Agitating the Powers of Habit: Towards a Volatile Politics of Thought

Abstract

This paper capitalizes on the resurgence of interest in habit within social and political theory as a key concept of our time, following the recent translation and uptake of the work of Félix Ravaisson, to push our understandings of the irreducible vitality and vulnerability of bodies. It seeks to intervene within debates on the habit-body by challenging the way in which the transitions that habit gives rise to are conceptualized. Many theorizations of the habit-body have tended to stress its ever-evolving, adaptive, affective capacities for subtle alteration and gradual, incremental change. However I argue that this lends itself to an image of the habit-body that prioritizes coherence, calc..