THE GENESIS OF THE CONCEPTS OF

Habitus AND OF Field *

Pierre Bourdieu

By presenting here in a more synthetic and systematic manner,

the findings that I was able to obtain, over the years, through an
application to different universes o f the same mode o f thinking -
namely the one designated by the notion o f field - I hope to bring
together the continuing diversity of this on-going research and the
coherence which a retrospective glance can reinforce.
Unlike theoretical theory, a prophetic or programmatic
discourse which is its own end, and which stems from and lives by
confrontation with other theories, scientific theory emerges as a
program of perception and o f action which is disclosed only in the
empirical work in which it is actualized. It is a temporary construct
which takes shape for and by empirical work and which gains less
by theoretical polemics than by confrontation with new objects.
Consequently, to truly side with science means making a choice,
a rather ascetic one, to devote more time and effort to the exercise
of theoretical findings by applying them to new research projects
rather than to preparing them somehow for sale by dressing them
in the trappings o f a meta-discourse • destined less to verifying the
thought than to publicizing its importance and value or to making
its benefits immediately apparent by circulating it in the innumerable

* Translated (tom French by Channa Newman. The following text is destined

to be the Introduction o f a book in which Pierre Bourdieu presents the synthesis
o f his researches where he sets up and applies the concepts of habitus and of
fid d (mainly about literary and artistic Held but also about religious, scientific
etc...fields).
12 Pierre Bourdieu The genesis o f the concepts o f habitus and field 13

events that the jet age and the age of conferences provide for the of the unconscious, that o f Finalism and of Mechanicalism, etc...
narcissistic researcher. Opting for science also means that one runs 1 introduced this notion, on the occasion of the publication in French
the risk of appearing to be a secterian or a provincial isolationist. of two articles by Panofsky which up to that point had never been
This is especially so because the collective practice of the same modus looked at together; one on gothic architecture where the word
operandi, something which is so common in the more advanced habitus was used as an « indigenous » concept, to explain the effect
sciences, seems to strengthen this impression o f a totalitarian o f scholastic thinking in the area o f architecture, the other article
monism. 1 on the abbot Suger, where one could also make it w o rk .2 At the
To treat theory as a modus operandi which directs and time the notion o f habitus allowed me to break away from the
organizes practically scientific practice, means obviously that one structuralist paradigm without falling back into the old philosophy
has given up the somewhat fetishistic accomodativencss that o f the subject or o f consciousness, that o f classical economy and
« theoreticians » usually establish with it. That is why it never o f its homo economicus which is back these days under the new
seemed to me that it is indispensable to trace the geneology of name o f methodological individualism. By taking up the old
concepts which, no t having been born o f theoretical aristotelian notion of hexis, converted by scholasticism into habitus,
parthenogenesis, don't gain much by being resituated in relation I wished to react against structuralism and its odd philosophy o f
to previous usages and whose function above all is to designate, action which, implicit in the Levi-Straussian notion o f the
in stenographic manner, within the research procedure, a theoretical unconscious, was expressed in all clarity among Althusscrians, with
their agent reduced to the role of bearcr-TVagcr - o f the structure;
stance, a principle o f methodological choices, negative as well as
