Lecture of 28 April 1982

Tea -hint research Thu logic of research and the logic ok exposition
What i.s classification!! C’lassifying the classifying subject -
Constructed divisions and real division.s The insult

I have given the course of lectures that I am going to teach over the
next few years the title ‘A course of lectures on general sociology’.
Thi, mipht sound distinctly pretentious If we emphasize the universal
nature of ‘general sociology’ yet extremely modest if we draw atten-
tion to the ‘course’ as a series of lectures. The very notion of teaching
a course. as I would define it in sociological terms, necessarily
implies a modicum of modesty. My aim might best be understood as
a study of my own research. I am obviously not the best-placed
person to lecture on what ] do, beca use there is, it seems to me, a
certain contradiction between teaching and research, between i he
complex and subjective nature of reseafch and rhe simplification
demanded by the very nature of a taught course. Thus what 1
propose to offer will not he a course in the strict sense of the term. yet
it will be a course in the m OEC modest sense or ihe term. In fact. to explain
more cleafly the title that I have chosen. I would call it an axiomatic view
of my own fesearcn, showing the articulation between the fundamental
concepts and the structure of relations thai connects these concepts.
Basically, I have taken the liberty of using the excuse of teaching a
course. in the ordinary social sense of the word. in order to do something
that I would not normally risk undertaking, that is, attempt to present the
major lines of force of my whole research enterprise.
Over the next few years I shall explore a certain number of key
concepts, both ’n terms of their conceptual mechanisms and in terms
of lheir technical function for research. I shall take the notion of a
field, and, on the one hand. situate this notion in relation tn the notion
° Let tur of2R A yril I vb“

of a .material fieid. and, on the other hand. examine the relationship

between the material field a nd the field defi ned s a site of conflict
Then I shall go on to exams ae the relutionshiD between the notion of
field and the notion of /iahi/u.v, which will lead me to i ivestigate wha.
motivates and determines practices: more specifica]ly. I shall
attempt to explain what seems io me to be the logic of action that
emerges from ihe articulation of the notion of field with the notion of
hahitus. And. finally, 1 shall try to show the relations between dift‘erent
types of field and different types of capital. These are only the chapter
headings But I wanted to mention them in order to provide the
framework for my reflections this year on something Ihat seems to me
to be an esseniia 1 precondition for any attempt to esta hlish a theory
i{) t he soc.a1 sci- ences. that is. the relation between the scientific
sublect and his or her objecl. and more precisely lhe relation between
the scieni ific su bject as subjective ntelligence, and the object of his or
her studies. which is a set of subiects in action.
I n order to form mate these questions without heing unneces .arily
theoretical, I propose to examine one of the prriceciures fundamen la1
to a11 the social sciences. the operation of classification. Any social
science ihal needs lo use stalist ica1 analysis, and draw on it in order t
make comparisons between dill’erent constructed cla.,e , is o+liged
to divide i he populations that are its ohjects into classes, a nd I intend
to exdtr.i ne i his procedure by com paring t to what we find in the
natural sciences, for example in biology. zoology or hoia••y, and by
trying t • determine more precisely the relations between the
classifics irons produced Dy sch stars, the conditions t hat led I hem to
produce the-.e classifications, and the classifications that .ocial agents
pui into practice in iheir everyday ives.

Teaching research

I would like t, take advantage of the fact that this 's my iirst lecture in
order to attempt a ccpiaiin Penryn/eniior as classical orators used to
all it to try to justify my approach in advance. ] don t kn ow if the
approach that i propose t• rollow is ordinary or extra‹›rdinary, hul it i.s
the only way that I can operate. Although I readily admit ihat a
iec‹ure is never more lhan a teaching exercise I shall endeavou• to
make r. ’ne a- unlike a taught course as possible. I hope tc› he able to
neutralize the neutralization ffect that reach1 ig almost inevitahly
engenders. for even when called direction of research’, teaching
creates sc mething of a fictlon an arteract’ we work in
a vacuum, or we present the
 Mriure of ’R 4pril 1082 3

