In this book, his major work, Alfred Schutz attempts to provide a sound philosophical basis for the sociological theories of Max Weber. Using a Husserlian phenomenology, Schutz provides a complete and original analysis of human action and its "intended meaning.".

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.

Following the thematic divisions of the first three volumes of Alfred Schutz's Collected Papers into The Problem of Social Reality, Studies in Social Theory and Phenomenological Philosophy, this fourth volume contains drafts of unfinished writings, drafts of published writings, translations of essays previously published in German, and some largely unpublished correspondence. The drafts of published writings contain important material omitted from the published versions, and the unfinished writings offer important insights into Schutz's otherwise unpublished ideas about economic and political theory (...) as well as the theory of law and the state. In addition, a large group contains Schutz's reflections on problems in phenomenological philosophy, including music, which both supplement and add new dimensions to his published thought. All together, the writings in this volume cover Schutz's last 15 years in Europe as well as manuscripts written after his arrival in the USA in 1939. Audience: Students and scholars of phenomenology, social theory and the human sciences in general. (shrink)

Phenomenological foundations - The cognitive setting of the life-world - Acting in the life-world - The world of social relationships - Realms of experience - The province of sociology.

I will begin by considering how the social world appears to the scientific observer and ask the question of whether the world of scientific research, with all its categories of meaning interpretation and with all its conceptual schemes of action, is identical with the world in which the observed actor acts. Anticipating the result, I may state immediately that with the shift from one level to the other, all the conceptual schemes and all the terms of interpretation must be modified.Proceeding (...) in this direction, I encounter several problems overlapping with the problem of rational action and the “rational act unit” in Professor ParsonsParsons, Talcott’ sense. First: The conceptual scheme of rational action presupposes a more or less definite knowledge of, or orientation within, the world in which this action is performed. In this sense the term, “rationality”, is not specific to the conceptual scheme of action; it embraces the conceptual scheme of the world in general and is only one element in it. Therefore, we also must examine the problem of orientation in this world. Second: We ought to keep in mind that all interpretation of the social world has to start from the actor’s subjective point of view. Therefore, we cannot accept the term, “unit act”, as such, without trying to reduce it to its subjective meaning. Here I have to discuss in general terms why I insist on the subjective point of view. This is more than the whim of a few social scientists; social science cannot be built up except by taking cognizance of the subjective meaning the actor connects with his acting. Finally, I have to discuss the fact that there are social sciences operating on high theoretical levels that, like economics, apparently prefer to deal with statistical curves and mathematical formulae rather than with actions of human beings in the social world, yet they use the term, “rational action”, as an indispensable element of their systems. I will have to show what modification this term undergoes in these types of social sciences..). (shrink)

Values and the scope of scientific inquiry, by M. Farber.--The phenomenology of epistemic claims: and its bearing on the essence of philosophy, by R. M. Zaner.--Problems of the Life-World, by A. Gurwitsch.--The Life-World and the particular sub-worlds, by W. Marx.--On the boundaries of the social world, by T. Luckmann.--Alfred Schutz on social reality and social science, by M. Natanson.--Homo oeconomicus and his class mates, by F. Machlup.--Toward a science of political economics, by A. Lowe.--Some notes on reality-orientation in contemporary societies, (...) by A. Brodersen.--The eclipse of reality, by E. Voegelin.--Alienation in Marx's Political economy and philosophy, by P. Merlan.--The problem of multiple realities: Alfred Schutz and Robert Musil, by P. L. Berger.--Phenomenology, history, myth, by F. Kersten.--The role of music in Leonardo's Paragone, by E. Winternitz.--Alfred Schutz bibliography (p. [297]-306). (shrink)

In this paper we offer a theory of cross-modal objects. To begin, we discuss two kinds of linkages between vision and audition. The first is a duality. The the visual system detects and identifies surfaces ; the auditory system detects and identifies sources . Surfaces are illuminated by sources of light; sound is reflected off surfaces. However, the visual system discounts sources and the auditory system discounts surfaces. These and similar considerations lead to the Theory of Indispensable Attributes that states (...) the conditions for the formation of gestalts in the two modalities. The second linkage involves the formation of audiovisual objects, integrated cross-modal experiences. We describe research that reveals the role of cross-modal causality in the formation of such objects. These experiments use the canonical example of a causal link between vision and audition: a visible impact that causes a percussive sound. (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.

