This dissertation examines Edmund Husserl's call for a "science of the life-world." It is argued that the most appropriate response is to develop such a science in specifically sociological terms. This argument is made by exploring particular themes in sociological theory and the philosophy of the social sciences. The dissertation begins by explicating Husserl's aspiration to understand the "life-world" and ends with the fulfillment of this aspiration in a "sociology of the life-world." ;The initial (...) focus is upon Husserl's ambiguous concepts of "life-world" and "intersubjectivity." These gain coherence when "intersubjectivity" is understood as the content of "life-world" and subject matter of philosophy. Husserl's argument implies that intersubjectivity should supersede subjectivity as the focus of study. Schutz contends that Husserl's conception of the life-world is artificial and that his philosophy is beset by an insurmountable solipsism. Schutz's alternative is to approach intersubjectivity as an empirical fact. This opens up everyday life to sociological investigation. Although Schutz follows Husserl's recommendations, it is argued that he misconstrues the scope of Husserl's philosophy and, subsequently, his own thought terminates in a reification of method and failure to achieve a science of the life-world. Mead provides a way to remedy this failure by beginning with the relationship between individual and society. Yet Mead's conception of intersubjectivity also fails, as it is undermined by an account of meaning premised on the individual alone. ;By introducing the idea of "universal symbol," however, Mead suggests the study of language as the central topic for a sociology of the life-world. In the final chapters this dissertation draws upon the thought of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Michael Oakeshott, and Harold Garfinkel to discuss how language can be conceived and studied as a set of practices shared within a society. While realizing Husserl's call, the solution of focusing on language raises the question of the scope and nature of sociological inquiry. The dissertation concludes by arguing that sociology, since its procedures are governed by the everyday character of phenomena it studies, should be understood as a descriptive mode of inquiry. In this way, Husserl's recommendations may be enacted in a sociology of the life-world. (shrink)

This paper discusses ethnomethodology's program in relation to the phenomenological life-world analysis of Alfred Schutz. A recent publication of Garfinkel's early writings sheds new light on how he made use of phenomenological reflections in order to create a new sociological approach. Garfinkel used Schutz's life-world analysis as a source of inspiration, called for 'misreading' in the sense of an alternate reading and developed a new, empirical approach to the analysis of social order which he called 'ethnomethodology'. (...) Ethnomethodologists usually acknowledge the historical importance of Schutz but emphasize that Garfinkel succeeded to overcome the limitations of phenomenological analyses and moved beyond. This view has spread above all in the Anglosaxon countries. In German sociology, Schutz's life-world analysis still has a much stronger standing than ethnomethodology and is interpreted as a systematic whole. Following Luckmann, it is discussed as a protosociological foundation of the methodology of social sciences or, following Srubar, as a philosophical anthropology with two poles: a subjective and a social, pragmatic pole. Both versions claim to analyze the meaningful constitution of the social world, to serve as a foundation of sociological methodology and to provide guidelines for an `adequate' sociology. While Garfinkel used phenomenological concepts for sociological analysis, Luckmann clearly distinguishes the two: you either do phenomenology (protosociology) or you do sociology (a theoretically guided, empirical sociology of knowledge). This paper describes the present-day debate in German sociology and compares ethnomethodology's program with these interpretations of Schutz's life-world analysis. (shrink)

The fact that there are different cultures in the world is too obvious for words. COnsidering thus cultural differences in the light of the phenomenological concept of life-world may raise the following questions: Do we live in the same life-world regardless of such cultural differences? Or do we live in different life-worlds because of cultural differences? The first question presupposes a singular life-world, whereas the second question entails a plurality of life-worlds. (...) IN any case, how is the notion of cultural difference related to that of the life-world? Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), the founder of phenomenology seems to conceive the life-world as the bare ground of the natural sciences. THe life-world therefore acquires a universal validity regardless of cultural differences. IN contrast, for Alfred Schutz (1899-1959), who is more concerned with the foundation of human and social sciences than that of natural sciences, the life-world understood as field of praxis with social and cultural characteristics unavoidably assumes cultural differences. Besides critically discussing these two radically diverging positions, the book also discusses what Bernhard Waldenfels sees as a common denominator: the idea of grounding (Grundlegungsidee). BOth Husserl and Schutz develop in their own ways a foundationalist interpretation of the life-world. IN whatever case, the book seeks to overcome any foundationalism whether in the form of universalism or culturalism by suggesting to refocus and inquire into the status of cultural objects. UNiversals are ill-suited for cultural matters. COrrelatively, considering cultural objects from alien cultures requires acknowledging difference with a sense of humility that does not preclude the possibility of understanding. (shrink)