results of our research rather than explain our methods of research. I

cannot escd pe the general rule, if only because of the structure or th»
space wilhin which I am speaking, and the diversity of my «udience.
But as far as I can, within the limits of the freedom allowed to me as
a social agent. I would like to neutralize these effects by anticipating
them in two ways: on the one hand, by drawing on concrete
examples, lhal is, my experience as a scholar and the research that I
am engaged in, or on social experiences directly accessible to the
majority of my audicnc and on the other hand, by counting on the co
nplicity of my audience: I shall or course be obliged to conduct a
monologue this is the very I ogic of our situation here bul I would
like to enco uf age a form of dialogue, for exam pie by way of quest ions
put to me eit her orally at the end of a lecture or n writing at the start of
the next lecture, so t hat I can wherever possible clear u p misundersla
ndings and reply lo objections or questions - or say that I am unable to
answer the ques- t ion, which will no doubl often be the case. This is
not a mere rhetori-
‹-»l flourish ; I rea fly would welcome a ny kind of iced back, whether !n
conversation at lhe end of the lecture if yo u feel so bold, or in the form
of wrilteii notes for ih ose less brave.
This concern to avoid following the logic of the taughi course. as tar
as I ca n, will have an impact on the rhetorical style of my discourse.
The paradigm of t he lecture is t he ogrfignrion lect ure, which I have
analysed elsewhere in sociological terms, and which I wish to avoid. '
I t is an exercise fle*ipned to be impregnable; the prtifessor who
delivers it is qu ite unassa ilahle. Engaging in research is quite the
contrary. for rather than iakinp every possible preca ui ion, it ifflplies
lay inp onesel bare with all one’s weak points and insecure argumen ts;
since scientific
progress by defi n i{ ion requires us io lower our guard and prepare to
he criticised. Break ag wit h French-style teaching will lead me to use
a different mode of expression, sometimes hesitant o pedest rian, one
that experts in French rhetoric might call labo riou> , Ionp-winded’, or
cumbersome’. I shall nor hesitate to he pedestrian when the situation
calls for it, although 1 shall not do so on purpose. French-•lyle teach-
in r insists so nuch on wit, elegance distinction a nd lightness of touch
that i' accustoms its audience to be satisfied with arguments that gloss
over Ihe Iml h particularly sociai trul hs, as lv ng as it produces a cosy
feeling of shared ir ielligence and equal intellect: hoth speaker and list
tener enjoy a feeli•g of mutual understanding and both feel ›hat they
are colleagues collaborating in a significant into 'lectua 1 event.
In scholarl y research. as I understand if we have to be prepared
quite often to feel foolish. ’ncapahle. idiotic even (1 shall return t‹ the
WOfd idiotic wh Fch has considerable •ocial importancel The b‹ i
4 Let ture oL28 A yril 1982

kind of philosophy teaches us to open ourselves up completely a nd

«dopt a stance of absol ute ignorance. Ma ny theses and treatises hope
to impress by claiming to do this ('I k now that I do not know . 1, but
few scholars actually put this into practice. In sociology this virtue nf
ignorance, this 'learned ignorance’. as Nicholas of ( !usa called it, is
especially important if we wish io investigate the most basic topics. as
I shall do today, in questioning for instance the notion of law, of the
right and i he just (what is t he law’? what do we mean when we refer to
someone as doing something ‘in the name of the law’?), and the
notion of nomination (what does t he word ‘nomination’ mean in the
kind of sentence that we read casually every day. b ut which ought to
ma ke us stop and think, such as 'the President of the Republic has
nominated one of his friends Director of the Banque de France’ 1.
This laborious process of argumentation the very antithesis of the
elegant style as defined by classical and scholarly tradition will
sometimes be thrust upon me, b ut will almost always he intentional, a
nd since I am in a position of authority here. will have to be accepted
by my audience.
In the material ihat I am about to discuss, I freel y admil that my
conclusions are only pri ivisio nal, some more, some less; however,
they seem to me to matter less than a certain manner of thin kinp.
I shall invoke the example of a book by Benveniste. Did tionary of’
indd -European C excepts nnâ Son ter y, which was the end product of
several years of lectures at the Collége de France. and for me is the
epitome of everything that this institution does best. Of course, I find
this book admirable for the conclusions it reaches. but also for the
mode of thinking it uses Yo u ca n read i t in a ny order, or even st ari
at the end: for the structure of the book does not reflect the sequence
of lhe lectures; the order is unimportant, but in eacn of its
rragmenls we find the same mod us operandi at work, Once this has
been assimi- lated by the reader, it becomes a tool which they can
then apply to object› of study that Benveniste unfor iunately did
not address. and continue the book themselves. The goal of the ideal
course of lectures is. I thin k, to successfully transmit what we tend
commonly to call a method (although we overwork i his word so much i
hat we tend to forge' what it signifies: it is not a dogma or a thesis
there was a time when philosophers promulgated theses, but that is
not my style . . .). My aim is to articulate modes or styles of’ thinking
that we may otherwise assimilate wilhoul being consciously a ware of
the process, by taking you through the simple experience of seeing
them at work. with all their imperfections. You see the strategy
underlying my argument: 1 am asking you to accept n advance all the
fiaws in my argumen , a nd even believe thai they are inlentionai which
will cer-
 Zrciore of 28 April 1982