Hannah Arendt's essays about the 1957 crisis over efforts of a group of youth, the “Little Rock Nine,” to desegregate a high school in Little Rock, Arkansas, reveal a tension in her vision of the “public.” In this article Aaron Schutz and Marie Sandy look closely at the experiences of the youth desegregating the school, especially those of Elizabeth Eckford, drawing upon them to trace a continuum of forms of public engagement in Arendt's work. This ranges from arenas of “deliberative (...) friendship,” where unique individuals collaborate on common efforts, to a more conflictual “public stage,” where groups act in solidarity to change aspects of the public world. While Arendt famously asserted in her essay “The Crisis in Education” that political capacities should not be taught in schools, it makes more sense to see this argument as focused on what she sometimes called the conflictual “public stage,” reflecting the experience of the Little Rock Nine. In contrast, Schutz and Sandy argue that Arendt's own work implies that “deliberative friendship,” as described in her essay “Philosophy and Politics” and elsewhere, should be part of everyday practices in classrooms and schools. (shrink)

This volume contains a translation of four early manuscripts by Alfred Schutz, unpublished at the time, written between 1924 and 1928. The publication of these four essays adds much to our knowledge and appreciation of the wide range of Schutz’s phenomenological and sociological interests. Originally published in 1987. The essays consist of: a challenging presentation of a phenomenology of cognition and a treatment of Bergson’s conceptions of images, duration, space time and memory; a discussion of the meanings connected with the (...) grammatical forms of language in general; a consideration of the relation between meaning-contents and literary forms in poetry, literary prose narration and dramatic presentation; and an examination of resemblances and differences in the inner forms and characteristics of the major theatrical art forms. (shrink)

The ability to read emotions in faces helps humans efficiently assess social situations. We tested how this ability is affected by aspects of familiarization with face masks and personality, with a focus on emotional intelligence. To address aspects of the current pandemic situation, we used photos of not only faces per se but also of faces that were partially covered with face masks. The sample, the size of which was determined by an a priori power test, was recruited in Germany (...) and consisted of healthy individuals of different ages [M = 24.8 years]. Participants assessed the emotional expressions displayed by six different faces determined by a 2 × 3 design. Each person was presented with six different emotional displays with or without a face mask. Accuracy and confidence were lower with masks—in particular for the emotion disgust but also for happiness, anger, and sadness. When comparing the present data collected in July 2021 with data from a different sample collected in May 2020, when people first started to familiarize themselves with face masks in Western countries during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, we did not detect an improvement in performance. There were no effects of participants’ emotional intelligence, sex, or age regarding their accuracy in assessing emotional states in faces for unmasked or masked faces. (shrink)

Background: Informed consent is a legal as well as ethical prerequisite in clinical research. For dementia research, informed consent can be a problem if subjects with dementia, whose capacity for understanding and thus also decision making might be limited, are to be exam- ined. This might result in exclusion of dementia patients from research, as capacity for understanding and decision making are often equated with the ability for rational decision making. However, this valuation has been criticized at times for attaching (...) too much impor- tance to the cognitive aspect of decision making. -/- Methods: This qualitative study investigates the actual consent procedure of a clini- cal research study in Germany with regard to dementia patients’ subjective and objective understanding of informed consent information. Research participants were ten dementia patients, who volunteered in two clinical research studies, as well as their caregivers. Data were collected by use of semi-structured interviews. -/- Results: It was determined that the patients’ comprehension of informed consent infor- mation was rather limited. However, a number of patients were quite aware of this. In con- trast, all caregivers claimed to have fully understood the provided information, while their objective comprehension was also incomplete. Several participants indicated that they did not attach much importance to the information given in the consent procedure and that their consent did not primarily depend on this information. Rather, participation in the research study for them seemed to be more of a problem-focused coping strategy for dealing with their diagnosis of dementia. -/- Conclusion: For research ethics these results raise the question whether the currently prevailing emphasis on the cognitive aspect of autonomous decision making, i.e., compre- hension, may be too one-sided, and to what extent the “volitional” aspect in giving consent should be given greater consideration. (shrink)

