ABSTRACT
One of the main characteristics of habits is that we are usually unaware of them in a twofold way. Firstly, habits are manifested in our actions, but they are themselves not an object of our direct observation. Secondly, habits enable us to act fluently without us paying attention to the habits themselves. In both respects, habits mostly become thematic when something does not run as usual. Habits, therefore, typically become a subject of our interest by the experience of breaks. Broken habits make habits visible as habits. Pointing out the epistemic relevance of disruptions for a reflexive approach to habitual forms of life remains quite abstract as long as the types of breakdowns that habitual life forms might undergo are not analyzed in their specificity. This introduction sheds light on possible breaking points where disruptions are of epistemic importance to the agents acting out of habit. Because of our shared habitual life forms, the different analyses of the relation between agency, self-understanding, and broken habits presented in this volume come together in testifying to the epistemic relevance of the experienced alienation at stake when the intertwined social and personal home-worlds tied to language, place, technology, and embodiment are shattered.