1 did this by removing Panofsky from the neo-Kancian philosophy
positive. Thus, for example, the notion o f habitus expresses first
o f « symbolic forms », in which he had remained imprisoned (even
and foremost the rejection o f a whole series o f alternatives into
if to do it meant taking a rather forced advantage o f the use, unique
which social science (and more generally, all o f anthropological
in his work, that he made there o f the notion o f habitus.)
theory) has locked itself, that of consciousness (or of subject) and
Close on this point to Chomsky who developed at the same
time and against the same adversaries, the notion o f generative
grammar, 1 wished to put forward the « creative », active, and
1 Some of the studies whose results arc presented in this book have already been inventive capacities of habitus and o f agent (which the word usually
the subject of publications, and have themselves served as a basis • over a period does not convey) but to do so by recalling that this generative power
of some twenty years • for studies on which I will draw for support in these texts is not one o f a universal mind, nature or o f human reason, as in
which aim to integrate the findings. The theoretical and methodological principles
which have guided these works were originally presented in a seminar held at the Chomsky •habitus, as the word says, is an experience and also a
Ecole normale supdrieurc between the 60’$ and the 80's and which, despite the fact possession, a capital- or in the idealist tradition of a transcendental
that it always had a limited number o f participants (notably Jcan-Claudc subject -habitus, hexis, means the incorporated and quasi-postural
Chamboredon, Christophe Charlc, Rcmi Ponton, Jean-Louis Fabiani, Pierre-Mkhct
Menger and Others) was initially conceived as a vast collective enterprise committed disposition-, but that o f an acting agent : it was a matter o f recalling
to covering the totality o f literary and artistic production o f 19th century France « the primacy o f practical reason, » of which Fichte spoke, while
(thanks especially to the elaboration o f a common card file destined to serve as the at the same time taking from idealism, as Marx suggested in the
basis for different kinds o f analyses.) The method U visible only in the results whose
production it promotes, and when it is a demanding method, its operation, which Theses on Feuerbach the « active side » of practical knowledge
requires much intelligence and inventiveness, also requires much work : it follows which the materialistic tradition, notably in the theory of
that it is difficult to put forth and to highlight theoretical principles and concepts « reflection », had yielded to it.
which have functioned practically in the form o f suggestions, indications, advices
or corrections offerred in the setting of seminars or o f work-groups • without running The first uses that 1 was able to make o f the notion o f habitus
the risk o f being unfair to all those who made these theories and concepts function probably contained more or less all o f that - but only in an implicit
and who contributed by so doing to the perfection o f these very theories. This is
especially so, since in the land o f philosophy teachers, the adoption o f an ensemble
o f thinking tools can be seen only as proof o f blind submission to a totalitarian boss 2 C f. E . Panofsky. Abbot Suger on the A bbey Church o f Saint-D enis and its
or o f the surrendering o f the self to a charismatic leader. Such a notion regarding A rt Treasures, Princeton. Princeton University Press. 1946; C o th k Architecture and
collective intellectual work is probably one o f the major causes o f the total o r partial Scholasticism , Latrobe (Pennsylvania). The Archabbey Press. 1951.
failures o f collective enterprises.
14 Pierre Bourdieu The genesis o f the concepts o f habitus and field 15