The Structures of the Life-World is the final focus of twenty-seven years of Alfred Schutz's labor, encompassing the fruits of his work between 1932 and his death in 1959. This book represents Schutz's seminal attempt to achieve a comprehensive grasp of the nature of social reality. Here he integrates his theory of relevance with his analysis of social structures. Thomas Luckmann, a former student of Schutz's, completed the manuscript for publication after Schutz's untimely death.

_The Structures of the Life-World _is the final focus of twenty-seven years of Alfred Schutz's labor, encompassing the fruits of his work between 1932 and his death in 1959. This book represents Schutz's seminal attempt to achieve a comprehensive grasp of the nature of social reality. Here he integrates his theory of relevance with his analysis of social structures. Thomas Luckmann, a former student of Schutz's, completed the manuscript for publication after Schutz's untimely death.

Eight essays in honor of political philosopher Fred Dallmays explore issues of subjectivity and inter-subjectivity, elucidating the implications of postmodernism and the phenomenological tradition for contemporary ethics and political theory. The contributors include Dallmays, William E. Connolly, and Jean Bethke Elshtain. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

현대의 환경위기는 단순히 자원이 고갈되고 자연이 오염되는 수준을 넘어 생태계 전체가 파괴되고 모든 생명체가 심각하게 위협을 받는 수준에 들어섰다. 그래서 종(種)의 다양성을 유지하면서 과학기술문명의 지속가능한 발전을 촉진할 수 있는 문화가 형성되어야만 한다. 후설(E. Husserl)의 선험적 현상학, 특히 그가 해명한 ‘생활세계’(life-world)의 구조와 의의는 다음과 같은 점에서 새로운 환경철학으로서 ‘생태-현상학’(eco-phenomenology)의 지평을 명백하게 열어준다. 첫째, ‘주체-객체-상관관계’의 지향적 분석은 인간(주체)과 자연(객체)을 분리하고 자연을 자원으로만 간주하는 편협하고 왜곡된 이원론, 생태계 전체의 밀접한 상관관계를 전혀 파악하지 못한 인간중심적 개체론의 한계를 실질적으로 극복할 수 있기 때문이다. (...) 둘째, 문화와 환경의 부단한 상호작용에 주목한 선험적 현상학은 실증적 과학기술문명에 결코 적대적이 아니라, 객관적 자연과학이 망각한 의미기반이자 정당성의 권리원천인 생활세계를 복원함으로써 참된 실증주의를 완성하려 하기 때문이다. 셋째, 현상학적 방법은 철저한 태도변경이 본질적으로 어떻게 가능한지 그 근거와 과정 그리고 이 태도변경을 반드시 실천해야 할 인간성의 자기책임은 미래세대를 포함한 다른 사람들에게 확장되어야 할 이유를 매우 상세하게 밝혀주고 있기 때문이다. (shrink)

The essay is designed to disclose one aspect of modern Western civilization that has become theground for what is known as “globalization.” The argument is presented that this civilization is premisedon formal systems that are not derivable either from physical or from empirical grounds. Such systemsare constructs and their connection with the environment is technical and productive. Thus the selectionamong the systems to be applied depends on social valuations with respect to their usefulness. Thecurrent global systems of internet communication have (...) no physical presence; they are purely “signitive”in the sense that they have no specific space-time location, although can be embodied at any time andany place. Such systems provide an invisible net that can be utilized to access and communicate messagesabout all events around the globe. The argument that such communication although very fast, takessome time, since the logic of this communication is signitive, a net of meanings that by themselves, asa matter of course define even space and time. It can be stated without a contradiction that theinvisible signitive world is a variant of traditional metaphysics, such as Plato’s understanding ofmathematics, or the world of ideas.Keywords: global, science, logic, signification, value, technology, space-time. (shrink)

