Bourdieu On Post-Modern Biography

Here is a really interesting curt slice past times Pierre Bourdieu on the topic of biography, "L'Illusion biographique," ...

Here is a really interesting curt slice past times Pierre Bourdieu on the topic of biography, "L'Illusion biographique," that is really relevant to the prior post. (Thanks, Denis!) Here Bourdieu takes number amongst mutual sense on the subjects of the self as well as the nature of biography. Here is the commonsense agreement that he rejects: the thought of a life every bit a coherent as well as sequential story, amongst a kickoff as well as terminate as well as a logical ready of steps intervening. This thought underlies the grouping of metaphors usually used past times biographers representing life every bit a journey. Bourdieu argues that this reflects an uncritical as well as traditional agreement of history. This handling rests upon of import presuppositions -- most fundamentally, that a life constitutes a coherent whole that tin hold out understood every bit the aspect of a unified intentional agent. This supposition accounts for the words connoting logical procedure that are as well as so mutual inward biographies: "thus", "hence", "so", "therefore", as well as "always" (consistency). The supposition is that a life is intelligible. Here is a prissy passage summarizing this thought:

On est sans doute en droit de supposer que le récit autobiographique s'inspire toujours, au moins pour une part, du souci de donner sens, de rendre raison, de dégager une logique à la fois rétrospective et prospective, une consistance et une constance, en établissant des relations intelligibles, comme celle de l'effet à la crusade efficiente ou finale, entre les états successifs, ainsi constitués en étapes d'un développement nécessaire.

[One is undoubtedly justified inward thinking that the recital of an autobiography is inspired, at to the lowest degree inward part, out of a concern to give meaning, to uncover a logic at the moment, both retrospective as well as prospective, a consistency as well as constancy, establishing intelligible relations such every bit crusade as well as effect, betwixt successive states, this establishing an concern human relationship of a necessary sequence of development.]

Bourdieu thinks this agreement is untenable. He proposes a deconstruction of the self that draws upon a parallel amongst the cast of the modern new -- Faulkner or Robbe-Grillet -- inward which logical sequence is deliberately challenged. Rather than coherence as well as logical development, nosotros conduct keep discontinuity, irrationality, as well as chaotic sets of experiences. 

Produire une histoire de vie, traiter la vie comme une histoire, c'est-à-dire comme le récit cohérent d'une séquence signifiante et orientée d'événements, c'est peut-être sacrifier à une illusion rhétorique, à une représentation commune de l'existence, que toute une tradition littéraire n'a cessé et ne cesse de renforcer. 

[To create a history of a life, to process a life similar a history, that is to say, similar a coherent recital of a meaningful sequence of events, is mayhap to submit to a rhetorical illusion, a mutual representation of existence, that our literary tradition has non ceased to reinforce.]

Bourdieu wants to sympathise these issues inward analogy amongst twentieth-century doubts most the unity of the self. According to this post-modern critique, the self itself is a fiction of coherence, a rhetorical overlay on top of chaotic sense as well as actions. Kant's unity of apperception is an illusion imposed past times the narrator of the self. 

Instead Bourdieu wants to sympathise the unity of the self sociologically inward damage of the performance of a proper advert inside specific fields of social interaction. (He refers hither to Kripke as well as Ziff's ideas of stiff designators.) The proper advert serves every bit tag linking the biological private across social spaces. 

En tant qu'institution, le nom propre est arraché au temps et à l'espace, et aux variations selon les lieux et les moments : par là, il assure aux individus désignés, par delà tous les changements et toutes les fluctuations biologiques et sociales, la constance nominale, l'identité au sens d'identité à soi-même, de constantia sibi, que demande l'ordre social.

[As an institution, a proper advert is situated inward fourth dimension as well as space, as well as changes according to house as well as time: accordingly it assures the designated individuals, beyond all biological as well as social changes as well as fluctuations, the nominal constancy, identity inward the sense of identity to oneself, faithful to itself, that demand social ordering.]

What is the upshot for Bourdieu here? It seems to hold out that nosotros should discard biography every bit a fundamentally flawed intellectual undertaking, as well as nosotros should instead hold off at "non-biography" every bit a non-chronological map of social positions occupied past times the biological private designated past times the proper name. On this concern human relationship at that topographic point is the biological private as well as at that topographic point is the social individual, but at that topographic point is no personal intentional histrion mediating betwixt these. The proper name, a cypher amongst no content, replaces the self. 

Ainsi s'explique que le nom propre ne puisse pas décrire des propriétés et qu'il ne véhicule aucune data sur ce qu'il nomme :  du fait que ce qu'il désigne n'est jamais qu'une rhapsodie composite et disparate de propriétés biologiques et sociales en changement constant, toutes les descriptions seraient valables seulement dans les limites d'un stade ou d'un espace. Autrement dit, il ne peut attester l'identité de la personnalité, comme individualité socialement constituée, qu'au prix d'une formidable abstraction. 

[Thus it is that a proper names cannot push clit properties as well as conveys no data most the private named: inward fact, the designated detail is goose egg to a greater extent than than a composite as well as disparate rhapsody of biological as well as social properties inward constant change, all descriptions are valid alone inward the limits of a plain of space. In other words, it is non possible to attest to the identity of the personality, every bit a socially constituted individual, except at the procedure of formidable abstraction.]

The private is only the amount of a network graph of positions inward social spaces, amongst goose egg interior.  And thus biography needs replacing past times a linked ready of spatial locations inside the social fields inside which her or she competes. 

Is this sufficient? Not at all. It conveys an anti-mentalistic opinion most people that is every bit flawed every bit was radical behaviorism. No thing how valid the critique of native unitarianism concerning the self, it remains truthful that people are actors, they brand choices, they operate on the dry reason of mental frames, as well as they build itineraries. They human activeness intentionally as well as self consciously. We cannot dispense amongst a innovation of the self. And thus biography remained a valid exercise.

What is needed instead is a innovation of the self as well as of a biography that avoids both the primordialism of the traditional sentiment as well as the actor-less collage associated amongst the post-modern literary view. We necessitate a innovation of the self that emphasizes contingency as well as continuous evolution as well as change, that denies essentialism inward either the self or a consummate life, as well as that highlights every bit good the role that extraneous events play inward the evolution of a individual as well as a life; piece even as well as so allowing for the reality of the human individual who undergoes as well as guides his or her ain path. 

It is interesting to remember the construction of Neil Gross's "sociological" biography of Richard Rorty inward link). Gross's concern human relationship conforms to a component division of Bourdieu's moving painting here, inward that he takes cracking attention to describe Rorty's movements through his diverse fields -- philosophy, Yale, Princeton, marriage. But he also gives attending to the interior human being -- the individual named Richard who makes these diverse choices. Biography as well as personhood do non disappear later all.