state : they were the product not o f a theoretical calculation similar to a tradition, is inspired by the conviction that the work of
to the one that 1 have just performed at the price o f a systematic conceptualizing can itself also be cumulative. What the search for
signalling of theoretical space, but of practical strategy o f scientific originality at all costs, often made easy by ignorance, and religious
habitus, a kind o f « feel » of the game which does not need to loyalty to such or such a canonical writer, which leads to ritualistic
calculate in order to find its direction and place in a reasonable repetition, have in common is that they prohibit a fair attitude
manner in space. Still, I believe that the choice of this old word toward theoretical tradition, the one which consists o f affirming
which, despite some occasional uses, has for so long been relegated as inseparable both continuity and rupture, conservation and going
to oblivion is not alien to the subsequent accomplishment o f the beyond it, and of seeking support from all available thought without
concept. Those who, intending to reduce or destroy, wish to take fear o f being accused o f imitation or o f eclecticism, in order to go
the word back to its point of origin will surely discover if they carry beyond the precursers, whose work is thus outdistanced by a new
on their research with intelligence, that its theoretical advantage use o f the instruments which they have contributed to produce.4
resided precisely in the direction o f research that it designated and The capacity to actively reproduce the best products of past thinkers
which is at the very source o f the overstepping which it made by putting into use the instruments o f production which they have
possible. It seems to me in fact that in all cases those who used the left behind, is the condition which allows access to a thought which
word habitus were inspired by a theoretical intention not far is truly productive.
removed from mine which w a s : to get out from under the Similarly the elaboration and the transmission o f effective and
philosophy o f consciousness without doing away with the agent, fertile methods of thinking have nothing to do with the flow o f
in its truth o f a practical operator o f object constructions : either « ideas » such as one normally imagines it : if I'm allowed this
as in Hegel, who in the same perspective goes back also to notions analogy, scientific works are like music which is made not merely
such as ethos, and where the notion o f hexis (the Greek equivalent for passive listening, or even playing, but rather in order to furnish
of habitus) expresses the willingness to break with Kantian dualism principles o f composition. To understand scientific works, which
and to reintroduce the lasting « dispositions » which are constitutive unlike theoretical texts, call forth practical application and not
o f the « actualized morality » (Sittlichkeid) - in oposition to the contemplation, means that one has to make the way o f thinking
abstract moralism o f pure and formal morality of duty; or else as which is expressed there function practically £ propos a different
in Husserl, where the same concept and related notions such as the object to reactivate it in a new act of production which is as inventive
one of HabituaJitat mark the effort to move out of the philosophy and as original as the initial act, and which is absolutely opposed
of consciousness by reintroducing, like Heidegger and Merleau- to the de-aciualizing commentary of the lector, a sterilizing and
Ponty who do not use the word, a relationship of ontological impotent meta-discourse; that is why, although often discredited
complicity with the world; or still, as in Mauss, who rediscovers as being the servile imitation of a disciple, or a mechanical
the corporal dimension o f hexis as behaviour, deportment, and application of an art of invention already invented, the active
where it serves to express the systematic functioning of the socialized appropriation o f a mode of scientific thought is as difficult and as
body. rare, and not only because of the effects o f knowledge that it
Diametrically opposed to the strategy which consists of an produces, as its initial elaboration. One of the numerous reasons
attempt to associate its name with a neologism, or, using the model
of the natural sciences, with an effect, even a minor one, and thereby
to make its rating rise in the Citation Index3, the treatment which 4 There again, the social sciences arc in a position that is not favorable to the
consists of taking up, in order to reactivate it, a word belonging establishment o f such a realistic rapport to theoretical heritage: the values of
originality, which are those o f the literary, artistic and philosophical fields, continue
to guide judgments; they discredit as servile or derivative the wish to acquire specific
tools o f production by subscribing to a tradition and. in so doing, joining in a collective
enterprise, they favor bluffing games with no tomorrow through which the petty
3 This strategy, which is the positivistic small change o f the traditional ambition entrepreneurs without capital aim to link their name to a manufacturer’s brand name
• one sees this in the domain of criticism where today there is no author who does
to have one's name attached to a school or to a system, and through that to a world not take on the name o f a school in • ism, -ic, or -logy.
view, has the appearance of scientific humility.
16 Pierre Bourdieu The genesis o f the concepts o f habitus and field 17