tainly not always be the case. If ] had wished to follow a fashionable

line of argument for anything can be argued in an ethereal, or let ‹is
say 'Parisian way I could have held forth at length on the notion of
the ski ch. I would have said that I am going to draw sketches, I am
gcing to be sketchy , and so on. However, I shall nor structure things
in t his way, because ihis would dematerialize something that is unde-
niably real and true.
I propnse to close ifiis preamble with one last remark. I intend to
approach one of the most fundamental exercises of research, that is,
nomination or classification, but I shall do so in r rder to find a ro unda-
bout way of attacking a fundamental problem for sociologists, that
of social class. There is a pedagogical contradiction here. hut for my
demonstration to function properly, you will have t • try to orget my
underly inp intention (which is to attempt. in your company. to solve
ihe problem of social classification), and yet at the same time
recognize my hidden agenda, so ihal you understand what it is I am
look ing for. In fact, I would like to encourage you to practise ignorance
and engage in learning ai one and the same time.
There are numerous treatises on the social classes, and if any among
ynu are disappninted with my teaching, I can offer some excellent
bihl iographies on the problem. What we are lacking, it seems to me, is
research thai aims, if not to solve the problem, as people rather
preten- tiously claim to do, at least to reformulate it, so that ai the
end of the day we are no longer certain of what we thought we knew
at the outset. If I may invoke another late, great master, ii has to be
Wittgensi •in: we need this type of I hinker, who makes us unlearn
everything that we knt•w or think we know, and who makes us realize,
when confronted with an issue like that of social class. that we know
nothing. or very little, although any sociologist worths of ihe name is
capable of deliv- e•• rig a dazzling course or’ lectures on the social
classes.‘
Here we might call for a sociological analysis of the part played in
the intellectual education of all intellectuals by the required
initiation, however diverse in depth, commitment or passion, into
M arxism. In fact we need a sociology of knowledge to enable us to
siudy the impression we may have in our t wenties that we know
perfectly well how io think about what there is to know on ihe
subject of social class: this is a collective experience snared by a1
most everyone, a nd is so completely inst itut iona lized that it renders
i’ormidably difficult
,omething that should be routine, ihat is, to approach the issue of
classes in general virtually from scratch. and reconsider what it means
to classify. What is the relation between a socia. class and a biological
or botanical class’!
6 Lee ture of’.*.8 April 19S.“

The logic of research end the logic of exposition

These are the rather sit. iplistic questions thai I shall address in t his
first lecture. 1 n order to present the most persuasive and convi cing
picture, I shall progress from the more obvious to the more
unexpected. I shall today merely try .o put the questions, although I
obviously have to
admit that this is a slightly artificial procedure, in sqo far I have only
been able to formulate some of these questions after the event, that
is, after due reflection and analysis. One of the difhculties in
transmitting scientific knowledge is precisely the fact that, for the
purposes of com- munication, we are often obliged to describe things in
a sequence thal was not the sequence of their discovery. All
epistemologists agree that the logic of research and the logic of a
narrative exposition of research are completely diflerent. but the logic
of exposition has its own impetus and imperatives that create a kind of
discourse on research which has very little to do with what really
happens in the process of research. I myself, when engaged in this
kind of work The Craft of Soniology I,
have had to mark out separate stages Ifor instance: ‘you have to gain
control of the object, and then construct it’), which never occur in thal
guise in practice. Similarly, we are frequently unahle to formulate
clearly the problems we have been addressing until we have found the
answers: the answers help us to rephrase the question more accurately,
and, in so doing, to refocus the debate. This dilemma is the perfect ill
usmat ion of what 1 wa saying jus now: my course of lectures will be a
compro misc between ‹.he reality of research (it might occur to me to
wonder : Well, what does naming actually imply, what is a
nomination?’) a nd the requirements of my exposition, which will
lead me to elaborate as a series of problems sor iething that did not
proceed in that sequence a all.

