Editing Sociology of knowledge (section)

===Phenomenological sociology===

[[Phenomenological sociology]] is the study of the formal structures of concrete social existence as made available in and through the analytical description of acts of intentional consciousness. The "object" of such an analysis is the meaningful lived world of everyday life: the "Lebenswelt", or [[life-world]] (Husserl:1889). The task, like that of every other phenomenological investigation, is to describe the formal structures of this object of investigation in subjective terms, as an object-constituted-in-and-for-consciousness (Gurwitsch:1964). The utilization of phenomenological methods is what makes such a description different from the "naive" subjective descriptions of the man in the street, or those of the traditional, positivist social scientist.

The leading proponent of phenomenological sociology was [[Alfred Schutz|Alfred Schütz]] (1899–1959). Schütz sought to provide a critical philosophical foundation for the interpretive sociology of [[Max Weber]] (1864-1920) through the use of phenomenological methods derived from the transcendental phenomenological investigations of [[Edmund Husserl]] (1859–1938). Husserl's work aimed at establishing the formal structures of intentional [[consciousness]]. Schütz's work was directed at establishing the formal structures of the Life-world (Schütz:1980). Husserl's work was conducted as a transcendental phenomenology of consciousness. Schütz's work was conducted as a mundane phenomenology of the Life-world (Natanson:1974). The difference in their research projects lies in the level of analysis, the objects taken as topics of study, and the type of phenomenological reduction that is employed for the purposes of analysis. Ultimately, the two projects should{{or|date=July 2024}} be seen as complementary, with the structures of the latter dependent on the structures of the former. That is, valid phenomenological descriptions of the formal structures of the Life-world should be wholly consistent with the descriptions of the formal structures of intentional consciousness. It is from the latter that the former derives its validity and [[truth value]] (Sokolowski:2000).

The phenomenological tie-in with the sociology of knowledge stems from two key historical sources for [[Mannheim]]'s analysis: 
# Mannheim was dependent on insights derived from Husserl's phenomenological investigations, especially the theory of meaning as found in [[Logical Investigations (Husserl) | Husserl's ''Logical Investigations'']] of 1900/1901 (Husserl:2000), in the formulation of his central methodological work: "On The Interpretation of Weltanschauung" (Mannheim:1993:see fn41 & fn43) – this essay forms the centerpiece for Mannheim's method of historical understanding and is central to his conception of the sociology of knowledge as a research program.
# The concept of "Weltanschauung" employed by Mannheim has its origins in the hermeneutic philosophy of [[Wilhelm Dilthey]] (1833-1911), who relied on Husserl's theory of meaning (above) for his methodological specification of the interpretive act (Mannheim: 1993: see fn38).

It is also noteworthy that Husserl's analysis of the formal structures of consciousness, and Schütz's analysis of the formal structures of the Life-world are specifically intended to establish the foundations in consciousness for the understanding and interpretation of a social world that is subject to cultural and historical change. The phenomenological position is that although the [[facticity]] of the social world may be culturally and historically relative, the formal structures of consciousness, and the processes by which we come to know and understand this facticity are not. That is, the understanding of any actual social world is unavoidably dependent on understanding the structures and processes of consciousness that found, and constitute, any possible social world.

Alternatively, if the facticity of the social world ''and'' the structures of consciousness prove to be culturally and historically relative, then we are at an impasse in regard to any meaningful scientific understanding of the social world that is not subjective (as opposed to being objective and grounded in nature [positivism], or inter-subjective and grounded in the structures of consciousness [phenomenology]), and relative to the cultural and idealization formations of particular concrete individuals living in a particular socio-historical group.