That resonates with my understanding of Umwelt/Lebenswelt, Andy. It is
not something you acquire, it is something you construct or become. It
is both individual and distributed. One's Lebenswelt is that to which
one is connected, which includes other people.
The difference, it seems to me, is that Umwelt/Lebenswelt includes
species characteristics as well as the habits, taste and preferences
appropriated from multiple transactions. There are, therefore, an
indefinitely large number of possibilities for U/L, an inconceivable
globality, to quote Eco. Similarities arise when people share biological
and cultural transactions.
Don Cunningham
Indiana University
_____
From: Andy Blunden [mailto:ablunden@mira.net]
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2004 6:02 PM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: RE: another view of Panofsky: what is "habitus"?
It sounds like a similar idea, but for Bourdieu it is very much a "life
world" constructed by a class fraction, not an individual, who may
"acquire" a habitus.
Any
At 05:42 PM 2/06/2004 -0500, you wrote:
A number of folks in semiotics also employ Jacob von Uexulls concept of
Umwelt, defined as something like ones personal world or world as lived.
The Umwelt of a dog is different from the Umwelt of a bird even though
both live in the same environment. Closer still is probably the
Lebenswelt, or human Umwelt, because it includes the cultural
constructions made possible, in large part, by language and other
semiotic systems.
-----Original Message-----
From: IRAJ IMAM [mailto:iimam@cal-research.org]
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2004 4:39 PM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: RE: another view of Panofsky: what is "habitus"?
Steve asked: I am struggling with the concept of "habitus."
I do not know much about it either. But I found this link comparing
Bourdieu's 'habitus' with Peirce's 'habit.'
http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/gsandss/slavic/papers/habitus.html
"Peirce defines 'habit' through linking the concepts of 'habit' and
'belief'. This is made explicit through Peirce's statement that "belief
is
of the nature of a habit" 3. What Peirce means by this is that our
beliefs
are based on the "habit[s] of mind" we adopt 4. Peirce points out that
we do
not require proof, in any rigorous, philosophical sense, that our
beliefs
are true. Instead, we are content to base our beliefs on our habits of
mind,
provided these habits yield beliefs which we think are true 5"
"Bourdieu defines the 'habitus' in terms of structures, such as
cognitive
and motivating principles and procedures to follow 6, which are
internalised
by the subject 7 and which then come to generate and organise social
practices and representations 8. The subject's habitual patterns of
thought
are determined by the 'habitus'. As on Peirce's model, these habitual
patterns of thought cannot claim the status of 'objective truths'. The
habitus is constituted through the past experiences, both individual and
collective, of subjects within the world. Therefore, the habitual modes
of
thought licensed by the habitus are based upon experiences of social
practices and not upon an inquiry into what is true. Yet, it is these
modes
of thought which give rise to belief."
"Peirce's model entails that habits of thought are based on some sort of
consensual reality and not upon truth in an objective sense. Similarly,
there is no fixed point or ground in Bourdieu's model. Habits of thought
and
action are determined by the habitus. However, the habitus is formed
through
nothing other than structures arising out of "the arbitrariness of a
culture" 15. The habitus resembles an infinite series of contexts which
are
embedded in one another but are not anchored to any fixed point or
absolute.
In this way, the 'habitus' is similar to Foucault's model of discursive
structures and disciplinary knowledges. Yet, although both Peirce and
Bourdieu's models are ungrounded, neither entirely abandons reference to
an
external reality. Peirce defends the notion that there is "some external
permanency - something upon which our thinking has no effect" 16 and
Bourdieu's concept of 'the field' entails that human beings interact
with
objective structures in the external world."
iraj imam
The Center for Applied Local Research
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