Jump to content
Main menu
Main menu
move to sidebar
hide
Navigation
Main page
Recent changes
Random page
Help about MediaWiki
Special pages
Niidae Wiki
Search
Search
Appearance
Create account
Log in
Personal tools
Create account
Log in
Pages for logged out editors
learn more
Contributions
Talk
Editing
Alfred Schütz
(section)
Page
Discussion
English
Read
Edit
View history
Tools
Tools
move to sidebar
hide
Actions
Read
Edit
View history
General
What links here
Related changes
Page information
Appearance
move to sidebar
hide
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
==Legacy== Schutz's writings have had a lasting impact on the social sciences, both on [[Phenomenological sociology|phenomenological approaches to sociology]] and in [[ethnomethodology]] (through the writings of [[Harold Garfinkel]]). Heavily influenced by Schutz's work as his student, [[Thomas Luckmann]] ultimately finished Schutz's work on the structures of the [[lifeworld]] by filling out his unfinished notes after Schutz died. As noted by Farganis (2011), [[Peter L. Berger]], also a student of Schutz's, was arguably the best-known living sociologist influenced by Schutz, especially through his creation of the [[Social constructionism|social construction]] theory, which explains how the processes of [[Externalization (psychology)|externalization]], [[objectification]], and [[Internalization (sociology)|internalization]] contribute to the social construction of reality.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Farganis|first1=James|title=Readings in Social Theory: The Classical Tradition to Post-Modernism|date=2011|publisher=Mc-Graw Hill|location=New York|page=258}}</ref> Berger and Luckmann went on to use Schutz's work to further understand human culture and reality, through the development of a new form of the [[sociology of knowledge]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Kenneth|first=Allan|title=Explorations in Classical Sociological Theory|year=2010|publisher=Pine Forge Press|pages=29}}</ref> ===Phenomenology=== [[Phenomenology (philosophy)|Phenomenology]] is the study of things as they appear (i.e., ''[[Phenomenon|phenomena]]''). It is also often said to be descriptive rather than explanatory: a central task of phenomenology is to provide a "clear, undistorted description of the ways things appear."<ref>{{cite web|last=Smith|first=Joel|title=Phenomenology|url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/phenom/|access-date=4 October 2012|publisher=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy}}</ref> Phenomenology originated with [[Edmund Husserl]], who Schutz studied and even met. There are many assumptions behind phenomenology that help explain its creation. First, it rejects the concept of objective research: phenomenologists would rather group presumptions through a process called ''[[phenomenological epoche]]''. Second, phenomenology believes that analyzing the daily human behavior will provide one with a comprehensive understanding of nature. The third assumption is that persons, not individuals, should be explored and questioned. Sociologically speaking, this is in part because persons can be better understood by the unique ways they reflect and symbolize the society they live in. Fourth, phenomenologists prefer to gather ''capta'', or ''conscious experience'', rather than traditional data. Finally, phenomenology is considered to be oriented on discovery, and therefore phenomenologists gather research using methods that are far less restricting than in other sciences.<ref name="In S. Littlejohn, & K. Foss (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Communication Theory">{{cite book|last=Orbe|first=Mark P.|title=Phenomenology|year=2009|publisher=Thousand Oaks|location=CA|page=(pp. 750–752)}}</ref> ===Social phenomenology=== Social phenomenology is concerned with how people use ordinary, everyday interactions to produce a feeling of reality and intersubjectivity. Most of Schutz's work concerned the methods used for the construction of reality through everyday experiences.<ref>{{Cite book|title=50 Key Sociologists: The Formative Theorists|last=Scott|first=John}}</ref> The social construction of reality and [[ethnomethodology]] are disciplinary extensions beyond the social phenomenology of Alfred Schutz.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Interaction in Everyday Life: Phenomenology and Ethnomethodological Essays in Honor of George Psathas|publisher=Lexington Books|year=2012|isbn=978-0-7391-7644-3|editor-last=Nasu|editor-first=Hisashi|location=Lanham, Maryland|editor2-last=Waksler|editor2-first=Frances C.}}</ref> As noted by Farganis (2011), [[Phenomenology (sociology)|phenomenological sociology]] is characterized as particularly subjective in nature because its emphasis of understanding reality through the perspective of the acting subject rather than through the lens of the scientific observer.