Habitus

In post-structuralist thought, habitus, a concept defined by Pierre Bourdieu, is the total ideational environment of a person. This includes the person's beliefs and dispositions, and prefigures everything that that person may choose to do. The concept of habitus challenges the concept of free will, in that within a certain habitus at any one time, choices are not limitless—here are limited dispositions, or readinesses for action. A person is not an automaton, for there exists flexibility in a habitus, but neither is there complete free will.

A large part of the concept of habitus is that it brings attention to the fact that there are limitless options for action that a person would never think of, and therefore those options don't really exist as possibilities. In normal social situations, a person relies upon a large store of scripts and a large store of knowledge, which present that person with a certain picture of the world and how she or he thinks to behave within it.

A person's habitus cannot be fully known to the person, as it exists largely within the realm of the unconscious and includes things as visceral as body movements and postures, and it also includes the most basic aspects of thought and knowledge about the world, including about the habitus itself.


Unconscious mind

(Redirected from Unconscious)

The unconscious mind (or subconscious) is the aspect (or puported aspect) of the mind of which we are not directly conscious or aware.

The unconscious mind should not be confused with "being unconscious" and unconsciousness which is loss of consciousness.

Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Terminology
3 Unconscious mental processes
4 Questions about Unconscious mind
5 Application of unconscious
6 See also
7 External links

History

The idea originated in antiquity, and its more modern history is detailed in Henri F Ellenberger's Discovery of the Unconscious (Basic Books, 1970).

Certain philosophers preceding Sigmund Freud such as Leibniz and Schopenhauer developed ideas foreshadowing the subconscious. The new medical science of psychoanalysis established by Freud and his disciples popularized this and similar notions such as the role of the libido (sex drive) and the self-destructive urge of thanatos (death wish), and the famous Oedipus complex wherein a son seeks to "kill" his father to make love to his own mother.

The term was popularized by Freud. He developed the idea that there were layers to human consciousness: the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. He thought that certain psychic events take place "below the surface", or in the unconscious mind. A good example is dreaming, which Freud called the "royal road to the unconscious".

In another of Freud's systematizations, the mind is divided into the Conscious mind or Ego and two parts of the Unconscious: the Id or instincts and the Superego. Freud used the idea of the unconscious in order to explain certain kinds of neurotic behavior. (See psychoanalysis.)

Many modern philosophers and social scientists either dispute the concept of an unconscious, or argue that it is not an entity that can be scientifically investigated or discussed rationally. In the social sciences, this view was first brought forward by John Watson, considered to be the first American behaviourist. Among philosophers, Karl Popper was one of Freud's most notable contemporary opponents. Popper claimed that Freud's theory of the unconscious was not falsifiable.

However, there is agreement among many, perhaps most, psychologists and cognitive scientists that much mental functioning takes place in a part of the mind inaccessible to consciousness.

Carl Jung developed the concept further. He divided the unconscious into two parts: the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious. The first of these corresponds to Freud's idea of the subconscious, though unlike his mentor, Jung believed that the personal unconscious contained a valuable counter-balance to the conscious mind, as well as childish urges. As for the collective unconscious, which consists of archetypes, this is the common store of mental building blocks that makes up the psyche of all humans. Evidence for its existence is the universality of certain symbols that appear in the mythologies of nearly all peoples.

There are other views. Jane Roberts (in the Seth books) presents a rich portrait of consciousness in which the unconscious mind is described as being clairvoyant and in communication with all other minds. The self that each of us experiences day-to-day is described as being but one facet of a richer and very complex multi-dimensional entity.

Terminology

Somewhat related to the unconscious are nonconscious psychic events. The term nonconscious seems to be used in various ways – some appear to use the term to avoid the somewhat value-laden term “unconscious” or “subconscious” (but basically for the same purpose); some use it to refer to events that can only be observed indirectly (e.g. certain acts of short-term memory); some use it to point to events such as brain activity controlled mostly by the autonomic nervous system (e.g. emotional reactions to certain smells). Not surprisingly, there are no sharply delineated conventions for distinguishing exactly between the nonconscious and the unconscious – partly because they interact with each other, and partly because, as is so often the case, psychologists are unable to agree on the definitions.

