Bourdieu: la science des idéologies

International audienceDespite the diffidence Pierre Bourdieu increasingly showed towards the Marxist concept of ideology, his attempt to produce a scientific explanation of ideological discourses by means of the sociological concept of field as well as his anthropology of dispositions appears as a reworking of the notion as it is found in Marx, Engels, and even Althusser's works. Ideologies cannot be understood as mechanical effects directly caused by an infrastructure, nor as a false consciousness. Other concepts that Bourdieu proposed as substitutes, such as "symbolic violence", "symbolic power"or "sociodicy", may highlight aspects of ideologies and explain their efficiency. The reference to the habitus as a system of schemes of perception and appreciation as well as the consideration of the specific laws of the fields of ideological production, complicate the relation between social positions and stances. The concept of habitus as incorporated dispositions also makes us understand the inclination humans have to naturalize and universalize their interest, and the notion of field emphasizes the struggles that animate the production of ideologies. Nevertheless, none of this represents the opposite of ideology as Marx and Engels formulated it, but renders it more complex. As a sociology that focuses its attention towards cultural and symbolical domination, the work of Bourdieu may appear as a science of ideologies. It serves as a crucial contribution to the philosophical knowledge of the concept that aims to take into account the sociological and anthropological conditions that govern the production of discourses, philosophy included