ABSTRACT
Bongaerts postulates that the similarities and complementarities of Berger and Luckmann’s The Social Construction of Reality and Bourdieu’s theory of practice are apparent only at the surface of these approaches. He argues that the theory of practice is incompatible with social constructivism due to the different theoretical architectures and theoretical attitudes of the two approaches: The theoretical core of social constructivism is the tradition of phenomenology reflecting the structure of a lifeworld within a regional ontology. As protosociology, it represent a philosophy of consciousness-driven theory. By contrast, theory of practice is a problem-driven approach. From Bongaerts’ point of view, there is no way to overcome the differences between a theory that is based on an ahistorical, regional ontology of actors and a theory that is problem-driven and historical at the core of its concepts. Nevertheless, Bongaerts identifies certain similarities: Both theories combine subjectivism and objectivism, ending up with a concept of nonconsciousness. However, following Bongaerts, social constructivism offers a subjectivistic explanation of objectivism, whereas theory of practice sees socialized actors as incapable of acting against specific dispositions. Moreover, theory of practice tries to make the way habitus works in the social world, whereas social constructivism aims to explain how habitus is produced. Despite these differences, Bongaerts sees potential for cross-fertilization. With regard to social constructivism, theory of practice shows that tacit knowledge plays a key role in reproducing social order. In turn, theory of practice can learn to understand what influence social actors have in order to typify situational and objectified knowledge.