A distinction needs to be made between The Unconscious (or the unconscious mind, or the subconscious), which are concepts in psychoanalysis and related fields, and unconscious or nonconscious events in the mind, which are of great interest in cognition and perception. There are connections and similarities between the two but it would be quite wrong to use these two concepts interchangeably.

Unconscious mental processes

(Note: The next section does confuse the two but has not been removed because of the interesting examples that it gives)

The unconscious is arguably not the most intuitive idea, so why bother with it? What's the evidence? What might the unconscious explain?

  • The fact that most bodily processes are not consciously controlled eg breathing, blood circulation, blinking
  • The fact that something - not the conscious mind - creates the dreams that we wander around in at night
  • The mind spontaneously moving from one idea or recollection to another
    • Creative ideas that do not appear to come from conscious thinking
    • Waking up in the morning with an insight or solution to a problem
    • All memory is unconscious. The act of remembering something means bringing the information stored outside our conscious mind into awareness.
    • The fact that we forget certain things but later spontaneously recall them
    • Intuition
  • That we learn certain skills so that they become largely automatic eg driving a car, playing a sport
    • The fact that we can run downstairs without thinking where we place each footfall
  • The instincts, such as self-preservation and sex, originate on an unconscious level
  • The origin of all the bodily urges, such as hunger and thirst, lies outside the conscious mind
  • Physical reflexes
  • Subliminal perception. It is known that only a very tiny proportion of our bodily stimuli actually reach consciousness. Otherwise we would be swamped by billions of stimuli.
  • Perception - a baby is not born able to recognise shapes but has to build up what is called perceptual stability during the first six months of life.
  • The mental reaction of responding to a stimulus is not conscious but a pattern that is part of our conditioning eg our response to music
  • Hypnosis and trance
  • Psychological processes such as denial, introjection and psychological projection (http://soler.marhost.com/Projection.html)
  • Our own motivation tends to be something we are not consciously aware of, a good example of which is: Falling in love
  • With perhaps a few exceptions, nearly all our emotions are caused without our being aware of why at the time, though we may analyse them later
  • We speak our native tongue without looking for words or consciously constructing grammatical phrases - this is done for us on an unconscious level
  • Since without memory both thinking and learning would be impossible, the importance of the unconscious is far greater than may appear.

Questions about Unconscious mind

The subconscious is not directly accessible to ordinary introspection, but it is capable of being "tapped" and "interpreted" by special methods and techniques such as random association, dream analysis and verbal slips (commonly known as a Freudian slip), examined and conducted during psychotherapy. Thoughts, feelings and urges that are repressed are all present in the subconscious mind and "issues" need to be "worked out" with professionals skilled in the field of mental health and mental illness.

Is the unconscious altogether inaccessible, or is it just hard to access?

As some of the above examples indicate, material is constantly moving from the conscious mind to the unconscious and vice versa. The conscious mind only holds a small amount of information at any given time. In many cases information - especially easily accessible memories - can be called into awareness at will.

Some psychics also believe that the unconscious mind possesses a kind of "hidden energy" or "potential" that can realise dreams and thoughts, with minimal conscious effort or action from the individual. Some also believe that the subconscious has an "influencing power" in shaping one's destiny. All such claims, however have so far failed to stand scientific scrutiny.

Application of unconscious

Knowledge of the unconscious has been exploited by marketing strategists employed by corporations to either play on hidden fears and secret desires buried in the common subconscious. Teams of psychologists are hired to do market research and understand the psychology of buying in order to use subliminal messages in advertising campaigns.

See also

External links

Automaton

An automaton (plural: automata) is a self-operating machine. The word is sometimes used to describe a robot.

