The ground of the social world

Abstract

This paper attempts to construct a theory of the social world.It builds upon three previous constructions:First,Bourdieu’s habitus(an unarticulated and impoverished web of meaning)and field (the structure of power),being a paraphrase of Merleau\|Ponty’s body and world.Second,Saussure’s language,interpreted as a web of meaning.Third,the time structure of Garfinkel’s sociological gaze,identified as an infinite and alternating series of two time states,namely,the mundane and the reflexive,in which the agent is supposed to be living.It argues for three propositions:First,Merleau\|Ponty’s world,with its two dimensions being Bourdieu’s field and Saussure’s language,together with Merleau\|Ponty’s body,moves back and forth between the two time states.Second,Bourdieu’s agent(Merleau\|Ponty’s body carrying Bourdieu’s habitus)lives in harmony with Merleau\|Ponty’s world in the mundane state only.Third,once Merleau\|Ponty’s body steps into the reflexive state,it changes into Weber’s actor.