Mauss’s habitus names an embodied capacity exceeding physical ability

Evidence

One might say that Oedipus’ actions on discovering what he has done (beginning with “self-punishment”) arise from virtues that depend on what Marcel Mauss called habitus—an embodied capacity that is more than physical ability in that it also includes cultivated sensibilities and passions, an orchestration of the senses. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 463

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the pre-Bourdieu Maussian sense of habitus as orchestrated sensibilities.