what does "universal experience of a transcendental subject" mean?

Question

I've been reading Bourdieu, P. (1986). The force of law: Toward a sociology of the juridical field. Hastings LJ, 38, 805. and encountered the concept on page 819.

The tendency to conceive of the shared vision of a specific historical community as the universal experience of a transcendental subject can be observed in every field of cultural production.

I spent time reading about sociology but don't know much about philosophy. So what does "universal experience of a transcendental subject" mean? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

What does “universal experience of a transcendental subject” mean?

I am retired after forty years as a lawyer. During that time I have read some difficult stuff. I found the Bourdieu article on the Hastings Law Journal website. There is no doubt that Bourdieu wrote one dense essay.

So first, I offer my congratulations on attempting this rather difficult piece of writing.

That said, here is what I think the quote means: Legal professionals tend to believe that their subject area, the law, is universal in that it affects everyone and transcendental in that it is, or should be, the overarching concern of each of society’s members; further, similar attitudes can be found in other professions.

This interpretation is based primarily on the quote itself and the previous paragraph in the Bourdieu article.

And there you go. That’s the best I can do for you.

Answer 2

The transcendental subject is built on Kantian terms and philosophy to which Bourdieu has a torn relationship of both admiring and condemning it. Accordingly, the idea is taken to make place for possible criticism of it.

First, lets break down the components here.

Shared vision of a specific historical community

Here, we have to imagine a given historical, social group as having some kind of shared vision, ie. having the same ideas about the future.

the tendency to conceive...can be observed in every field of cultural production

What he says here is that where cultural goods are produced, and laws are a cultural good of sorts, there is a certain idea prevalent about how culture affects society uniformly.

conceive of the shared vision...as the universal experience of a transcendental subject

So there seems to be the idea that if there is some shared vision (an idea shared between very different individuals) that is nothing but a universally experienced "transcendental subject". Transcendental (not to be confused with transcendent), since Kant, means "that which is necessary for the possibility of existence". Transcendental for a subject, that which is necessary for this subject to exist, are the constitutional social conditions, the environment in which thos subject could or had to form: the language, the values, the cultural heritage, shared expeirences (wars, revolutions), etc. Thus, if we speak of "the or a" transcendental subject of a whole group of people, we assume that these formational conditions are identical across individuals.

Conclusion and explanation

Bourdieu says that when there is culture (including law) produced, there seems to be the idea that whenever there is an idea shared across a particular historical social group, this is based on how the identical conditions that constitute the subjects (language, values, cultural heritage) as the subjects that they are are (this is a "transcendental subject", the necessary background of their particular subjectivity in a sense) are universally experienced by these subjects and therefore find their expression in a shared vision. To paraphrase that in easier terms: Every shared vision is conceived of as an experience of a profound equality in the social constitution across and between individuals.

This, of course, is problematic since it potentially takes the group to be much more socially uniform than necessary for a shared vision to develop.

Answer 3

You might find this answer helpful: Is the Categorical Imperative Simply Bad Math? :)

To make sense of justice as not simply a game-theory outcome of interactions between violent selfish greedy individuals, ie societies not just interacting individuals, we use intersubjectivity to decide what kind of person we want to be, & establish rules to support that kind of behaviour in law. See Rawl's 'A Theory of Justice' for an example of this process in practice. It can also be found in the so called Golden Rule of 'Do unto others as you would be done by', which seems to be our oldest and most cross-cultural shared moral guideline.

This mode of moral reasoning sneaks in the idea that how an individual sees things is the only way to see them. But, we observe past people's views and actions as conditioned by their historical moment, even while our cognitive biasees see us from our own time as unclouded impartial thinkers. This has been developed in modern philosophy into the idea of Epistemic Justice; see Need help with this paper on epistemic justice

Answer 4

Can't help with Bordieu, but perhaps with Kant. Requisite, a key concept:

Where does a circle exist? In a surface. So,

• Ontological perspective: part of the conditions of possibility of a circle is the existence of a surface.
• Epistemological perspective: part of the conditions of possibility of the knowledge of a circle is the knowledge of a surface.

In the Kantian terminology, the adjective transcendental is used to refer not to the object, but to the (epistemological) conditions of possibility of the object (memorize that! such dialectic pair is essential to understand the term).

When Kant writes about the transcendental idealism, it is not talking about idealism, but about the conditions allowing the possibility of such idealism.

Notice that Kant refers to the transcendental from an epistemologic standpoint (that is, how is it possible the knowledge that grounds such idealism?). But in order to understand the term in a simpler way, I use a different approach in my writings: consider it from an ontological perspective (Kant rejects the ontological perspective, but it's ok for us beginners). In such case, transcendental becomes relative to the context where it exists. So, when we talk about transcendental idealism, we're not talking about idealism, but about the context where such idealism exists (so, phenomena, noumenon, etc.). See? Way more simple.

Now, what is the transcendental subject? It is the subject, in regard of the context allowing the possibility of its existence. So, me, within all the metaphysical conditions that allow me to exist as a rational object. From the Kantian epistemological standpoint, the subject, from the standpoint of the conditions that allow the knowledge of the subject.

Now, knowing such subject, consider the "universal experience of a transcendental subject", which seems trivial (I can be wrong, again, Bordieu is unknown to me).