Bourdieu’s Theory and the Social Constructivism of Berger and Luckmann

Abstract

The paper compares Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological approach with the one developed by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann. The aim of the paper is to identify the complementarities and incongruences of these approaches. The main similarity consists in the intention to “dialectically” overcome/bridge the gap between “objectivism” and “subjectivism” in social theory. Another parallel includes a negative attitude towards the relativistic tendencies of postmodernism. These authors share the thematization of: the body as a locus of social influences, the centrality of language in social life, the social functions of knowledge, and the importance of power in social relations. Differences in theorizing are attributed to the different intellectual, theoretical, and socio-cultural contexts in which these scientists operated. The divergences of these theoretical approaches become evident when one examines the different meaning and significance attached to the concepts of individuation, structure, action, habitus and habitualization, structure of relevance and relation of common-sense and scientific knowledge. Finally, there is a visible difference in political views: Bourdieu was a critic “from the left,” while Berger and Luckmann were self-proclaimed liberal conservatives.

U radu se poredi sociološki pristup Pjera Burdijea sa onim koji su razvili Peter Berger i Tomas Lukman. Cilј rada je da se identifikuju komplementarnosti i razilaženja ovih pristupa. Glavna sličnost se sastoji u nameri da se „dijalektički” prevaziđe/premosti jaz između „objektivizma“ i „subjektivizma“ u društvenoj teoriji. Druga paralela uključuju negativan stav prema relativističkim tendencijama postmodernizma. Ono što je zajedničko za ove autore je tematizacija: tela kao mesta društvenih uticaja, centralnosti jezika u društvenom životu, društvenih funk cija znanja i značaja moći u društvenim odnosima. Razlike u teoretisanju se pripisuju različi tim intelektualnim, teorijskim i socio-kulturnim kontekstima u kojima su ovi naučnici delovali. Razilaženja ovih teorijskih pristupa postaju očigledna kada se ispita različito značenje i značaj koji se pridaje konceptima individuacije, strukture, delanja, habitusa i habitualizacije, strukture relevantnosti i odnosa zdravorazumskog i naučnog znanja. Konačno, vidljiva je razlika u političkim stavovima: Burdije je bio kritičar „s leva“, dok su Berger i Lukman bili samoproglašeni liberalni konzervativci.