How are social relations appearing in computers? How are social relations realised in a different kind of medium, in the hardware and software of computers? How are the organising principles of computer building related to those of the life-worlds in a social system? Following a partly social constructivist and partly hermeneutic line a more general answer will be presented. The basic conclusion of this approach is simple: computers are constructed under the influence of the ideas of modernity and represent (...) its structure, interests and values, in contrast to computer networks, which embody the ideas of postmodernity. (shrink)

This paper will discuss the correlation between the world of everyday life, finite provinces of meaning, and religion. To this end, the paper will start out by explaining Schutz’ considerations on “paramount reality” of the world of everyday life as well as the theory of “multiple realities” and “finite provinces of meaning”. Schutz’ considerations will then be elaborated upon and taken a step further in a discussion of the various ‘realnesses’ of the multiple realities. Special attention (...) will be paid to a finite province of meaning only mentioned in passing by Schutz: religion. The paper will first analyze the special features of religion as a finite province of meaning and highlight the correlation it enters with the world of everyday life. Subsequently, hereafter and paradise conceptions will be described as “ultimate provinces of meaning,” and it will be shown how their realnesses connect to the world of everyday life. Finally, the “fundamental anxiety” will be studied as the motor of the relevance structures of the world of everyday life, the finite provinces of meaning as well as the hereafter conceptions. (shrink)

This article aimed to show the analytical potential of the life-world concept in the field of public health, which has not received much attention in the phenomenological literature. Specifically, based on phenomenologically grounded qualitative research, we aimed to show how the life-world concept, as worked out in Edmund Husserl’s philosophy, can offer new insights on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Although there are many ways in which the life-world can motivate vaccine hesitancy, we have narrowed our (...) focus to one of them. Our aim is to argue that COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is motivated by discrepancies and conflicts between the perceptual life-world and the scientific knowledge. If the scientific knowledge about the pandemic and the vaccine is not integrated in the life-world—which in its core is an embodied, perceptual world—and instead conflicts with it, people are more likely to become disinclined to get vaccinated rather than motivated to pursue vaccination. We conclude the discussion by outlining ideas on how the insights offered by our analysis could be potentially used in devising management and communication strategies in public health crises, such as a pandemic outbreak. (shrink)

This Alfred Schutz Memorial Lecture discusses the relationship between the phenomenological life-world analysis and the methodology of the social sciences, which was the central motive of Schutz’s work. I have set two major goals in this lecture. The first is to scrutinize the postulate of adequacy, as this postulate is the most crucial of Schutz’s methodological postulates. Max Weber devised the postulate ‘adequacy of meaning’ in analogy to the postulate of ‘causal adequacy’ (a concept used in jurisprudence) and (...) regarded both as complementary and, in the context of sociological analysis, critical. Schutz extracted the two postulates from the Neokantian epistemology, dismissed the concept of causality, and reduced Weber’s two postulates of adequacy into one, namely, the adequacy of meaning. I discuss the benefits and shortcomings of this reduction. A major problem, in my view, is that Schutz’s reformulation lost the empirical concern that was inherent in Weber’s ‘causal adequacy’. As a result, the models of economics (which shaped Schutz’s conception of social science) are considered to be adequate if they are ‘understandable’ to an everyday actor, even when they are based on the most unrealistic assumptions. To recapture Weber’s empirical orientation I recommend a more restrictive interpretation of the postulate of adequacy that links it to qualitative research and unfolds the critical potential of Schutz’s phenomenological life-world analysis. My second goal is to report on some current developments in German sociology in which a number of approaches explicitly refer to Schutz’s analysis of the life-world and attempt to pursue ‘adequate’ empirical research. This lecture focuses on three approaches: ethnophenomenology, life-world analytic ethnography, and social scientific hermeneutics. (shrink)