The word is more often used to describe non-electronic moving machines, however, especially those that have been made to resemble human or animal actions, such as the jacks on old public striking clocks, or the cuckoo and any other animated figures on a cuckoo clock.

The first recorded design of a humanoid automaton is credited to Leonardo da Vinci around the year 1495. The design of Leonardo's robot was not rediscovered until the 1950s. The robot, which appears in Leonardo's sketches, could, if built successfully, move its arms, twist its head, and sit up. It is not known if an attempt was made to build the device.

The world's first successfully-built biomechanical automaton is considered to be The Flute Player, invented by the French engineer Jacques de Vaucanson in 1737.

In 1769, a chess-playing automaton called the Turk made the rounds of the courts of Europe, but in fact was a famous hoax, operated from inside by a hidden human operator.

Other Eighteenth Century automata makers include the prolific Frenchman Pierre Jacquet-Droz and his contemporary Henri Maillardet. Maillardet, a Swiss mechanician, created an automaton capable of drawing four pictures and writing three poems. Maillardet's Automaton is now part of the collections at The Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia.

Automata of this sort were also created in Japan and are known as Karakuri.

Contemporary automata continue this tradition with an emphasis on art, rather than technological sophistication. Contemporary automata are represented by the works of Cabaret Mechanical Theatre in the United Kingdom and Dug North in the United States.

Also, an automaton is a mathematical model for a finite state machine, see automata theory.

See also

External links


Free will

Free will is the philosophical doctrine that our choices are, ultimately, "up to us." Consequently, an unfree action must be somehow "up to" something else. The phrase "up to us" is vague, and, just like free will itself, admits of a variety of interpretations. Because of this vagueness, the usefulness of the concept of free will is questioned by some. We can ask several logically independent questions about free will.

Contents [hide]
1 Determinism vs. Indeterminism
2 Moral responsibility
3 Compatibilist theories of free will and the could-have-done-otherwise principle
4 The science of free will
5 In theology
6 See also

Determinism vs. Indeterminism

Determinism holds that each state of affairs is necessitated (determined) by the states of affairs that preceded it. Indeterminism holds that determinism is false, and that there are events which are not entirely determined by previous states of affairs. The idea of determinism is sometimes illustrated by the story of Laplace's demon, who knows all the facts about the past and present and all the natural laws that govern our world, and uses this knowledge to foresee the future, down to every detail.

Some philosophers hold that determinism is at odds with free will. This is the doctrine of incompatibilism. Incompatibilists generally claim that a person acts freely (has free will) just in case the person is the sole originating cause of the act and the person genuinely could have done otherwise. This kind of free will is (at least allegedly) incompatible with determinism. If determinism is true, and everything that happens is completely determined by the past, including events that preceded our births, then every choice we make would ultimately be determined by prior events that were not under our control. Our choices would be just another outcome determined by the past. So if determinism were true, then we would be trapped by the past and free will would be an illusion. "Hard determinists", such as d'Holbach, are those incompatibilists who accept determinism and reject free will. "Libertarians", such as Thomas Reid and Peter van Inwagen, are those incompatibilists who accept free will, deny determinism, and instead believe that indeterminism is true. (This kind of libertarianism should not be confused with the political position of the same name.)

Other philosophers hold that determinism is compatible with free will. These "compatibilists", such as Hobbes, generally claim that a person acts freely just in case the person willed the act and the person could (hypothetically) have done otherwise if s/he had decided to. In articulating this crucial proviso, Hume writes, "this hypothetical liberty is universally allowed to belong to every one who is not a prisoner and in chains". Compatibilists often point to clearcut cases of someone's free will being denied — rape, murder, theft, and so on. The key to these cases is not that the past is determining the future, but that the aggressor is overriding the victim's desires and preferences about his or her own actions. The aggressor is coercing the victim and, according to compatibilists, this is what nullifies free will. In other words, determinism does not matter; what matters is that our choices are the results of our own desires and preferences, and are not overridden by some external (or even internal) force. To be a compatibilist, one needn't endorse any particular conception of free will (one need only deny that determinism is at odds with free will), but the positions canvassed here are typical of compatibilism.