To put it briefly, I shall focus today on the *ollowing questions: ‘What

does classification imply' What does classification imply when it con-
cerns the social world?’ 4 logician may find a solution to the prohlem
of classification in general; and the biological systems of zoology or
botany solve it very well, even in a way that can indeed be very useful
for us as sociologists, by making us realize that things are not so simple
in i he social sciences.6 For when we come to consider the social world,
classification in fact classifies subjects who classify in their turn; it
classifies objects that have the property of being classir,ing subjects.
We must therefore call into question the classifications that are made
 Lennie of 28 April /982

by the social subject. Do these resemble botanical or zoological clas-

sifications, or another kind of classification? Do all classifications have
the same import? JYou will very soon appreciate how far a
problematic constructed after the event is actually a fiction, because it
necessarily contains its own answer. I I is very difficult to put a question
without giving the answer and proving that the question and answer
had not been constructed in that order, otherwise, by definition,
there would have been no research. or it wnuld be too goud to be true.)
The question of classification, as ii is treated in sociology, obliges
us to ask who does the classifying in this social world. Does everyone
classify? Do we classify all tbe time7 How do we classify? Do we clas-
sify in the same way as a logician does in using concepts or definitions
as the basis of a classification? And then, if everyone classifies, do all
these classifications and all their classifiers along with them have the
same social weight? To take some examples from very different con-
texts, does an official at the INSEE (National Institute of Statistics and
Economic Studies) who uses a scholarly or semi-scholarly taxonomy to
classify, have the same status as an inspector of taxes who says:
‘Above this particular band of income, you will pay ihis particular rate
of tax’7 Are the classifications used by sociologists. when they
construct the category of agents who have such and such a property,
commensu- rate wilh the classifications imposed by the preacher in
distinguishing hetween heretics and true believers?
If we start by asking whether all classifications have the same
social import. we are led to ask a very difficult question: are all acts
of classifi- cation equally prone to be self-validating? Politicians, for
instance, are able to formulate arguments about the social world which
seem highly likely to be t rue, since they invest t hem with a kind of self-
validating authority. We can plot social classifications from the entirely
gra- tuitous (1 shall return to this point. using the example of the
insult) to those which, as the saying goes, lay down the law.
Now, whal is there in common between the classifications made by
the sociologist or the historian (by any social scient ist, in fact) and
tho.se made hy the botanist. for example? I shall speak of botanical
classification in very basic terms, because it is not my profession and it
is not the direct ohject of my research. I refer to it, as I said just now,
only to shed light on what is specific to sociological classification.
llotanists establish classes based on criteria that, in their own terms,
may be more or less natural or artificial. Botany and zoology distin-
guish between two major branches of classification, and this is a useful
distinction for a sociologist — the artificial, which they call systems, and
the nat ural, which they call methods.
 Lecture of 28 April 1982