which create particular difficulties for the social sciences is the fact Tynianov 7 of Lewin or o f Elias and also, obviously, those of
that they call for bringing together a grand ambition with extreme the Structuralists, in linguistics as well as in anthropology. 9 The
humility : the humility is necessary if one wishes to master particular difficulty o f applying this universal mode o f thinking to
practically, by incorporating it as an habitus, the ensemble of the social matters stems from the fact that it requires a break with the
spread and barely formalized attainments o f the discipline (and that ordinary perception o f the social world. It is thus, that in order to
in face of the fact that the false originality of arrogance or of truly construct the notion o f field, it was necessary to go beyond
ignorance continues to be viewed with favor); the ambition is the first attempt to analyze the « intellectual field » 9 as a relatively
indispensible in order to attempt to total up in an application which autonomous universe o f specific relationships: in fact the
is truly cumulative the body o f knowledge and of know-how immediately visible relationships between the agents involved in the
gathered in and through all the acts of knowledge accomplished by intellectual life, especially the interactions among the authors or the
the corporation of the best of the forerunners and contemporaries. authors and editors, had concealed the objective relationships
The same dispositions were at the base of the use o f a concept between the positions occupied by these agents, positions which
such as field. There too the notion initially served to indicate a determine the form o f these interactions. And the first rigorous
direction of research, defined negatively, as a rejection of the elaboration of the notion came out of a reading o f the chapter, in
alternative of internal interpretation and of external explication, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, which is devoted to the sociology of
before which were placed all the sciences of cultural works, religious religion, a reading which, being permanently referred to the
sciences, art history or literary history : in these matters the intellectual Held, wasn’t at all an academic commentary : at the cost
opposition between a formalism born of the theorizing o f an art of a critique o f the interactional view o f the relationships between
which achieved a high degree of autonomy and a reductionism intent the religious agents proposed by Weber and which implied a
on directly relating artistic forms to social forms, with which, along retrospective critique o f my first elaboration o f the intellectual field,
with Lukacs and Goldmann, Marxism, despite the notion of relative I proposed a construct of the religious field as a structure o f
autonomy, tended to identify itself, hid the fact that both of these objective relationships permitting the accounting for the concrete
trends disregarded the field o f production as a social space of form o f the interactions that Max Weber described as a realist
objective relationships. It follows once again that geneological
investigation - which would lead us to authors as far removed from
one another as Trier or Kurt Lcwin - would yield infinitely less than 7 On Ihe link between the Russian formalists and Cassirer one could consult
a reference to the ancestry or to the theoretical line in which the P. Steiner, Russian Formalism, A M etapoetics, Ithaca, Cornell University Press,
use o f the word inscribed the entire undertaking : the relational 1984, pp. 101-104.
mode of thinking (rather than structuralist) which, as was shown 8 This unity o f the theoretical line is at the base o f affinities which are first
by Cassirer 5 who made it explicit, is the one shared by all modern vaguely felt, and o f encounters, most often discovered after the fact, which one must
not describe as borrowed, and which are the product o f the separate putting into
science * and is probably what unifies undertakings so different in practice o f the same schema (this will be seen further a propos the Russian formalists).
appearance as those o f the Russian formalists • and particularly Nothing is more joyful in intellectual work, than the discovery o f the same idea,
except for a difference o f form, in different authors, especially when the principle
o f that encounter is perfectly clear. One thinks o f Baudelaire : « Well, I ’m accused,
me. o f imitating Edgar Poe ! Do you know why I have translated Poe so patiently ?
Because he resembled m e. The first time 1 opened one o f his books, I saw with terror
* t . Cassirer. Substanebcgriff und F unktionsbegriff, Berlin, 1910 (R eprint: and delight, not only subjects dreamed by me. but sentences, thought by m e, arid
Darmstadt. Wissenschatliche Buchgescllschafi, 1969). written by him, twenty years before... » (C. Baudelaire, A Thfophile Thor*. 1863,
in Baudelaire critique d 'a n , Paris, Club des libraires, 1956. p. 179).
6 I had attempted to unravel, in an article written during the heyday of
structuralism, the conditions o f the application o f the relational mode of thinking 9 C f. P. Bourdieu. « Champ intclkctuel ct projet crlateur ». Les Temps
to the social sciences. This mode of thinking which has become part of natural sciences M odem es. ProbUmes du structuralism e, 246, novembre 1966, pp. 865-906. English
and which because it hasn't been thought out clearly in its principles, found itself Translation « Intellectual Field and Creative Project ». Social Science Inform ation,
slowly being distorted, oblique o r perverted, within the different forms of VIII, 2, April 1969, pp. 89-119 and in : Knowledge and C ontrol. N ew Directions
structuralism (cf. P. Bourdieu, « Structuralism and Theory o f Sociological fo r the Sociology o f Education, Michael F.D. Young cd., London. CoUier-Macmillan,
Knowledge », Social Research, XXV, 4, Winter 1968. pp. 681*706) 1971, pp. 161-188.
18 Pierre Bourdieu The genesis o f the concepts o f habitus and fid d 19