Furthermore, it is often held that the phrase "free will" is, as Hobbes put it, "absurd speech", because freedom is a power defined in terms of the will, which is a thing--and so the will is not the sort of thing that could be free or unfree. Some compatibilists argue that this alleged lack of grounding for the concept of "free will" is at least partly responsible for the perception of a contradiction between determinism and liberty.

Moral responsibility

We generally hold people responsible for their actions, and will say that they deserve praise or blame for what they do. However, moral responsibility is believed by many to require free will. Thus another important issue is whether we are ever morally responsible, and in what sense.

Incompatibilists tend to think that determinism is at odds with moral responsibility. After all, how can you hold someone responsible for an action that could be predicted from the beginning of time? Hard determinists say "So much the worse for moral responsibility!" and junk the concept — Clarence Darrow famously used this argument to defend the murderers Leopold and Loeb — while libertarians say "So much the worse for determinism!" This issue appears to be the heart of the dispute between hard determinists and compatibilists; hard determinists are forced to accept that we often have "free will" in the compatibilist sense, but they deny that this sense of free will truly matters — that it can ground moral responsibility. Just because an agent's choices are uncoerced doesn't change the fact that determinism robs the agent of responsibility.

Compatibilists often argue that, on the contrary, determinism is a prerequisite for moral responsibility — you can't hold someone responsible unless his actions were determined by something (this argument can be traced to Hume). After all, if indeterminism is true, then those events that are not determined are random. How can you blame or praise someone for performing an action that just spontaneously popped into his nervous system? Instead, they argue, you need to show how the action stemmed from the person's desires and preferences — the person's character — before you start holding the person morally responsible. Libertarians sometimes reply that undetermined actions aren't random at all, and that they result from a substantive will whose decisions are undetermined. This move is widely considered unsatisfactory, for it just pushes the problem back a step, and further, it involves some very mysterious metaphysics.

Compatibilist theories of free will and the could-have-done-otherwise principle

Many claim that, in order for a choice to be free in any sense that matters, it must be true that the agent could have done otherwise. They take this principle — van Inwagen calls it the "principle of alternate possibilities" — to be a necessary condition for freedom. For instance, if a scientist puts a machine in Bob's brain that makes him kill the President, his action was not free, for Bob couldn't have done otherwise. Incompatibilists often appeal to this principle to show that determinism cannot be reconciled with free will. "If a decision is completely determined by the past," they ask, "how could the agent have decided to do something else?" Compatibilists often reply that what's important is not simply that the agent could have done otherwise, but that the agent could have done otherwise if he or she had wanted to. Moreover, some compatibilists, such as Frankfurt or Dennett, argue that there are clear cases where, even though the agent couldn't have done otherwise, the agent's choice was still free: what if Bob really wanted to kill the President and the machine in Bob's brain would only kick in if Bob lost his nerve? If Bob went through with it on his own, surely the act would be free. Incompatibilists claim that the problem with this idea is that what Bob "wanted" was determined before Bob was conceived. See also Elbow Room, a book by Dennett that presents an argument for a compatibilist theory of free will.

More sophisticated analyses of compatibilist free will have been offered. A free action may require not only liberty from external coercion (according to some), but also liberty from internal conflicts. Compulsive behaviors and the actions of the insane are thus not free. Moreover, our common sense conceptions of free will also demand the possibility that an agent could act rationally or irrationally with equanimity. In either case, what we mean by free will could be that an agent can claim ownership of his or her will despite external or internal influences.