Insight, by F. H. Parker.--Why be uncritical about the life-world? By H. B. Veatch.--Homage to Saint Anselm, by R. Jordan.--Art and philosophy, by J. M. Anderson.--The phenomenon of world, by R. R. Ehman.--The life-world and its historical horizon, by C. O. Schrag.--The Lebenswelt as ground and as Leib in Husserl: somatology, psychology, sociology, by E. Paci.--Life-world and structures, by C. A. van Peursen.--The miser, by E. W. Straus.--Monetary value and personal value, by G. (...) Schrader.--Individualisms, by W. L. McBride.--Sartre the individualist, by W. Desan.--The nature of social man, by M. Natanson.--The problem of the will and philosophical discourse, by P. Ricoeur.--Structuralism and humanism, by M. Dufrenne.--The illusion of monolinear time, by N. Lawrence.--Can grammar be thought? By J. M. Edie.--The existentialist critique of objectivity, by S. J. Todes and H. L. Dreyfus.--Bibliography (p. 391-400). (shrink)

Transcendental Ego is the principle of principles that philosophization of great philosophers such as Husserl has been based upon it. Husserl, too, as a follower of Descartes meditations and philosophy with attemption in intentionality of transcendental ego accepts it as the base of principles of philosophization and declares himself as a New Cartesian. In this study, the author develops an original reading of the Cartesian Meditation. This text, far from giving rise to a “Transcendental solipsism”, leads to a constitution of (...) intersubjectivity on various levels (“primordial”, “Intersubjective” et “Objective”). In its center, a “Phenomenological Construction” operates, i.e. a methodological piece that masters the genetic approach of intersubjectivity. Closely following the “almost mathematical” rigour of this crucial text of Husserl’s phenomenology, in this way equally tackles the issue of the constitution of the experience of the other and the truly intersubjective structure of transcendental subjectivity. This study concludes with the metaphysical results of the analysis of the experience of the other. (shrink)

The paper gives an analysis of the theoretical-methodological principles of the philosophy of J. Pato?ka not only as a historian of philosophy, but also as a historian of science, especially of its revolutionary periods. The aim of the paper is to show that following the general context of his works here also Pato?ka consistently deals with the central issue of his philosophy, namely the life-world . In Pato?ka's view it was already the rise of ancient philosophy, and especially (...) of the mathematical natural science that destroyed the original uniform picture of the universe, splitting man's world into the natural world on one hand and the world construed by the mathematical natural science on the other hand. Further, the paper shows Pato?ka's view of phenomenology, which he has seen as a means, with the help of which this dichotomy could be resolved, as well as Pato?ka's criticism of the original Husserlian concept of phenomenology, which failed to avoid its subjectivist and solipsist tendencies. The problem of lifeworld led Pato?ka not only to the principles of non-subjective phenomenolog, but it also became the basis of his philosophy of the history of philosophy. (shrink)

Clarifying the essential experiential structures at work in our everyday moral engagements promises both (1) to provide a perspicacious self-understanding, and (2) to significantly contribute to theoretical and practical matters of moral philosophy. Since the phenomenological enterprise is concerned with revealing the a priori structures of experience in general, it is then well positioned to discern the essential structures of moral experience specifically. Phenomenology can therefore significantly contribute to matters pertaining to moral philosophy. In this paper I would like to (...) contribute to the relatively small yet burgeoning field of phenomenological ethics. I endea­vour to do so by first identifying and consolidating the basic level of sense-bestowal, and then outlining the a priori structures of volition in order to demonstrate how such phenomenologically discerned structures are required for moral experience. Specifically, in section one I locate moral experience as at the level of meaning that is phenomenologically identified as the life-world, and then vindicate the life-world by illustrating how it is immune to naturalistic rationalisation. By thus both securing the level of meaning that is of concern and importantly delimiting the scope of our analysis, I proceed in section two to relate the volitional analyses of Aristotle, Husserl, and Heidegger. This relation is achieved thanks to a conceptual point of con­tinuity: ‘prohairesis’. By examining the function of this concept (as an intentional structure) and its phenomenological continuity, the ground is then prepared for further phenomenological analyses of the virtues. (shrink)

