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81. Schutzian Research: Volume > 5
Joachim Renn, Linda Nell Acts & Events: Alfred Schutz and the Phenomenological Contribution to the Theory of Interaction
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The following article deals with Alfred Schutz’s contribution to the theory of action and interaction by pointing out the possibly most compelling phenomenological starting position, i.e, the decomposition of the unity of an action. The article stresses that Schutz’s methodical interpretive sociology in thissense has always refused the assimilation of action-events to material occurrences. In contrast to empiricist theories of action which wrongly substantialize actionevents by treating them as material events, the phenomenological account gives reason to the assumption that there must be a systematic gap between at least two subjective estimations of the meaning of action. In other words, the introspective analysis of the subjective constitution of meaning means to take the problem of double contingency seriously. Phenomenology, for its temporal and conceptual resolution, seems much more appropriate to reconstruct the complex structures of “presence,” “identity,” and “intersubjectivity” than empiricist accounts. The article proposes in the end the need for an alternative concept of presence:Instead of confusing levels of cooperation with allegedly “objective” synchronicity, phenomenology reminds us to elaborate an alternative concept of simultaneity, i.e, a simultaneity on the level of performativity and tacit knowledge. The latter could be the warrantor for co-reference.
82. Schutzian Research: Volume > 5
Michael D. Barber Introduction
83. Schutzian Research: Volume > 5
Jonathan M. Wender Phenomenological Sociology as an Intellectual Movement
84. Schutzian Research: Volume > 5
Alfred Schutz, Jasmin Schreyer Fragment of a Phenomenology of Rhythm
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The present paper gives an introduction to Schutz’s hereafter first published [“Fragment on the Phenomenology of Rhythm”]. After the editorial remarks the connections to the first part (first published in 1976) are developed along the lines of a nonconceptual substructure of meaning, the problem of passive synthesis,the phenomenological concept of the ideal object, the problem of the unit, and finally the connection of body, mind, and space. The paper closes with a commented summarization of Schutz’s fragment.
85. Schutzian Research: Volume > 5
Matteo Bonotti Integrating Strangers into the Mainstream Society: A Phenomenological Perspective
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In this paper, I argue that participation in face-to-face social groups can make a crucial contribution to the inclusion of strangers into the social life of liberal democratic polities. First, I critically assess Alfred Schutz’s (1964) phenomenological analysis of “The Stranger” within the context of his overall conceptionof the “life-world.” I then argue that linguistic communication can only enable a partial integration of strangers into an alien group. This is due, I claim, to whatSchutz calls the “irreversibility of inner time,” i.e., the meta-structure of temporality which prevents outsiders from fully internalizing the structures of an alienlife-world. Nevertheless, I conclude that strangers can join small groups and associations and, by participating in face-to-face relationships and activities, integrate into the common life of these groups. Thanks to a pre-communicative interaction with the other members of these groups, strangers can grasp those more intangible elements of the groups’ cultural background which cannot be rationalized and communicated through language. Participation in the social activities of face-toface groups provides strangers with a starting point for gradually integrating into the mainstream society.
86. Schutzian Research: Volume > 5
Thomas S. Eberle Regaining Sense-connections after Cerebral Hemorrhage
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This study is a kind of applied phenomenology, or more precisely, of applied phenomenological hermeneutics. I argue that phenomenologists hardly analyze concrete phenomena but prefer to engage in theoretical debates, and therefore I call for more applied studies. The case of a patient who suffered a cerebralhemorrhage is used in order to reconstruct how she slowly regained everyday sense-connexions. The case is very interesting as the patient was rather disoriented when waking up from an artificial coma of several weeks, and it took her many years to fully recover. The goal of this paper is to describe some aspects of this process from a subjective perspective as well as from a participant observer’s viewpoint. The data used for this chapter mainly stem from in-depth qualitative interviews. The structures of the life-world of Alfred Schutz are used to analyze the processes of sense constitution. This proves helpful but the data also suggest a revision of Schutz’s analyses in some respects.