The science of free will

Throughout the history of science, attempts have been made to answer the question of free will using scientific principles. Early scientific thought often pictured the universe as deterministic, and some thinkers believed that it was simply a matter of gathering sufficient information to be able to predict future events with perfect accuracy. While not mechanistic in the same sense as classical physics, most current scientific theories are also deterministic, by necessity — it is a basic assumption of all scientific endeavors that the future can be predicted. It is also difficult, if not impossible, to write the mathematics for a non-predictive science.

Various interpretations of quantum mechanics may suggest that the universe, when viewed as a single system, is deterministic, as there is no outside entity capable of making observations, aside possibly from God. It is far from clear, however, that microscale interpretations of quantum mechanics can be applied to large systems in this way, and whether quantum mechanics ultimately describes a universe governed by laws of cause and effect or by chance is hotly debated both by physicists and philosophers of science.

Like physicists, biologists have also frequently addressed the question of free will. One of the most heated debates of biology is that of "nature versus nurture". How important are genetics and biology in human behavior compared to culture and environment? Genetic studies have identified many specific genetic factors that affect the personality of the individual, from obvious cases such as Down's syndrome to more subtle effects such as a statistical predisposition towards schizophrenia. However, it is not certain that environmental determination is less threatening to free will than genetic determination.

It has also become possible to study the living brain and researchers can now watch the decision-making "machinery" at work. A seminal experiment in this field was conducted by Benjamin Libet in the 1980s, wherein he asked subjects to choose a random moment to flick their wrist while he watched the associated activity in their brains. Libet found that the brain activity leading up to the subject flicking their wrist began approximately one-third of a second before the subject consciously decided to move, suggesting that the decision was actually first being made on a subconscious level and only afterward being translated into a "conscious decision." A related experiment performed later by Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone involved asking subjects to choose at random which of their hands to move. He found that by stimulating different hemispheres of the brain using magnetic fields it was possible to strongly influence which hand the subject picked. Normally right-handed people would choose to move their right hand 60% of the time, for example, but when the right hemisphere was stimulated they would instead choose their left hand 80% of the time (recall that the right hemisphere of the brain is responsible for the left side of the body, and the left hemisphere for the right). Despite the external influence on their decision-making, the subjects continued to report that they believed their choice of hand had been made freely.

In theology

The theological doctrine of divine foreknowledge is often alleged to be in conflict with free will. After all, if God knows exactly what will happen, right down to every choice one makes, how can one's choices be free? God's already true or timelessly true knowledge about one's choices seems to constrain one's freedom. This problem is related to the Aristotelian problem of the sea-battle: tomorrow there will or will not be a sea-battle. If there will be one, then it was true yesterday that there would be one. Then it would be necessary that the sea battle will occur. If there won't be one, then by similar reasoning, it is necessary that it won't occur. This means that the future, whatever it is, is completely fixed by past truths — true propositions about the future. (However, some philosophers hold that necessity and possibility are defined with respect to a given point in time and a given matrix of empirical circumstances, and so something that is merely possible from the perspective of one observer may be necessary from the perspective of an omniscient.)

In Christian theology, God is described as not only omniscient but omnipotent, which implies that not only has God always known what choices you will make tomorrow, but actually chose what you would choose. That is, by virtue of His foreknowledge He knows what will influence your choices, and by virtue of His omnipotence He controls those factors. This becomes especially important for the doctrines relating to salvation. Most Christians find ways of avoiding the conclusion that God predestines who will be saved and who damned, but Calvinists embrace it. Arminians believe that humans always have free will, but God's prevenient grace is always calling them.

Some philosophers believe that free will is equivalent to having a soul, and thus that (at least some) animals don't have free will. This is also the position of Jewish philosophy, which stresses that free will (Hebrew: bechirah chofshith) is a product of the intrinsic human soul (neshama). There is some controversy on the contradiction between God's omniscience and free will; this was first debated between Maimonides and his critic Abraham ibn Daud (Raavad III), e.g. in Maimonides' Mishneh Torah Hilchoth Teshuva 5:5.

