scholarly journals Pierre Bourdieu as Cognitive Sociologist

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Omar Lizardo

It is now well established that Pierre Bourdieu’s work can be interpreted as a form of cognitive sociology. Yet, given that the term “cognitive” has a variety of meanings, the question of where Bourdieu’s project of cognitive sociology fits into other cognitively grounded approaches in the social sciences remains open. In this chapter, I argue that if Bourdieu is to be considered a cognitive theorist, then there is only one way in which we can interpret his conception of cognition, and that is as a form of embodied cognition. I distinguish different senses of the term embodiment and specify how they show up in Bourdieu’s work. I discuss two broad sets of empirical phenomena---the “hard” and “soft” embodiment of culture---that have recently been identified and argue that their discovery represents a vindication of the prescience and extant promise of Bourdieu’s version of cognitive sociology. I close by providing indications how we can further an empirically grounded version of Bourdieu’s cognitive sociology today.

Author(s):  
Omar Lizardo

It is now well established that Pierre Bourdieu’s work can be interpreted as a form of cognitive sociology. Yet, given that the term “cognitive” has a variety of meanings, the question of where Bourdieu’s project of cognitive sociology fits into other cognitively grounded approaches in the social sciences remains open. This chapter argues that if Bourdieu is to be considered a cognitive theorist, then there is only one way in which his conception of cognition can be interpreted, and that is as a form of embodied cognition. It distinguishes different senses of the term “embodiment” and specifies how they show up in Bourdieu’s work. It discusses two broad sets of empirical phenomena—the “hard” and “soft” embodiment of culture—that have recently been identified and argues that their discovery represents a vindication of the prescience and untapped promise of Bourdieu’s version of cognitive sociology. It closes by providing indications how an empirically grounded version of Bourdieu’s cognitive sociology can be furthered today.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Michael Gaddis

An audit study is a specific type of field experiment primarily used to test for discriminatory behavior when survey and interview questions induce social desirability bias. In this chapter, I first review the language and definitions related to audit studies and encourage adoption of a common language. I then discuss why researchers use the audit method as well as when researchers can and should use this method. Next, I give an overview of the history of audit studies, focusing on major developments and changes in the overall body of work. Finally, I discuss the limitations of correspondence audits and provide some thoughts on future directions.


2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-210
Author(s):  
Dimitri Ginev

The problem of how to access and estimate the proliferation of receptions of Ludwik Fleck’s work in domains as diverse as social geography, history of clinical medicine, and cognitive sociology has long remained vexing. The approach suggested in this paper combines the hermeneutics of effective-historical reception with a version of epistemic reconstruction of intellectual history. Special emphasis is placed upon the forms of political contextualization of Fleck’s comparative sociology of thought styles. The author argues that the heterogeneity of receptions is essentially informed by the specificity of the ‘implicit reader’ Fleck assigned to his work. Interestingly enough, it is a ‘reader’ congruent with the post-metaphysical turns in the social sciences. This claim is defended by analyzing particular trajectories of reception of Fleck’s work.


2018 ◽  
pp. 152-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kazimierz Musiał ◽  
Agata Lubowicka

The aim of the article is to investigate the allegedly new relationship between Greenland and Denmark in Danish political and literary discourses relating to Greenland, by approaching it from two different research perspectives – those of political and literary studies. The analysis draws on the theoretical work of Pierre Bourdieu and his concepts of habitus, capitals and dispositions that together create a hegemonic order. It also applies the concept of framing, as operationalised by A. Pluwak, B. Scheufele, W.A. Gamson, and A. Modigliani in the social sciences. The essay is structured according to the core framing tasks: diagnostic, prognostic and motivational, and their confluence with the temporal frames of the 1950s, the 1970s and the period beyond the 1990s. The analysis employs examples from both post-WW2 official documents related to Greenland and produced in or on behalf of Denmark, and from Danish literature about Greenland published in the same time periods.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (25) ◽  
pp. 170-178
Author(s):  
Ernesto Israel Santillán-Anguiano ◽  
Emilia Cristina González-Machado

Este trabajo ofrece una serie de reflexiones sobre el texto La juventud no es más que una palabra presentada por Pierre Bourdieu en 1978. El principal objetivo de este documento es hacer evidente la vigencia de las ideas del sociólogo francés respecto a la construcción del concepto de juventud como categoría en las ciencias sociales. Para ello, se realizó un análisis de textos para profundizar las ideas asociadas a las desigualdades, el capital cultural, el habitus y el papel del espacio escolar. Como resultados más relevantes se pueden mencionar que: 1) La definición de la juventud es producto de la lucha intergeneracional y por lo tanto arbitraria; 2) el habitus juvenil garantiza la permanencia de la estructura social; 3) el capital cultural incorporado de los jóvenes se encuentra garantizado por el tiempo liberado; 4) el espacio escolar es un campo de privilegios que naturaliza las condiciones de ser joven. This work offers some reflections on the text Youth’ is Just a Word presented by Pierre Bourdieu in 1978. The objective of this document is to make evident the validity of the ideas of the French sociologist regarding the construction of the concept of youth as a category in the social sciences. For this, a text analysis was carried out to deepen the ideas associated with inequalities, cultural capital, habitus and the role of school space. As the most relevant results, it can be mentioned that: 1) The definition of youth is the product of intergenerational struggle and therefore arbitrary; 2) juvenile habitus guarantees the permanence of the social structure; 3) the incorporated cultural capital of young people is guaranteed by time released; 4) the school space is a field of privileges that naturalizes the conditions of being young.


Author(s):  
Amos Golan

In this chapter I concentrate on model and theory building, including model-based hypotheses, based on limited information. I show that the info-metrics framework provides a coherent perspective that helps to identify the elements that are needed for building a logically sound model. The examples given in this chapter show how the info-metrics framework can guide the construction of both theories and models. I start the chapter by introducing conceptual building blocks and providing very simple toy examples. Then a more detailed example, taken from the social sciences, is introduced. A detailed discussion of the falsification and validation of models is also provided.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 435-455 ◽  
Author(s):  
João de Pina-Cabral

This paper focuses on the notion of ‘participation’ as it has been used in the social sciences throughout the 20th century. It proposes that there are two main traditions of use – an ‘individual’ one, and a ‘dividual’ one – and it argues in favour of the latter. It does this by examining how Simmel and Goffman, on the one hand, and Lévy-Bruhl and Durkheim, on the other, defined participation. Developed by Lucien Lévy-Bruhl in the first part of the last century, ‘participation’ in the dividual sense is today being given new life by sociocultural anthropologists such as Marshall Sahlins and phenomenologically inclined cognitive scientists such as Shaun Gallagher. The paper addresses the roots of the concept in Scholastic theology and proposes to show how central it can come to be to a sociocultural anthropology that is willing to take on frontally the challenges presently being posed by embodied cognition.


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