typology. 10 There remained only (he need to put to work this namely Virginia Woolf, Joyce and Faulkner: « The great exterior
thinking tool defined in this manner in order to discover, by applying turning points and blows o f fate are granted less importance; they
it to different fields, the specific properties o f each field : haute arc credited with less power o f yielding decisive information
couture, literature, philosophy, politics, etc... as well as the concerning the subject; on the other hand there is confidence that
invariablcs which a comparison o f the different universes treated in any random fragment plucked from the course o f life at any time
as « particular instances o f the possible » might reveal. Far from the totality o f its fate is contained and can be portrayed. There is
functioning as mere metaphors, guided by rhetorical intentions at greater confidence in syntheses gained through full exploitation of
persuasion, the methodical transfers o f models founded on the an everyday occurrence than in a chronologically well-ordered total
hypothesis that there exist structural and functional homologies treatment which accompanies the subject from beginning to end,
among all fields, possess an eminent heuristic virtue, the one that attempts not to omit anything externally important and emphasizes
epistemological tradition recognizes in analogy. In addition, the the great turning points o f destiny » .MOnc cannot in fact « go
patient and repeated practical applying o f the method is one of the back to the things themselves » by immersing oneself in the
possible ways (and for me the most accessible and the most specificity o f a particular case (the Impressionist revolution for
acceptable) o f « semantic ascent » (in Quine’s sense) which makes example) in order to attempt to uncover in them someting essential
it possible to bring to a higher degree o f generalization and of (the transhistorical truth o f symbolic revolutions for example) unless
formalization the theoretical principles involved in the empirical one repudiates the academic hierarchy of genres and o f objects
study of different universes and the invariable laws o f structure and which, having been banished from literature and painting since the
history o f the different fields. These, because of the particularities 19th century, is still being perpetuated in philosophical tradition,
of their function and o f their functioning (or, more simply put, as for example, in its haughty condemnation o f « historicism ».
because o f the sources o f information which concern them) yield The general theory o f fields which has thus been worked out
more or less clearly properties which are shared by all fields : thus, slowly 13 owes nothing, despite appearances, to the more or less
the field o f haute couture, probably because it is culturally less reconsidered transfer o f the economical mode o f thinking; even if
legitimate, censures less forcefully the « economic » aspects of in reinterpreting from a relational perspective Weber's analysis
practices and is less protected against objectivization, which always which applied to religion a certain number o f concepts borrowed
implies a form of dcsacralization, has introduced more directly than from economics (such as competition, monopoly, supply, demand,
any other universe, to one of the most fundamental properties of etc...) I found myself directly facing general properties valid for
all fields of cultural production, the properly magical logic of the different fields, which had been brought to light by economic theory
producer's production and of the product as fetishes. but whose true theoretical foundation was not confined by it. Rather
But the fact of asking a given case study to provide the solution than viewing the transfer as responsible for object construction -
to a canonical problem, and above all a study such as this, which such as in cases where one borrows from a preferably prestigious
is devoted to the universe of fashion, most frivolous of all, universe, ethnology, linguistics or economics, a decontcxtualizcd
presupposed a transformation of the representation of intellectual notion, a mere metaphor whose function is purely emblematic • it
work which is not unrelated to the transformation effected by those is the object construction which calls forth the transfer and
whom Erich Auerbach calls the inventors of the modern novel, establishes it : thus, in analyzing the social uses of language, the