The present article consists of four parts, and the first part examines the concept of life-world from the phenomenological perspective and argues that the characteristic features of the life-world would be through inspection, analysis and description of the life as we encounter it devoid of scientific explanations. The second part of the paper develops the idea that religion finds its meaning and significance only in the domain of life-world because the phenomena that one (...) experiences in the religious acts take place primarily in a pre-theoretical way. Thus, it is argued that the operative dimension of phenomenology of religious consciousness involves a new understanding of subjectivity—a passive plane of subjectivity—whose locus is differently conceived by Husserl, Scheler and Heidegger. The third part of the paper draws attention to the religious phenomena whose intended structures and meanings go beyond mediation and suggests that symbols form a realm between objectively given things and subjectively intended meanings. In other words, religious symbols serve as indispensable mediating bridges. The final part of the paper proposes that religious experiences like all other experiences, though are rooted in life-world, yet it transcends its worldly contents. (shrink)

The traditional split between rationality and historicity, concept and intuition, the form and content of knowledge has brought about an inappropriate approaching to humanities and social sciences. Presenting the main effects of such split, this paper aims at arguing the need to consider both the “empiric” and the “interpretive” as equally relevant for understanding our human world. It is eventually a meta-theoretical pleading for reconciling epistemology and ontology within a theory of humanities and social sciences able to avoid the (...) two kinds of reductionism, foundationalist and textualist, related to traditional (empiricist) epistemology and respectively, to postmodernist hermeneutics. (shrink)

AbstractThe notion of techné in Husserl’s phenomenology is related to his treatment of the three layers of the “teaching of craft” and the two layers of the science of “life-world.” The superior layer of both is of philosophical significance. Aristotle’s statement in ethics and metaphysics: techné is man-made, but can transit to spontaneity, and then to natural becoming, which manifests physis as the ultimate aim of his philosophical system, enlightens us to notice the following aspects in Husserl’s phenomenology. (...) 1. Pure or formal ethics is of a high-level téchne in the philosophical sense. 2. The concept of life-world leads to transcendental phenomenology. 3. What Ideas II implies – as a technique the method of phenomenology tends to let the pure I and spiritual I as matters appear themselves by the natural attitude – could conduct us to understand the artistic aspect of Husserl’s philosophical theory. (shrink)

According to Husserl, the epochè (or suspension of judgment) must be left incomplete. It is to be performed step by step, thus defining various layers of “reduction.” In phenomenology at least two such layers can be distinguished: the life-world reduction, and the transcendental reduction. Quantum physics was born from a particular variety of the life-world reduction: reduction to observables according to Heisenberg, and reduction to classical-like properties of experimental devices according to Bohr. But QBism has challenged (...) this limited version of the phenomenological reduction advocated by the Copenhagen interpretation. QBists claim that quantum states are “expectations about experiences of pointer readings,” rather than expectations about pointer positions. Their focus on lived experience, not just on macroscopic variables, is tantamount to performing the transcendental reduction instead of stopping at the relatively superficial layer of the life-world reduction. I will show that quantum physics indeed gives us several reasons to go the whole way down to the deepest variety of phenomenological reduction, may be even farther than the standard QBist view: not only reduction to experience, or to “pure consciousness,” but also reduction to the “living present.”. (shrink)

