ABSTRACT
The habitus is both the generative principle of objectively classifiable judgements and the system of classification (principium divisionis) of these practices. It is in the relationship between the two capacities which define the habitus, the capacity to produce classifiable practices and works, and the capacity to differentiate and appreciate these practices and products (taste), that the represented social world. The habitus is necessity internalized and converted into a disposition that generates meaningful practices and meaning-giving perceptions. The habitus continuously generates practical metaphors, that is to say, transfers or, more precisely, systematic transpositions required by the particular conditions in which the habitus is "put into practice". The spaces defined by preferences in food, clothing or cosmetics are organized according to the same fundamental structure, that of the social space determined by volume and composition of capital.