10 C f. P. Bourdieu, « Unc interpretation dc la sociologie rcligicusc de Max.

Weber ». Archives curoptenncs de Sociologic. XII, l, 1971, pp. 3-21. Although,
here again, (he intention to reduce (he proper effect o f reading evidently accounts 11 E. Auerbach. M imesis : A Representation o f Reality in Western Literature,
for something, one can also ascribe to the ex-post evidence o f the « structuralist » trans. by Willard Trask, Doubtcday/Anchor, 1957, p. 484.
reinterpretation which 1 proposed the fact that, since the first volume of W irtschaft
und Oeseilschaft has been fmaly translated in French, one attributes routinely to 12 l have tried to isolate the general properties o f fields by taking the different
Weber himself (1 understandably do not cite references) concepts such as those of analyses, conducted in the courses that I gave at the College de France in 1983 and
1984 and which will be the object of a subsequent publication, to a higher level of
religious field or of symbolic capital and a mode o f thinking alt o f which are clearly formalization.
alien to the logic of his thought.
20 Pierre Bovrdieu The genesis o f th e concepts o f habitus and field 21

break with the vague and empty notion o f « situation » - which itself which tend to see in art a new form o f the illusion o f backward
introduced a break with the Saussurian or Chomskian model • forces worlds, science must consider the work of art in its dual necessity :
one to view the relationships o f linguistic exchange as so many first, the internal necessity of this miraculous object which seems
markets which are specified according to the structure of the to defy contingency and accident, an object, in short, which seems
relationships among the linguistic or cultural capitals o f the to necessitate itself and in the same stroke necessitate its referent :
interlocutors or o f the groups. And, as i hope to be able to second, the external necessity o f the encounter between a trajectory
demonstrate one day, everything leads to the assumption that, far and a field, between an expressive impulse and a space o f expressive
from being the founding model, economic theory must probably possibilities, which causes the work to transcend the two histories
be seen as a particular instance o f the field theory which emerges o f which it is a product, while simultaneously fulfilling (hem both.
slowly from generalization to generalization, and which, as it One never goes beyond history and the science of man can only
promotes the understanding o f the potential fecundity and the limits set as its goal the reappropriation, through an awareness, of the
of validity of transfers such as the one worked out by Weber, obliges imperative which is inscribed in history, and it must, in particular,
one to rethink the presuppositions on which economic theory is gain a theoretical mastery of the historical conditions in which
based, and to do so precisely in the light of the attainments brought transhistorical necessities may emerge. One has to be willing, for
out by the analysis of the fields o f cultural production. example, to be blinded by fetishistic illusion to succeed in forgetting
The general theory of the economy o f fields makes it possible that the solution to the problem o f « literarity », so dear to the
to describe and to define thc specific form taken by the most general Russian formalists, can only be found in the history o f the literary
mechanisms and concepts such as capital, investment, interest, field and not elsewhere : all analyses o f essence and all formal
within each field, and thus it allows one to avoid all kinds of definitions could not hide, indeed, the fact that the affirmation of
reductionism, beginning with economism, which recognizes as the specificity of the « literary » or o f the « pictorial » and o f the
valuable only material interest and the quest for the maximizing of impossibility to reduce it to any other form of expression, is
monetary profit. To understand the social genesis of a field and inseparable from the affirmation o f the autonomy o f the field of
to grasp what constitutes the specific necessity o f the belief that production which it simultaneously presupposes and reinforces. The
supports it, o f the language game which operates in it and o f the movement o f the literary field or o f the artistic field towards
material and symbolic stakes which are engendered in it, is to autonomy can be understood as a process o f refinement through
account for, to necessitate to wrest the producers' actions and the which each genre is directed towards that which distinguishes and
works they produce from the absurdity of arbitrariness and o f defines it properly, even above and beyond the socially known and
motivclcssness, rather than, as one ordinarily believes, to reduce recognized exterior signs o f its identity. The Formalists, especially
or to destroy. It is no doubt tempting, as Wittgenstein notes in the Jakobson, who is familiar with phenomenology, have merely taken
Lessons on Ethics to abandon oneself to the pleasures o f up again (in a more methodical and consequential manner) the old
« destroying prejudices » and « certain types o f explication are questions posed by critics o f the academic tradition on the nature
irresistibly attractive (...), particularly an analysis o f the type : ’this o f genres, theatre, novel or poetry; and, in doing so, they have
is only that' » ; nevetheless in order to combat all sorts o f escapisms become guilty, along with the entire tradition o f thought concerned
with « pure poetry » or « theatricality », o f constituting as
transhistorical essence that which in reality is no more than a kind
o f historical quintessence, (hat is to say, the product o f slow and
13 The analysis (now in progress) o f an economic universe such as the field of prolonged working o f historical alchemy which accompanies the
housing development, uncovers a number of features already observed in fields such process o f the autonomization o f the fields of cultural production.
as haute couture or even painting and literature : for example the role of investments
destined to produce confidence in the inseparable economic and symbolic values of
Indeed, from refinement to refinement the struggles, for which the
a product or the fact that in this domain as elsewhere, business strategies depend field of poetic production is the locus, have led slowly to the isolation
on their position in the field of production, that is to say in the structure of the of the essential principle of the poetic effect, that is to say the
distribution o f the specific capital (in which one must include the « reputation »
of the brand name).
essential o f that which separates poetry from prose. By making the
22 Pierre Bourdieu The genesis o f th e concepts o f habitus and Held 23

