Pierre Bourdieu and the Epistemic Conditions of Social Scientific Knowledge

Pierre Bourdieu’s “epistemic reflexivity” is the cornerstone of his intellectual enterprise, underpinning his claims to provide distinctive and scientific knowledge of the social world. This article considers what this notion offers for research and how it needs to be developed further to underpin progress in social science. Many reflexive research practices are sociological, individualistic, and narcissistic, and the article contrasts this to Bourdieu’s conception of reflexivity as epistemological, collective, and objective. The author then illustrates how, despite Bourdieu’s intentions, this conception when enacted tends toward the very pitfalls it is intended to avoid. Building on a developing conceptualization of the relations of knowledge, the author identifies this problem as intrinsic to Bourdieu’s framework, showing how it bypasses the significance of knowledge structures and so provides the social but not the epistemological conditions for social scientific knowledge. Bourdieu’s reflexivity objectifies objectification but needs development to help achieve objective knowledge. The article concludes by introducing the notion of “epistemic capital” as a first step toward developing a properly epistemic reflexivity and so realizing the potential of Bourdieu’s enterprise.