This article highlights the continuing relevance of a classic bioethical text, “Bioethics as a Discipline,” published by the Hastings Center’s cofounder Daniel Callahan in 1973. Connecting the text’s programmatic recommendations with later reflections and interventions Callahan wrote about the development of bioethics illuminates how the vision Callahan established and the reality this vision helped create were interrelated—just not in the way Callahan had hoped for. Although this portrait relies on an individual perception of the development of bioethics, it might nevertheless, (...) through its unique linkage of different bioethical temporalities, contribute to a broader reassessment of what bioethics became and why. (shrink)

One persistent puzzle in the life sciences is the asymmetric lipid composition of the cellular plasma membrane: while the exoplasmic leaflet is enriched in lipids carrying predominantly saturated fatty acids, the cytoplasmic leaflet hosts preferentially lipids with (poly‐)unsaturated fatty acids. Given the high energy requirements necessary for cells to maintain this asymmetry, the question naturally arises regarding its inherent benefits. In this paper, we propose asymmetry to represent a potential solution for harmonizing two conflicting requirements for the plasma membrane: first, (...) the need to build a barrier for the uncontrolled influx or efflux of substances; and second, the need to form a fluid and dynamic two‐dimensional substrate for signaling processes. We hence view here the plasma membrane as a composite material, where the exoplasmic leaflet is mainly responsible for the functional integrity of the barrier and the cytoplasmic leaflet for fluidity. We reinforce the validity of the proposed mechanism by presenting quantitative data from the literature, along with multiple examples that bolster our model. (shrink)

Individuals with high levels of narcissism often ascend to leadership positions. Whereas there is evidence that narcissism is linked to unethical behavior and negative social outcomes, the effects of leader narcissism on an organization’s most important resource—its employees—have not yet been studied thoroughly. Using theoretical assumptions of the Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Concept and social exchange theories, we examined how leaders’ narcissistic rivalry was related to follower outcomes in a sample of matched leaders and followers. Followers of leaders high in (...) narcissistic rivalry reported less perceived supervisor support, lower quality leader-member relationships, lower performance-based self-esteem, and lower job engagement. These effects were only found when follower-rated leaders’ narcissistic rivalry was used in the model but not when self-rated leaders’ narcissistic rivalry was used as a predictor. This implies that the negative effects of leaders’ narcissistic rivalry on followers are driven by the expression of narcissistic tendencies. Leader development should thus focus on changing destructive leader behavior. We propose that leaders high in narcissistic rivalry can be motivated to make such changes by showing them that by hurting their followers, they will eventually undermine their own reputation and status. Furthermore, selection and promotion practices should incorporate objective measures to weaken the effects of narcissists’ self-promotional tactics in these contexts and thus prevent people high in narcissistic rivalry from rising to leadership positions. (shrink)

The present study evaluates the cognitive representation of a kicking movement performed by a human and a humanoid robot, and how they are represented in experts and novices of soccer and robotics, respectively. To learn about the expertise-dependent development of memory structures, we compared the representation structures of soccer experts and robot experts concerning a human and humanoid robot kicking movement. We found different cognitive representation structures for both expertise groups under two different motor performance conditions . In general, the (...) expertise relies on the perceptual-motor knowledge of the human motor system. Thus, the soccer experts’ cognitive representation of the humanoid robot movement is dominated by their representation of the corresponding human movement. Additionally, our results suggest that robot experts, in contrast to soccer experts, access functional features of the technical system of the humanoid robot in addition to their perceptual-motor knowledge about the human motor system. Thus, their perceptual-motor and neuro-functional machine representation are integrated into a cognitive representation of the humanoid robot movement. (shrink)

Definition of the problemThe upcoming reforms according to the specifications of the Master Plan 2020 provide for a competency-oriented restructuring of medical studies. This article aims to develop perspectives on how teaching ethics in medical studies can be more strongly oriented at building competencies. In this way, it pursues the goal of making the concept of competency more tangible for medical ethics and usable for the design of medical ethics education.ArgumentsWe understand competencies as dispositions for actions that enable problem solving. (...) By transferring the concept of moral intelligence to the moral actions of physicians in patient care, we specify five ethical–moral competencies that must be present for morally appropriate, ethically reflected actions by future physicians: (1) the ability to form a professional moral compass, (2) the willingness to align oneself with professional ethical norms and values, (3) the ability to perceive moral dimensions of medical action, (4) the ability to make moral judgments based on ethical considerations about the right action, and (5) the willingness to realize ethically justified action. We illustrate their importance for teaching medical ethics using the example of teaching clinical ethics in medical studies.ConclusionOur conceptualization of moral–ethical competencies can be used to design concrete courses in a competency-oriented way. Our approach could be applied analogously to other areas of teaching ethics in health care. (shrink)