secondary traits such as rhyme and rhythm, for example, disappear through the intermediary of authors whose strategies also owe their
along with free verse, they have left only a sort of highly form, their logic and their content to their relative position in the
concentrated extract (as in Francis Pongc, for instance) o f the structure o f the intellectual f i e l d . T h e researcher who seeks the
properties which are best suited to the production o f the poetic effect principle o f the existence of the work, what it has that is historic
o f debanalization of words and things, the osirancnic of the Russian or transhistoric - « the eternal charm of Greek art » - within the
formalists, and that without resorting to the techniques which arc interests linked to the belonging to a field o f cultural production,
socially designated as « poetic ». Each time one o f these relatively and, more broadly, to the social field in its totality, treats the work
autonomous universes is established, artistic field, scientific field as an intentional sign associated with and regulated by some other
or one or another of their specifications, the historical process which thing, o f which it is also a symptom. The researcher looks for the
is set up in it, plays the same role o f abstractor o f quintessence. objective intention which is hidden beneath the declared intention.
So much so. that the analysis o f the history of the field is. in itself, He supposes that a profound meaning, an expressive impulse,
the only legitimate form of the analysis o f essence.14 biological or social, is enunciated in it, a meaning which the alchemy
But, one may say, what is gained, other than the slightly of the setting into*form imposed by the social necessity o f the Held
perverse pleasure o f disenchantment, by this historical reduction tends to disguise, especially by forcing the impulse to deny itself
o f what strives to be an absolute experience, alien to the and to universalize itself. In constrast to the angelic pure interest
contingencies o f a historical genesis ? There is a history o f reason for pure form, the analysis which apprehends in one and the same
which does not have reason as principle; a history o f truth, of motion the expressive impulse, the censure and the sublimation
beauty, o f good, which docs not have as its sole motive the search assured by the working into-form, offers a realistic view, that is
for truth, beauty or virtue. The relative autonomy o f the artistic to say, a truer and at the same time definitively a more reassuring
field as a space o f objective relationships by reference to which the view o f the collective work o f sublimation which is at the base of
relationship between each agent and its own work, past or present, the greatest triumphs o f human enterprise : history cannot produce
is objectively defined, is what confers upon the history of art its
relative autonomy, and consequently, its original logic. In order to
account for the fact that a n seems to find within itself the principle
and the norm of its evolution, (as if the history were internal to
the system and as if the becoming of forms of representations or 15 The reststence to scientific analysis has infinite resources, as one secs in this
o f expressions only expressed the internal logic of the system), it presentation of my analyses : « Bourdieu on the other hand (contrary to Adorno)
is not necessary to hypostasize as it has often been done, the laws defends a functional approach. He analyses the actions of subjects in what he calls
the ’cultural field' by taking into account the chances to gain power and prestige
of this evolution; if there exists a history which is properly artistic, exclusively and considers objects sim ply as strategic means which are used by
it means, among other things, that the artists and their products producers in their struggle for power. » (P. Burger. On the Literary history. Poetics,
are objectively situated, if only because they belong to the artistic voi. 14. n 3/4, August 1985. pp. 199*207; underlined by me). A very common strategy
which consists of accusing of reductionism a theory one has previously reduced, Peter
field, in relation to other artists and their products and that even Burger substitutes strategies which are exclusively and expticily guided by a kind
the most properly esthetic breaks with artistic tradition always owe o f generic will of power which could be exercised in the political field as well as
something to the relative position within the field of those who in the economic field, to practical and overdetermined strategies which are not
necessarily conscious and calculated and which express the intertwined social and
uphold it and those who try to break it.« The action of works upon esthetic interests associated with a position in the field. He thus eliminates the
works, » of which Bruncti6re spoke, is never exercised except specificity o f the esthetic struggles and of the interests which are involved in them,
in short he makes disappear the very thing that the notion of field aimed to reveal;
in reality, the struggles which occur within the intellectual field have as a stake
symbolic power, that is to say. the power over a particular use o f a particular category
o f signs and, through that, on the vision and the meaning o f the natural and social
14 ll is thus that the analysis o f the pure esthetic disposition which is called world. This is too great of an oversight concerning a point which is too obvious
forth by the most advanced forms o f art is inseparable from the analysis o f the process to be considered as disinterested; it is therefore, a strategic oversight (strategic in
o f autonomizatkm o f (he field o f production. And similarity, epistemology cannot the sense that I understand the word), that is, one guided, in all innocence, as are
be separated, neither in fact nor by right, from the social history o f science. all forms o f rejection o f knowledge, by the interests attached to a particular position.
24 Pierre Bourdieu

he transhistorical universality except by producing, by means of

often ruthless struggles of special interests, social universes which,
through the effect o f the social alchemy of their historical laws of
functioning, tend to extract from the confrontation o f the special
interests the sublimated essence of the universal. Hagiographic
exaltation and reductive disparagement share the tendency to seek
the source of great works in great mean; and to overlook everything,
in the most sublime practices and productions, which depends on
the logic of these paradoxical universes where, among other reasons
because they can reap profit from proving unselfishness certain men
can find an incentive to surpass themselves or, at least, to produce
actions or works which go beyond their intentions and their interests.