Bourdieu has now become the hegemon in the field of social theory. Everybody knows the concepts of field, habitus, practice and symbolic violence by now. The common language even allows for discussion among colleagues and among disciplines. Commentaries on Bourdieu’s critical sociology usually focus on the concept of habitus, but as everything else in his work, it is overdetermined by the field. The notion of field can be disclosed as a form of generative structuralism that is quite akin to critical realism. In this webinar, I will analyze the more epistemological parts of his work, show the influence of Cassirer and Bachelard with the intent to reclaim Bourdieu for critical realism.
