Just How Pascalian are the Pascalian Meditations ? Critical Reflections on the Theological Unconscious of Bourdieusian Theory
Why did Bourdieu ally himself with Pascal? This article provides some tentative answers. It emphasizes similarities in the two men’s social trajectories and symbolic position-takings as well as in their views about human nature and political community. They were pessimistic and fatalistic. Pascal’s...
| Subtitles: | SYMPOSIUM: Does Social Theory Need Religion? |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford Univ. Press
[2016]
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| In: |
Sociology of religion
Year: 2016, Volume: 77, Issue: 3, Pages: 280-296 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | Why did Bourdieu ally himself with Pascal? This article provides some tentative answers. It emphasizes similarities in the two men’s social trajectories and symbolic position-takings as well as in their views about human nature and political community. They were pessimistic and fatalistic. Pascal’s critics offered a more optimistic and constructive vision that drew on the Aristotelian tradition. Contemporary theorists interested in developing a positive sociology might follow them. The method applied to Bourdieu in this article might also be extended to other theorists. Examining the theological harbingers of contemporary debates about social theory allows us to resurface normative and ontological assumptions that have been submerged in the quest for value neutrality and scientific objectivity so that they can be questioned and challenged. |
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| ISSN: | 1759-8818 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Sociology of religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/socrel/srw018 |