ABSTRACT
In this chapter, Nick Crossley presents a sociological reflection upon the breaking of habits and its consequences. The concept of habit needs to be extended and developed if it is to be properly ‘sociological’, in Crossley’s view, and sociology has most to offer to the debate opened up in this book if habit is understood in this extended way. Habits, as typically understood, hinge upon the relationship between individuals and a material environment, which, though it may obstruct their pursuit of their goals, is not usually considered to have its own goals. Habits, as such, are self-contained properties of particular individuals. I have my habits. While this is true of some social habits or some aspects of social habits, the social world is intersubjective and constituted by way of interaction between conscious, purposive beings. Each party has their goals and their respective lines of action must be coordinated, such that what becomes habitual are ‘agreements’ between them, that is, ‘norms’ and/or ‘conventions’, which, qua agreements, are irreducible to any one of them; existing, rather, in the inter-world between them.