The classification that they call artificial takes as criterion a

charac- teristic chosen either arbitrarily, or according to a
deliberately decided purpose, with the principle of the choice being
facility or rapidity in determining a species. As ihe ideal is to classify
as rapidly as possible, they take a visible characteristic, an external
property, such as the colour of ihe eyes. If they rake a deeper
criterion, like the level of urea in the blood. classification is much
less straightforward.
Natural classification, however, draws. not on some more or less
arbitrary, convenient criterion, but on a whole set of criteria. It takes
as criteria all ihe organs considered in the order or th<ir real impor-
tance for the organism. Natural classifications take into account
several elementary characteristics: for instance, st ruci ure, form, mor-
phology, anatomy, function. physiology and ethology. And the most
natural classifications are thrise which ma nage to take into aces unt the
correlations between the different criteria chosen.
Thus, on ihe basis of this ensemble of criteria with a strong
correla- tion among themselves, they establish classes which they
call ’natural’ (the word ‘nat ural’ is treacherous and will present
problems for sociol- ogy): these classes are grounded in the nature of
things, or, as they said in the Middle Ages, rum f‹ nHamrntn in re (‘with a
basis in the things themselves’ J. All the elements of a class established
in ihis way will bear more resemblance to each other than to the
elements of any other class, and a natural classification will be a search
for sets of character- is iics responsible for the greatest possible
proportion of the varia nts observed. One of the problems for
classifiers is therefore to find what they call the ‘essential
characteristics’, that is the most powerful dis- tinctive traits, so that
the important properties may all in some way be deduced from this
interrelated sei or criteria. A certain type of system may be used,
drawing on methods of factor analysis and correspond- ence
analysis, in order to try to produce classifications thai combine the
universe of pertinent criteria with the reciprocal relations heiween
these criteria. This summary will seem very cursory to the
cognoscenti, but I believe that il is sufficient to explain my
comparison of ihe social sciences with the nai ural sciences.

Classifying the eta.ssifying subject

To a certain extent, we could take everything that has just been said
and apply it to sociology. The sociologist, like the botanist, seeks to
identify criteria sufficiently correlated amo ng I hemselves lo make
it possible, when there are enough criteria, to try to assimilate and
10 Lec'iure oL2R April 1982

older, and he wonder id what would happen it a father was traveHi g

on the birthday of his child: should t he father press the alarm button to
declare that his child is now over three, and ask to pay supplement?'
Comedians are the allies of the sociologist because they ask
questions that our everyday routines lead us to forget.) In all the cases
where there is a continuum, legal taxonomies and classifications draw
clear lines: below/above, masculine/feminine. The law decides and
divides, utting across the continuum.

Constructed divisions and real divisions

When sociologists fail to question the relation to reality of the clas-

sifications i hey use or the juridical standing of 'heir criteria. they
inevitably confuse two kinds of classes. Mo«t oL the sociologist’s
typologies’ are the result of some such confusion, which I consider to
be an epistemological monst rosity. I remember for instance a piece of
research on academics which confused formal oppositions of ihe k ind
cosmopolitan/local’ with oppositions grounded in rea lity and linked to
rea1 divisions (such as ‘ter sociologist ’, which establishes an opposi-
tion between ‘ilineran i professor and ‘stay-at-home professor’). In
other words, these typologies often conflate constructed divisions wit h
Jivisio us taken from reality. I remember how, at the t ime of t he first
American irn Stations of st rucl ural a nthropology. Lévi-Stra uss com-
mented on an a rt icle by an ethnologist which t reated i ippositi us ta
ken from t he rr'ality of mythology or rit u 1 (‘ wetfdry’ < tc ) on the
same level as very complex oppositions twhich I would have found it
difhcu !i to invent myself, such as pure/impure’. for example), thai have
a com- pletely different level of construction and elahoraiion. In
sociology. if we do n ot question the ‘on ical ogical’ stat us of the
classifications we use, we will be led to put in the same basket
principles of division whim h do not have the same standi g in reality
at all
To return to the comparison wit h hiological classihcation, I sho uld
say that the sociologist enco uniers lhings’. whet her individua is or
inst it uiions, that are al ready classified. Por instance, if you classify
university professtirs by instil u1ion. yo u have to be prepa red to
catego- rize the universities •hemselves, and the more prestigious
institutes as well. In general, one of the method s we can use to
handle these las- sifications is to trace their
history when did they emerge. or when were they created“ A re they
a recent >ureaucratic or techn ocratic invention* Do they have
different kinds or history? Whether people or instii tions, the objects of
sociological study present themselves as already
 I. rrlure nd R 4 pril 19R? 1I

