Wittgenstein and the ontology of the social: some Kripkean reflections on Bourdieu's `Theory of Practice'

With the proposal of a ‘Theory of Practice’, Pierre Bourdieu sought to develop a new ontological account of the social world that transcends the most important conceptual oppositions that have burdened traditional social science. ¹ Chief among these is the opposition between ‘objectivism’ and ‘subjectivism’. ² On Bourdieu’s view, all of traditional social science falls under the scope of one of these two competing theoretical paradigms, or ‘modes of knowledge’ (Bourdieu 1973, p. 53). ³ These perspectives differ in their respective conceptions of human action and social order. According to subjectivist theories, all of our actions are the result of our conscious mental states. On this view, social order is explained exclusively in terms of our individual and collective intentions and beliefs. By contrast, according to objectivist theories, our mental states and actions are nothing else but a set of non-intentional mechanisms and phenomena. Social order is thus rendered as the mechanical resultant of specific structures, laws and systems of relations. ⁴