Narcissists often attain leadership positions, but at the same time do not care for others and often engage in unethical behaviors. We therefore explored the role of leader narcissism as an antecedent of abusive supervision, a form of unethical leadership. We based our study on the narcissistic admiration and rivalry concept (NARC) and proposed a direct positive effect of leaders’ narcissistic rivalry—the maladaptive narcissism dimension—on abusive supervision. In line with trait activation and threatened egotism theory, we also proposed a moderated (...) mediation assuming that leaders high in narcissistic rivalry would be particularly prone to showing abusive supervision in reaction to followers’ supervisor-directed deviance, as this form of follower behavior would threaten their self-esteem. We conducted a field study with leader–follower dyads (Study 1) and an experimental vignette study with leaders (Study 2). Leaders’ narcissistic rivalry was positively related to abusive supervision (intentions) in both studies. This effect was independent of followers’ supervisor-directed deviance and leaders’ perceived self-esteem threat. We discuss our findings in light of the NARC, as well as threatened egotism theory, and offer directions for future research. Finally, we make practical recommendations for organizations. (shrink)

In this note, we point attention to and briefly discuss a curious manuscript of Einstein, composed in 1938 and entitled “Unified Field Theory,” the only such writing, published or unpublished, carrying this title without any further specification. Apparently never intended for publication, the manuscript sheds light both on Einstein′s modus operandi as well as on the public role of Einstein′s later work on a unified field theory of gravitation and electromagnetism.

Reflective Practice is increasingly recognised as an important topic that has the potential to help nurses to develop and learn from their practice. This practical and accessible guide uses the latest research and evidence to support the development of skills in reflective practice and provides help and advice on how to get started, how to write reflectively and how to continue to use reflective practice in everyday situations. This fourth edition of Reflective Practice in Nursing contains new material on mentoring (...) and supervision and on group reflection, and includes a new chapter on teaching reflective practice. Reflective Practice in Nursing is an indispensable guide for students and practitioners alike, who wish to learn more about reflective practice, as well as containing essential information for teachers and lecturers. (shrink)

The implicit motivational needs for power, achievement, and affiliation are highly relevant in the context of sports. Sport enables people to experience achievement incentives like mastering challenges as well as social incentives such as recognition by teammates. Further, McClelland’s (1986) hypothesized that implicit motives are particularly associated right-hemisphere functions. Therefore, this preregistered study, conducted online, examines motivational needs using a standard picture-story exercise (PSE) and their associations with indicators of laterality, sports participation, and competition in gymnasts (N = 67). Further (...) it explores how implicit motives interact with suitable motivational incentives in the prediction of sports performance. Results partly confirm a link between indictors of cerebral rightward laterality and implicit motives, showing that the implicit affiliation and achievement motives are positively associated with an indicator of emotional-perceptional laterality (chimeric-faces task), but not with an indicator of motor laterality (turning bias). Moreover, the implicit achievement motive was positively correlated with training hours. The implicit affiliation motive was negatively associated with competition level. The presence of achievement incentives (perceived control, failure) and affiliation incentives (training together or alone) did not interact with corresponding motives to predict sports performance. (shrink)

Ernst Bloch desenvolveu uma teoria na qual a dualidade entre a história humana e natureza pode ser superada e compreendida desde sua unidade originária. Bloch insere o ser humano na natureza de tal modo que, simultaneamente, se torna possível conceber a história humana como constitutiva do devir processual da mesma. Com isto, na medida em que o devir da natureza é concebido numa perspectiva aberta, constitui-se a possibilidade de entendimento da ação humana enquanto produção da própria natureza. As possibilidades da (...) práxis humana ampliam-se, assim, tanto qualitativa quanto quantitativamente. O confronto com a compreensão da relação entre natureza e história em Hegel e Heidegger é um recurso usado para explicitar a especificidade da posição de Ernst Bloch.. (shrink)