></DIV>> <DIV></DIV>>But why raise these questions here when, as I say, the man himself has addressed them with <DIV></DIV>>very considerable authority and cogency? Here's just one very pertinent quote from the <DIV></DIV>>Reflexive Sociology book (p. 158): <DIV></DIV>> <DIV></DIV>>" ... I believe that, given, the development of the social sciences, it becomes more and <DIV></DIV>>more untenable to deprive yourself of the achievements and techniques of these sciences -- <DIV></DIV>>although this does not seem to bother most philosophers. I think that I was very lucky to <DIV></DIV>>escape the illusion of the "the white page and the pen". It suffices for me to read a cert <DIV></DIV>>ain recent treatise in political philosophy to imagine what I could have said if my sole <DIV></DIV>>intellectual equipment had been my philosophical training. Which I nonetheless think is <DIV></DIV>>absolutely crucial. Hardly a day goes by when I do not read or reread philosophical words, <DIV></DIV>>and especially British and Continental and German I must admit. I am constantly at work <DIV></DIV>>with philosophers and putting them to work. But the difference, for me, is that <DIV></DIV>>philosophical skills -- this may be a bit desacralizing -- are on exactly the same level <DIV></DIV>>as mathematical techniques: I do not see an ontological difference between a concept of <DIV></DIV>>Kant or Plato and a factorial analysis." <DIV></DIV>> <DIV></DIV>>This also has a bearing on the peculiar idea of "naturalizing epistemology" -- the <DIV></DIV>>brainchild of the behaviourist philosopher-logician W.V. Quine -- which some people see as <DIV></DIV>>yet another attempt by philosophy to encroach on the domain of the sciences. Here's what <DIV></DIV>>Chomsky has to say about it (from his monograph Language and Thought): <DIV></DIV>> <DIV></DIV>>"This "epistemic naturalist" has reappeared in the modern period in several forms <DIV></DIV>>including W.V. Quine's influential "naturalized epistemology", which represents a sharp <DIV></DIV>>and unwarranted departure from the natural sciences." <DIV></DIV>> <DIV></DIV>>I quote this not as an argument from authority but just to show that Tom McInery's post <DIV></DIV>>was quite unjustified in presenting naturalized epistemology as if it were an accepted <DIV></DIV>>idea or even the dominant established idea in contemporary philosophy. <DIV></DIV>> <DIV></DIV>>Regards <DIV></DIV>>Simon <DIV></DIV>> <DIV></DIV>> <DIV></DIV>> <DIV></DIV>> <DIV></DIV>> <DIV></DIV>> <DIV></DIV>> <DIV></DIV>> <DIV></DIV>>********************************************************************** <DIV></DIV>>Contributions: bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu <DIV></DIV>>Commands: majordomo-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu <DIV></DIV>>Requests: bourdieu-approval-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu <DIV></DIV><br clear=all><hr>Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at <a href="http://explorer.msn.com">http://explorer.msn.com</a><br></p></html> ********************************************************************** Contributions: bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu Commands: majordomo-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu Requests: bourdieu-approval-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
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