See also


Ideation

Ideation is the process of forming and relating ideas. It is important in creativity, innovation and concept development.

This concept is about opening ourselves up to creative communication skills, sharing our brainstorms, and allowing this to produce new collaborations and developments. The sharing of ideas has been a positive concept in the history of our growth and development as a society.

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is an organized approach for producing creative ideas by letting the mind think without interruption. Brainstorming can be done either individually or in a group; in group brainstorming sessions, the participants are encouraged, and often expected, to share their ideas with one another as soon as they are generated. The key to brainstorming is not to interrupt the thought process. As ideas come to the mind, they are captured and stimulate the development of better ideas.

It is a means of enhancing divergent production, aiming to facilitate problem solving through the maxim quantity breeds quality. The greater the number of ideas generated, the greater the chance of producing a radical and effective solution.

An essential element of brainstorming is putting criticism 'on hold'. Instead of immediately stating what might be wrong with an idea, the participants focus on extending or adding to it, reserving criticism for a later 'critical stage' of the process. By suspending judgment, you create a supportive atmosphere where participants feel free to generate unusual ideas.

Brainstorming has many applications but it is most frequently used in:


Contents [hide]
1 Procedure for a typical brainstorming session
2 Nominal group technique
3 See also
4 External links

Procedure for a typical brainstorming session

  • A moderate size room is equipped with about a dozen chairs in the shape of a hollow square so that each participant is looking at the others in the group. A flipchart, blackboard, or overhead projector is placed in a prominent location. The room is free of telephones, clocks, or any other distractions.
  • Between six and twenty people with an interest in the subject (although not necessarily experts) are invited to participate. Generally the participants are not given details about the subject to be discussed before hand.
  • Write on the flipchart (or blackboard) a statement of the subject or problem that will be discussed. This is often presented as a question.
  • Choose one person to write down the ideas generated. Ideas should be written concisely but without paraphrasing. The recorder should state the idea in the words she has written to ensure that it expresses the meaning intended by the originator.
  • Choose one person to facilitate the process. This involves encouraging participation by everyone and maintaining a criticism free, uninhibited atmosphere. Encourage even wild and seemingly ridiculous ideas.
  • After 5 to 20 minutes the facilitator calls an end to the idea generation phase.
  • Review the list from top to bottom to ensure everyone understands the ideas. Eliminate from the list any duplications. Remove any obviously ridiculous suggestions.
  • Thank all participants and give them each a token recompense as a sign of appreciation.

Nominal group technique

Nominal group technique is a type of brainstorming that introduces structure to the process. It is useful in ensuring that all participant have an equal say and can be used to generate a rank-ordered list of ideas.

Typically each participant is asked to write down their ideas. Then the moderator asks each participant in turn to express one of the ideas that they have written down. The moderator writes down each idea on the flipchart. Then each participant copies the group's final list on a blank page giving each idea a score. The pages are collected from each participant and the scores summed, providing a rank-ordered list.


See also

External links


Cultural capital

Cultural capital is a term coined by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu to explain the cultural differences that reproduce social class division.

In the "Forms of Capital" Bourdieu expands the notion of capital beyond its economic conception which emphasizes material exchanges, to include "immaterial" and "non-economic" forms of capital, specifically cultural and symbolic capital. He explains how the different types of capital can be acquired, exchanged, and converted into other forms. Because the structure and distribution of capital also represent the inherent structure of the social world, Bourdieu argues that an understanding of the multiple forms of capital will help elucidate the structure and functioning of the social world.