87. Schutzian Research: Volume > 6
Daniela Griselda López Alfred Schutz on Social Order
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The paper aims to analyze the potentiality of Schutzian phenomenology to account for the problem of social order. Firstly, we expose the existence of aninterpretive scheme of Parsonian roots in contemporary social theory that introduces the dualistic dilemma subjective action versus social order in the analysis ofSchutz’s perspective. According to this interpretive scheme, Schutz fails to master the problem of social order. Secondly, and in clear opposition to those interpretations, we show three main contributions which have put forward the argument that it is possible to find in Schutz’s work a theory of social order: Harold Garfinkel’s early writings, the recent Austrian School of Economics’ reception of Schutz and the present-day interpretation in German sociology. In the context of these discussions, our reflections have explored the pragmatic dimension of the order of the life-world based on a phenomenonological constitutive analysis which provides a basis for a comprehensive theory of social order of Schutzian roots.
88. Schutzian Research: Volume > 6
Mercedes Krause Mundo de la vida y tipifi caciones de sentido común en los proces de reproducción social: un análisis empírico sobre familias de clase media en el Área Metropolitana de Buenos Aires
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This paper presents an empirical study that analyzes everyday practices regarding the health care and education of middle class families grounded in aphenomenological perspective. Everyday practices are linked to the system of expectations and goals built around practices, constituting a configurations of meaning that involves both aspects of the Life-World, which is affected by social class and other social determinants that define areas of experiences and opportunities for social interaction. In this sense, we see that social class and gender intersect each other, enabling and limiting horizons of expectations for children, raising specific jurisdictions to males and females. Finally, we reflect on how the constitution of meanings and everyday practices influences the construction of social relations of the educational and health environments.
89. Schutzian Research: Volume > 6
Rosana Déborah Motta, Lionel Lewkow Alfred Schutz y Niklas Luhmann: semánticas, tipos, mundo de la vida e intersubjetividad
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Our aim is to put into consideration the topics of “semantics”, “types”, “lifeworld” and “intersubjectivity” following the social theories of Alfred Schutz and Niklas Luhmann. First of all, and inversely to Luhmann’s perspective which receives the schutzian theory comparing equal types and semantics, we will show that types are inherent to subjectivity. Secondly, and consequently, we state that the social systems theory in the analysis of the “lifeworld”, does not pay attentionto the past character of its constitution. Last, but not least, we will point out that all these aspects are framed in a critique of the phenomenological notion of intersubjectivity, which from the luhmannian point of view, ignores the autonomy of consciousness, as well as the emergent character of the social.
90. Schutzian Research: Volume > 6
María Lucrecia Rovaletti El otro como extranjero
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The individual, as an actor in the social world, relies on “a stock of knowledge at hand” (Schutz). However, he also addresses the cultural and historic forms of validity based on the perspectives of his own interests, reasons and wishes, ambitions, religious and ideological commitments. In this sense, not only does thesocial world constitute the main scene of our actions but also the locus of resistance. These days of highly social complexity and growing cultural interaction mobilize different identification and differentiation processes. In extraordinary situations of change, such as migration for reasons of work or study, or reasons of political or allegedly religious exile, a reformulation of socio-cultural spaces occurs, which is coupled with a rupture of social connections of support and belonging. This refers to a lifestyle under a “transience” status, which may last, in certain cases, all life long. The “place of roots” fails and the subject ends up feeling a stranger even in its own spaces. In this sense, the foreigner’s right (xenos) to hospitality resides precisely in not being considered the absolute other, the barbarian, the savage who is absolutely excluded and heterogeneous, but in being someone whose identity should be guaranteed. Upon answering this requirement, the foreigner undertakes responsibility before the law and before its hosts: the foreigner becomes “a subject of rights”.
