Habit as a Grindstone of Phenomenology

Abstract

The article deals with the problem of habits and the possibilities of their phenomenological description. It is shown that the problem of habits is the key to phenomenology and sociology as a sciences of taken for granted, everyday world. The need to turn to phenomenological understanding of habit is determined by the fact that this notion was forced out of sociology to conceptual periphery, while phenomenology sustained an interest in habit as a subject of description. Nevertheless, phenomenological approach has a number of limitations due to the understanding of habit as an automatic and non-objectifiable bodily activity. On the basis of analysis of the practice of writing, it is shown that phenomenological understanding of habits should be supplemented by two components: the notion of habit as a way of ordering the external world and the notion of habit as an expanding competence. As a key concept for such a refined understanding of habits the concept of «empirical style» introduced by Husserl is proposed.