The term cultural capital represents the collection of non-economic forces such as family background, social class, varying investments in and commitments to education, different resources, etc. which influence academic success. Bourdieu distinguishes three forms of cultural capital. The embodied state is directly linked to and incorporated within the individual and represents what they know and can do. Embodied capital can be increased by investing time into self improvement in the form of learning. As embodied capital becomes integrated into the individual, it becomes a type of habitus and therefore cannot be transmitted instantaneously. The objectified state of cultural capital is represented by cultural goods, material objects such as books, paintings, instruments, or machines. They can be appropriated both materially with economic capital and symbolically via embodied capital. Finally, cultural capital in its institutionalized state provides academic credentials and qualifications which create a "certificate of cultural competence which confers on its holder a conventional, constant, legally guaranteed value with respect to power." (248) These academic qualifications can then be used as a rate of conversion between cultural and economic capital.

External link


Elaine Hayes on

"The Forms of Capital"

In the "Forms of Capital" Bourdieu expands the notion of capital beyond its economic conception which emphasizes material exchanges, to include "immaterial" and "non-economic" forms of capital, specifically cultural and symbolic capital. He explains how the different types of capital can be acquired, exchanged, and converted into other forms. Because the structure and distribution of capital also represent the inherent structure of the social world, Bourdieu argues that an understanding of the multiple forms of capital will help elucidate the structure and functioning of the social world.

The term cultural capital represents the collection of non-economic forces such as family background, social class, varying investments in and commitments to education, different resources, etc. which influence academic success. Bourdieu distinguishes three forms of cultural capital. The embodied state is directly linked to and incorporated within the individual and represents what they know and can do. Embodied capital can be increased by investing time into self improvement in the form of learning. As embodied capital becomes integrated into the individual, it becomes a type of habitus and therefore cannot be transmitted instantaneously. The objectified state of cultural capital is represented by cultural goods, material objects such as books, paintings, instruments, or machines. They can be appropriated both materially with economic capital and symbolically via embodied capital. Finally, cultural capital in its institutionalized state provides academic credentials and qualifications which create a "certificate of cultural competence which confers on its holder a conventional, constant, legally guaranteed value with respect to power." (248) These academic qualifications can then be used as a rate of conversion between cultural and economic capital.

Throughout his discussion of cultural capital, Bourdieu favors a nurture rather than a nature argument. He states that the ability and talent of an individual is primarily determined by the time and cultural capital invested in them by their parents. Similarly, Bourdieu argues that "the scholastic yield from educational action depends on the cultural capital previously invested by the family" (244) and "the initial accumulation of cultural capital, the precondition for the fast, easy accumulation of every kind of useful cultural capital, starts at the outset, without delay, without wasted time, only for the offspring of families endowed with strong cultural capital." (246) Based upon these assertions, it appears that cultural capital regulates and reproduces itself in a similar fashion as habitus. According to this model, families of a given cultural capital could only produce offspring with an equal amount of cultural capital. This approach strikes me as too inflexible. How does Bourdieu account for those individuals who elevate their social status or increase their cultural capital from what they inherited. I am probably reading Bourdieu too literally and missing his point, but I still do not understand how a given group with a specified cultural capital, such as the "New Class," could increase in size if, as Bourdieu claims, it simply regenerates itself.

Bourdieu defines social capital as, "the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition." (248) An individual's social capital is determined by the size or their relationship network, the sum of its cumulated resources (both cultural and economic), and how successfully (quickly) the individual can set them it in motion. According to Bourdieu, social networks must be continuously maintained and fostered over time in order for them to be called upon quickly in the future.

Finally, in his discussion of conversions between different types of capital, Bourdieu recognizes that all types of capital can be derived from economic capital through varying efforts of transformation. Bourdieu also states that cultural and social capital are fundamentally rooted in economic capital but they can never be completely reduced to an economic form. Rather, social and cultural capital remain effective because they conceal their relationship to economic capital.

Send a response to Elaine Hayes.


Empirical

Empirical is an adjective often used in conjunction with science, both the natural and social sciences, which means an observation or experiment based upon experience that is capable of being verified or disproved.

See also: Empirical formula, Empirical knowledge, Empirical method, Empirical relationship, Empirical research, Empirical validation, Empiricism, Quasi-empirical methods