The complex of problems suggested by the term life-world pervades contemporary thought, even though such a complex is rarely called by this name [...] Time does not allow us, however, to perform an extensive review of the secondary literature on the 'Crisis'. I will only suggest that a survey of this literature, especially the works of Brand, Merleau-Ponty and Habermas, presents us with a dilemma. It seems that there is a difficulty in Husserl's characterization of the life- (...) class='Hi'>world. On the one hand, it is understood as the plurality of individually different socio-cultural environments and thus the result of an historical development; on the other hand, it is interpreted as a single structural basis common to all environments and thus an a priori for that history through which they become different. This dilemma concerning the content of Husserl's theory is coupled with a problem having to do with the method of his analysis: how is Husserl's procedure of phenomenological reflection upon a transcendental ego or "monad" able to account for the intersubjective life-world in either of the senses just sketched? Putting the question in this fashion is usually the first step on the way to abandoning a transcendental account of historicity, or, as is the case with Habermas, replacing the transcendental ego with a community of language users. What I want to propose in this essay is precisely what current thinkers seem unanimous in rejecting. I want to argue for a transcendental theory of the life-world and of historicity, and I want to do so by suggesting that a phenomenological reflection upon the transcendental ego - once correctly understood - is the proper procedure for constructing such a theory. In this paper I will discuss such a theory by undertaking a brief study of Husserl's concept of the life-world and by isolating several difficulties which I detect (Part I). I will then introduce a theory of the transcendental reduction as the key to resolving the difficulties I discover (Part II). Finally, I will undertake my own systematic analysis of the a priori of the life-world and will suggest a way of integrating such an analysis with what I will call a transcendental history of the experience of consciousness (Part III). (shrink)

Exploring Practical Knowledge investigates professional practices from a hermeneutic perspective. The book presents, discusses and applies notions such as practical knowledge, practical wisdom, tacit knowledge, and normativity to the professional lifeworld. These contributions focus on both specific practices and more general questions concerning theories and investigations of practice. This volume comes as the result of a cooperation of three research centres: The two Centres for Practical Knowledge in Bodø, Norway and in Södertörn, Sweden, as well as the Research Group Value-Oriented (...) Professionalisation at the University of Applied Sciences in Utrecht, the Netherlands. It offers empirical studies of professionals as well as discussing the underlying theories, approaches and methods of exploring practical knowledge - including the limits to any articulation of these aspects of professional action. In contrast to the objectivist paradigm that otherwise dominates professional studies, each chapter presents central perspectives and possibilities drawing from humanistic and interdiscipkinary research traditions. The book explores professions in a style accessible to scholars and practitioners alike. It is interesting for those studying practices within these professions and for vocational studies in education, social work, health care, police work, journalism, etc. (shrink)

Although the use of new health technologies in healthcare and medicine is generally seen as beneficial, there has been little analysis of the impact of such technologies on people's lives and understandings of health and illness. This book explores how new technologies not only provide hope for cure and well-being, but also introduce new ethical dilemmas and raise questions about the "natural" body. Focusing on the ways new health technologies intervene into our lives and affect our ideas about normalcy, the (...) body and identity, New Health Technologies explores: how new health technologies are understood by lay people and patients how the outcomes of these technologies are communicated in various clinical settings how these technologies can alter our notions of health and illness and create "new illness." Written by authors with differing backgrounds in phenomenology, social psychology, social anthropology, communication studies and the nursing sciences, this book is essential reading for students andacademics of medical sociology, health and allied studies, and anyone with an interest in new health technologies. (shrink)

Alfred Schutz died in the midst of preparations for a book which was to present in a systematic and more fully developed fashion the results of his extensive research into the constitution of social reality that were previously published in scattered essays and articles. Solely from this perspective, The Structures of the Life-World, prepared for publication by Thomas Luckmann, is of immense service to scholars of Schutz as well as to those who desire a thorough introduction to Schutz’ (...) thought. During his lifetime Schutz only published one book, Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt, so that in the subsequent quarter of a century until his death in 1959 access to his work could only be had by reference to those essays and articles, most of which were later reprinted as his Collected Papers. The fact that preparations for this last work were not completed necessitated that Luckmann not only structure but also develop those analyses necessary for a self-sufficient work. As Luckmann emphasizes, The Structures of the Life-World is a "collaboration between two unequal authors: one dead, the other living....". (shrink)