91. Schutzian Research: Volume > 6
Hisashi Nasu Transformation of Knowledge and a University “Crisis” in Japan
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This essay aims to interpret Japanese university reform plans in terms of knowledge. For this aim, a history of attempts at university reform after Second World War is described briefly (sec. 2), and the underlying tone of these reform plans is explored by asking why the university had to start attempts at reforming their education and research system, what these plans signify, and what results from them (sec. 3). Then, it is asked where such reform plans lead the Japanese university, and a conclusion is drawn that as regards to knowledge expected to be produced and transmitted in university, the present Japanese university becomes to be a different kind of institution from the university based on the W. von Humboldt’s ideas (sec. 4). This leads attention to A. Schutz’s theory of knowledge, especially his distinction between knowledge and information, his insight into horizonal structure of knowledge as well as his ideas about higher education founded on his theory of knowledge, and why and in which context Schutz’s theory of knowledge is significant for elucidating a university “crisis” in Japan is explicated (sec. 5).
92. Schutzian Research: Volume > 6
Michael M. Hanke The “Well-Informed Citizen” as a Theory of Public Space
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Alfred Schutz’ article on the well-informed citizen can, among others, also be read as a treatise on the information flow in democratic society. To be “well-informed” is a challenge the citizen has to keep up with in order to play his role in civil society, and being well-informed is also to be seen as a preconditionfor a fairly functioning political community. For Jürgen Habermas, it is the free press that guarantees public communication of democratic societies and which isthreatened by the colonisation of the life-world by system constraints following capitalistic logic. The systems nowadays threatening the life-world have additionallybecome digital in nature, questioning the traditional division of public and private, whereby the challenge of the well-informed citizen set up by Schütz hasnot lost any relevance nor contemporary interest. On the basis of Schutz’ framework, these questions are debated in the context of Habermas’ Structural Changeof the Public Sphere, Volker Gerhardt’s theory of the Public Sphere, and Vilém Flusser’s analyses of the new telematic digitalized society.
93. Schutzian Research: Volume > 6
Alexis Emanuel Gros Towards a Moderate Direct Perception Theory: Alfred Schutz’s Phenomenological Theory of Interpersonal Understandingin the Light of the Contemporary Debate on Social Cognition
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In this paper, I intend to show the relevance of Schutz’s account of interpersonal understanding within the context of the contemporary social cognition debate. Currently, the research on the nature of everyday interpersonal understanding is taking place almost exclusively within the field of interdisciplinary cognitive science. Generally speaking, since the mid-nineties the so-called social cognition debate is dominated by two opposed theoretical outlooks which divergeconcerning the ultimate mechanisms responsible for our understanding of Others, namely the theory-theory of mind (TT) and the simulation theory (ST). Yet, in the last couple of years, there is a phenomenological turn taking place in this debate. Thinkers like Zahavi, Gallagher and Overgaard, among others, return to classical phenomenological accounts of empathy—like those of Husserl, Stein, Scheler and Merleau-Ponty—to propose an alternative theoretical outlook on intersubjective understanding, namely the direct perception theory (DPT). However, this recuperation of classical phenomenological approaches to intersubjective comprehension is, to some extent, incomplete. Indeed, DPT supporters tend to neglect the valuable contributions that Schutz made to the study of this problem. This is quite curious, not only because Schutz’s phenomenological theory of interpersonal understanding agrees, to some degree, with the main thesis of the direct perception theory, but also because it contains of insights that may be helpful to formulate a more solid and self-clarified version of it.
94. Schutzian Research: Volume > 6
Michael D. Barber Editor’s Introduction
95. Schutzian Research: Volume > 6
Horacio M. R. Banega Stock of Knowledge as Determined by Class Position: A Marxist Phenomenology ?
