Charles Taylor describes a social imaginary as a repertory of practices that a people use to make sense of their social world. This sounds like what Pierre Bourdieu means by a habitus. I think Taylor is contrasting a social imaginary, which ordinary people hold and act on, with a social theory, which intellectuals use to evaluate the world. Bourdieu contrasts a habitus with, among other things, a social structure imagined as a permanent thing, rather than a practice that people enact.
I think Taylor and Bourdieu start from different points, but converge on something quite similar - and quite useful in understanding how society is actually lived and made.
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"a social theory, which intellectuals use to evaluate the world"
i read that as evade, not what was written, evaluate.
i think sometimes intellectuals use social theory to evade the world, too.
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