classified. They hear names and tit let that signal t heir membership of
certain classes a nd give us an idea of how we classify in everyday life.
If what the sociologist encounters comes in already classified form, it
is because classifying suhjects are :nvolved.
In everyday life, an institution (or an ndividual) never presents ilself
as a tb 'rig it never presents itself purely in itself and for itself but
always as something endowed with qualities, aiways already quali-
fied. For example a person who acts as we say in viri ue of ollice’ ( I
shall ret urn tri this expression which seems to me to contain a pro-
, ound social philosophy), whether professor. preacher or civil servant,
presents themselves as endowed with social properties and qualities
which may be underlined by all sorts of signs t hat identify what kind
of sricia 1 agent i hey are. such as formal dre•,. insignia. decorat ions,
epaulettes. and so on. These signs or insignia may also be incorpoi ated
and therefore virtually invisible, such as distinguished benaviour, sty-
listic verve and eloquence. or received pronunciation. This is extremely
inn no riant. incorporated qualities are at most invisible, almost natural
and that would bring us back to natural classification ). They provide
us wilh a nasis for social interprets tion. I am anticipating the answers
here somewhat, altho ugh I intended only to put the ques i ions. hut it 's
o bvio us that social life is only possible hecause we constantly classify,
I hat is to say we cons antly ma ke assujjjpf jons about ihe class (and
not only in ltte sense of soc‹al class) into which we have classified the
person we have io deal with. As ihe sayinp goes. 'you have to know
who you are deali g with’. These properties may be even more invis-
i oIe if hazy are I ‹heated outslde the person who bears them: they may
be found in a situation connect ing two people in their relationship, as
is th case with signs of respect The term respect’ • nvolves the notio n ‹if
perception, for t he properties that form t he basis of classifications are
properties t hat strike the eye and demand to be seen in a certain 'ish t
a nd 1 n so doing. demand the appropriate behaviour in return.
In everyday life, social individua 1s classify Y ou have to classify to
live. a nd. to parody Bcrgson ’s saying t hot it is grass in general which
attracts the herhivorous anima 1’ " we migh t say that whai the •ocia 1
ublect most usually encounters is other people in general In other
words, we have to deal wiih social individuals. that is particular
named ndividuals (iak ‹rig the word ‘named’ in its widesl sense, to
include nominated as in the Presiden i of i he R epu*lic has nomi-
nated who are designated and indeed constituted hy a name
thai n t only designates t hem. bui makes them hecome what they are.
I sha i! return t‹ t his polnt.
To hel p ) on understand i his, I shall use the insiph t provided *y the
12 Mciure »y›B April 198?

anaingy of attribution’. When a work is iudged as ‘attributed to’, the

word ‘attributed’ has a very specific meaning in ari history: it is the
fact o* giving a name to a picture and its painter. Everyone knows
that, depending on the painter to whom a picture is attributed. our
percep- tion of lhe work changes, and with it, our subjective
appreciation. as well as its objective value in terms of a quantifiable
marker price. The collectors or professional art historians who are
ahle to change the attribution of a third-rate dutch painting exercise
a remarkable p wer cf classification which has important social
consequences. Some of the lassincations that we find at work ’n the
social world are of the same nature. For instance, the nominations of
officials by the government are binding executive acts, which have
the force of law and entail all sorts of palpable consequences:
enhanced respect. salary. pension, con- tributions and other benefits
all sorts of social benefits in the widest sense of the term. The
classifications that we handle in lhe social world. which are the
qualities thai the sociologist encounters in the shape of properties
given in advance. are therefore denominations which in a sense
generate the properties of the object they nominate and create its
status.

The insult

In order to illustrate this first theme, I propose .o refer briefly to an

article that has just been republished in a book by Nicolas R uwet:
Crrarnmaire dev insultes ct outres ctuJes.’ 4 In fact I sha11 be ask ing i
he same questions again but from a different angle l with i he ulterior
molive of showing to what extent the boundaries between disciplines
are artificial, what I am about to say will expose the vacuity of certain
divisions t hat people are ready to die for, divisions between sociology.
pragmatics, the sociology of language, linguistic . .).
In this a•ticie Nicolas Ruwei replies to a text by Milner dealiiig
with insults ” and wnat he ca11s ’qualifying nouns’. These qualifying
nouns are typically what A ristotelian logic would have called
curegurcmi. Categorem comes from kateporeisthai, which,
etymolopically, means to publicly accuse’:" that is, quite clearly to
insult A category. » cat- egorem, is a public accusation. The word
'public’ is crucial: it means unashamed’, ’daring to siale its name’ as
opposed lo denunciations that are ashamed to show their face. The
cateporem, then, is a public accusation that takes the risk of beinp
acknowledged. or rejected. R uwet notes n passing that when 1
call someone an ‘idiot’, I take t he responsibility for Ihis upon myself,
w hereas when I call someone
 Lecture of2R April 1 98? 13

