The habitus process: A sociological conception

Andres Pickel's biopyschosocial concept of the habitus constitutes an intriguing development of Bourdieu's concept. However, Pickel does not overcome the problems of Bourdieu's own formulation of the habitus. Pickel, like Bourdieu, descends either into determinism or into voluntarism. Moreover, as Pickel himself notes, the habitus primarily involves shared symbols invested with meanings which co-ordinate individual action. These meanings can ultimately be explaining only by reference to the public agreements between humans not by individual neurophysiology. The habitus can be rescued as a concept only insofar as it is understood sociologically.