Bourdieu, Giddens and Foucault Through the Metric/Nonmetric Distinction

TLDR: The metric/nonmetric distinction not only provides a solution to the problem of structure and agency (diagnosed as case of forced perspective) but also help in bringing a renewed unity in the field of sociological theory.

Abstract: The metric/nonmetric distinction not only provides a solution to the problem of structure and agency (diagnosed as case of forced perspective) but also help in bringing a renewed unity in the field of sociological theory. This chapter uses the distinction to organize the ideas of Pierre Bourdieu, Anthony Giddens and Michel Foucault along a single continuum. Bourdieu’s concepts (field, habitus, capital, practice) illuminate the nonmetric aspects of social reality while missing the metric ones. Giddens offers the opposite image: his structuration theory sheds light on the metric aspects of social reality (notably through the concept of time-space distanciation), but leaves the nonmetric aspects in the dark. Foucault falls in-between the two: his analysis of power mixes nonmetric elements with metric ones, although he fails to formulate the relation between them in the form of one distinction.