For Bourdieu, Against Alexander: Reality and Reduction

Jeffrey Alexander argues that despite Bourdieu’s considerable achievements ultimately his work is reductionist and determinist. He further argues that though Bourdieu is a middle range theorist he is implicitly realist in his meta‐theoretical assumptions. This article accepts these conclusions but argues that Bourdieu’s meta‐theoretical realism is a virtue rather than a vice and that the manner in which he is a reductionist and determinist necessitate a re‐thinking of what is meant by these notions. Alexander uses Bourdieu’s concept of habitus to demon‐strate a fundamental contradiction in Bourdieu’s theorising. According to him habitus presents us with the oxymoron of unconscious strategisation. This article uses a discussion of habitus in order to demonstrate that in its relationship with the concept of field it instead produces a practical resolution of long standing theoretical problems concerning structural determination and human agency. It is also argued that these problems are resolved at the meta‐theoretical level in the form of critical realist ontology and that it is Alexander’s misunderstandings on this level which cause him to fail to appreciate the significance of Bourdieu’s achievements.