The Matter of Habit

Abstract

This article is a historical investigation of the concept of habit in sociology. Beginning with the claim that historians of sociology need to look beyond the now-famous ideas that appear in the foreground of the works of the sociological masters, the article examines the neglected idea of habit to document that this concept was long a staple term in the conceptual vocabulary of Western social theorists and that it continued to function as a major background factor in the substantive writings of both Emile Durkheim and Max Weber-a factor that previous scholarship on Durkheim and Weber has almost completely overlooked. It is shown that Durkheim viewed habit not only as a chief determinant of human action in a great variety of areas but also as one of the principal supports for the moral fabric of modern societies. Similarly, habit is found to be significant in Weber's treatment of modern economic and political life, Calvinism and the spirit of capitalism, and the force of traditionalism, which is so central a factor in his framework for comparative-historical analysis. Although the idea of habit was also used extensively in American sociology down to around 1918, in the course of the two decades that followed the concept was purpose fully excised from the conceptual structure of the field. This dramatic change is shown to be a result of the interdisciplinary disputes that surrounded the institutionalization of sociology as an academic.