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The stock of knowledge at hand is one of the most important concepts of Schutzian social theory. However, it would seem that attempts to consider thestructures of the Life-World have not included social stratification in relation to the stock of knowledge at hand. By analyzing certain data from Argentina’s 2001
96. Schutzian Research: Volume > 6
Simon V. Glynn Alfred Schutz, the Epistemology and Methodology of the Human and Social Sciences, and the Subjective Foundations of Objectivity
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Long debated has been whether or not the “objectivistic” epistemologies, quantitative methods and causal explanations, developed by the natural sciences forthe study of physical objects, their actions and interactions, might also be applied to the study of human subjects, their experiences, actions and social interactions. Pointing out that such supposedly objective approaches would be singularly inappropriate to the study of the significance or meanings, qualitative values and freedom of choice, widely regarded as essential aspects of human subjects, their experiences, actions, and social interactions, and drawing attention, a la Alfred Schutz, to the two meanings of the term “subjective” (i.e. of the subject, and, unverifiable) it is first argued that many of the claims of the natural sciences themselves are “empirically” unverifiable, in the Positivistic sense (i.e. attested to by the evidence of the five senses) of that term. Moreover, and most crucially, it is further argued that the “objectivity” of an experience cannot be empirically established on the basis of its supposed correspondence to some (quasi Noumenal) “objective” world—for, as precisely appearance or experience transcending, the existence of such a world, much less its nature, is clearly empirically unverifiable—and must therefore rest upon inter-subjective coherence, which in turn must, as Schutz has pointed out, depend precisely upon the very subjective experiences which those who would council such an “objective” approach, had ipso facto, sought to avoid as unverifiable. Thus, paradoxically, the criterion of objective verification cannot itself be objectively verified, but rests upon appeals to “subjective” experiences.
97. Schutzian Research: Volume > 7
Roberto J. Walton Historicity in Edmund Husserl and Alfred Schutz: Development of Meaning and Modes of Relevance
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Th is paper attempts to examine history in the framework of Edmund Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology and Alfred Schutz’s constitutive phenomenology of the natural attitude. Significant similarities regarding the analysis of the lifeworld, its historical character, and the levels of this development will be shown in order to highlight the importance of the complementation that can be found in Schutz’s descriptions. Whereas Husserl’s furnishes signifi cant ideas dealing with, so to speak, a longitudinal or horizontal plane of history that involves the successive moments of establishment, sedimentation, and teleological reestablishment of meaning, Schutz’s main contributions concern themselves with, as it were, a transversal or vertical plane that entails the simultaneous systems of thematic, interpretative, and motivational relevance. The intersection of both structures leads to an enrichment of the analysis of history insofar as the types of relevance help to clarify and develop further the moments described by Husserl. Examples taken from the history of philosophy will off er an illustration. Finally, reference is made to the interdependence of moments and relevances in view of the problem of the continuity of history.
98. Schutzian Research: Volume > 7
Neal De Roo Facticity and Transcendence across the Disciplines: Phenomenology and the Promise
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This paper begins from one of the most commonly found questions in phenomenology, “What is Phenomenlogy?”, to argue that phenomenology is a trans-disciplinary approach to engaging with the products of human culture. This approach is characterized by paying particular attention to the distinction between facticity and transcendence within “lived experience” so as to help us better articulate and evaluate the promises that animate every human institution. Such a task necessarily requires inter-disciplinary input and helps us engage in our lives—in our shared cultural life—differently.
99. Schutzian Research: Volume > 7
Michael D. Barber Editor’s Introduction
100. Schutzian Research: Volume > 7
Jonathan Tuckett Levels of Intersubjectivity: Scheler’s “Idea of Man” and Schutz’s Human Prejudice
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One of the key insights of Scheler’s approach to the topic intersubjectivity is to recognise that the problem of intersubjectivity is in fact several problems. In The Nature of Sympathy, Scheler lays out an order of precedence in which these problems need to be addressed. One of his major criticisms against analogical arguments and theories of empathy is that they violate this order. Specifically, they provide accounts of what the Other is thinking (intersubjectivity as achievement), but treat this as a solution to how we recognise the Other as Other (intersubjectivity as possibility). In responding to Scheler, Schutz takes up this order of precedence but then makes the signifi cantly bolder claim that intersubjectivity as possibility is not problematic and does not require a solution. The purpose of this paper is to show that Schutz’s argument relies on a Husserlian reading of Scheler’s use of “transcendental psychology” and that rather than sidestepping the problem Schutz in fact tacitly presupposes a solution in the form of the human prejudice. Significantly, this solution radically overturns the aims of Scheler’s phenomenology and even that of the broader Phenomenological Movement.