professor’, I am not taking much of a risk (alth‹ ugh it is t rue that i. a

left-wing intellectual says ‘you are only a professor’. I hat may be taken
as an insult ). As a result, ‘qualifying nouns’ differ semantically from
common nouns like ‘gendarmes’ or ’teachers" by ihe fact that they do
not classify. R uwet goes on lo say that teachers’ and ‘gendarmes’ have
a specific virtual reference , they refer to a class ‘whose members are
recognizable by certain common objective characteristics”’.'
To be hrief: the census las an inventory of ihe population) attracts
a consensus; everyone agrees to thin k of a gendarme as a gendarme.
whereas not evervone would agree to label as idioi the person that
I call an idio . unless end this is what the linguist forgets I have
lhe authority to say that other people are idiots. if I am a teacher for
instance luughfer), in which case it has obvious social consequences.
(I said a teacher to tease, but we could say a psychiatrist . and that
wo uId be far worse . .). R uwet rejeC is Milner’s distinction between
‘qualifying nouns and, shall we say, names of professions. He argues i
hat this is no1 a lexical difference and that on a semantic level we could
dispense with Milner’s analyses. I let the linguistic deha e stand. but I
note the problem presented, which in my opinion is cr ucial. Austin’s
famous tex› on performatives bad » considerable impact on me. ' Ii
woke me a little from the dogmatic slumber in which we sociologists
lie, since, like all h uma n beings, we are dependent on words. We fa il
lo be surprised by anything that the everyday usagc of wo rds routinely
imposes upon us.
Just as Austin revitalized the discussion of speech that claims to
enact (of which the insult 's a particular case), so the debate he tween
Milner and R uwet has the merit of capturi ig the attention of the
soci- ologist, who migh t be tempted to forget ihai the classes he handles
are ultimately categorems, one of which is i he insult. F or example,
when obliged to use certain insulting categorems taken from everyday li
fe, ihe sociologis' uses quotation marks (as does Le blonde when it
quoles statements likely to be perceived as defamatory). Wher the
sociologist encOunters the in›alt as a categorem that engages the
persona I respon- sibility of the speaker, a categorem lack ing an ihority,
he ta kes his distance by plac.rig il between quotation marks; but
when he writes the word teacher’, he will not use quotation marks.
because he k nows thai he speaks for the whole soclal world.
To quote Milnes Thefe is nO Class of "idiots" or "bastards" whose
members w ould be recognisable from shared objective characteristics;
lhe only common property thai we may attribute to them is th'at they
are subjected or some partik.ular occasion to the insult in ques‘ tion.
These speech acts are perfo mative. they perform an insult. What is
14 Lecture of 28 April 1982

most interesting is that the very word ‘idiot’ ,ollows this logic: idiot’
comes from the Greek idfos. which means ‘singular’ The idiot is
someone who insults all and sundry, without heing authorized to do
so. He is liable to be dismissed as an eccentric, condemned to the
abso- lute solitude of someone who has no one to support him.
This is the opposite to a successful performative utterance which
has to be articulated in conditions mandating the speaker to say it,
in which case he has every chance of seeing his utterance tran•laied
into action. In other words. the classifications made by the insulter
are very likely to backfire, with a typical rejoinder like: ‘And the
same to you!’ The insult backfires against the idiot; as a child might
say: ‘it takes one to see one’. In or her words, there are
classifications which are the sole responsibility of the speaker
which are published at the authors expense, as it were. If this author
is a prophetic author who has uuctnritu.s, who is the author of his
own authority, his classification may impose itself, hut apart from
this case. any act of imposition of meaning that is authorized only by
the singular subject who proffer it is bound to appear idiotic. I
propose to show next time how the logic of the insult and the logic of
sclentific classification represent the two extreme poles of what a
classification may he in the social world.