<ref name="McGraw-Hill">{{cite book|last1=Farganis|first1=James|title=Readings In Social Theory: The Classic Tradition to Post-Modernism|date=2011|publisher=McGraw-Hill|location=New York City|isbn=978-0-07-811155-6|pages=257|edition=6th}}</ref> Rather than attempting to uncover and document the social structures which influence our social world Schutz and other sociological phenomenologists seek not only to identify the content of our consciousness related to our conception of the social reality of everyday life but also, how this reality comes to assume the form it is.<ref name="McGraw-Hill" /> In essence, Schutz and social phenomenologists are principally concerned with the happenings of everyday life, or what Schutz refers to as the ''[[lifeworld]]'', “an [[Intersubjectivity|intersubjective]] world in which people both create social reality and are constrained by the preexisting social and cultural structures created by their predecessors."<ref>{{cite book|last=Ritzer|first=George|title=Sociological Theory|year=2011|publisher=McGraw Hill|location=New York|pages=219}}</ref> Within this world, relationships between the social and natural world are what come into doubt. There is this existence of meaning that comes into play, yet most people simply accept the world how it is and never second guess the concept or problem of meaning. Schutz delves even more into specific relationships such as the difference between intimate face-to-face relationships and distant and impersonal relationships. ====The four divisions of the lifeworld==== Schutz's division of Husserl's ''lebenswelt'' (the mundane '[[lifeworld]]') into four distinct sub-worlds is perhaps his most influential theoretical contribution. The theory of the lifeworld is that social experience creates a world that is separated between:<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|xxvii}} # the social reality that has been directly experienced; and # social reality that is on the horizon of direct experience. The former consists of the ''[[umwelt]]'' ('environment'), the environment defined through the perception and action of agents. The latter refers to an environment of consociates, or fellow-men; of the man who "shares with me a community of space and a community of time."<ref name=":2">Schütz, ''Phenomenology''</ref>{{Rp|163}} In contrast, those who Schutz did not deem his fellow-men, he put them in three classes:<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|xxvii}} # the world of contemporaries (''[[mitwelt]]''); # the world of predecessors (''vorwelt''); and # the world of successors (''folgewelt''). The last two represent the past and the future, whereas one's contemporaries share a community of time, if not space, and are different from the predecessors and successors because it is possible for them to become fellow-men or consociates.<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|xxvii}} Schutz was interested in documenting the transition from direct to indirect experience and the series of experiences in between.<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|177}} He also wanted to map the progressive [[anonymisation]] of the contemporaries (''mitwelt)'', which was a measurement of increasing anonymity of "my absent friend, his brother whom he has described to me, the professor whose books I have read, the postal clerk, the Canadian Parliament, abstract entities like Canada herself, the rules of English grammar, or the basic principles of jurisprudence."<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|xxviii}} Schutz argued that the more one goes into the contemporary world, the more anonymous the contemporary inhabitants become, with the most anonymous being artifacts of any kind that hold meaning, context, and suggest there are unknown people.<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|181}} In his later writings, Schutz explored how everyday social experiences that pertain to these dimensions are most often intertwined in varying degrees of anonymity.<ref>Alfred Schütz, ''The Problem of Social Reality'' (The Hague 1973) p. 352</ref> For instance:<ref>Schütz, ''Social Reality'' p. 352</ref><blockquote>[I]f in a face-to-face relationship with a friend I discuss a magazine article dealing with the attitude of the President and Congress toward China, I am in a relationship not only with the perhaps anonymous contemporary writer of the article but also with the contemporary individual or collective actors on the social scene designated by the terms, 'President', 'Congress', 'China'</blockquote>
Summary:
Please note that all contributions to Niidae Wiki may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here.
You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see
Encyclopedia:Copyrights
for details).
Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)
Search
Search
Editing
Alfred Schütz
(section)
Add topic