Practical Reason

By Pierre Bourdieu, Randall Johnson (translator),

Book cover of Practical Reason: On the Theory of Action

Book description

Do social classes really exist? Is disinterested action really possible? What do the family, the church, and the intellectual world have in common? Can morality be founded on hypocrisy? What is the "subject" of action? In this new volume, one of France's foremost social thinkers of our time responds to…

Explore

Topics

Genres

Coming soon!

Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Why read it?

1 author picked Practical Reason as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Jacqueline Kennelly

Author

I have an intellectual crush on Pierre Bourdieu. He has a sexy mind. Unfortunately, he passed away just as I was getting to know his work, back in 2002. Bourdieu wrote a mind-boggling number of books, but I have chosen this one as a good introduction for people who’d like to get to know his work. Practical Reason is actually made up of a series of lectures, all written relatively late in his career. They do quite a good job of accessibly summarizing his key ideas. Bourdieu supported the anti-globalization movement of the late 1990s and early 2000s, and was…

From Jacqueline's list on how neoliberalism f*&ks up democracy.