Schutz’s Theory of Relevance: A Phenomenological Critique


Book Description

The following is neither exclusively the study of a philosopher nor a problem, and yet is both as well. Alfred Schutz is now recogniz ed to have been a profoundly insightful philosopher who explor ed the nature of social reality and the social sciences. His works are exercising a great influence in a wide range of problems and disciplines, the latter including the social sciences themselves. All of this is testimony to the sagacity and penetrating character of his analyses as well as the fruitfulness and soundness of his con cepts. Philosophy proceeds, however, by not merely accepting the work of great philosophers, but by engaging them in critical philosophic dialogue. It is time for this interchange to begin with respect to Schutz's work. To some extent, then, this work is di rected to that task. It does not undertake a systematic treat ment of the whole of Schutz's philosophy, for much more work in many aspects of his thought is yet to be done before such a pro ject can reasonably be undertaken. Yet, the issue of concern in this study is, I now believe, the philosophic center of the whole of Schutz's work.




The Structures of the Life-world


Book Description

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.




Seeing the Self


Book Description

" . . . die Augen hat mir Husserl eingesetzt. ,,1 he aim of Twentieth century phenomenology is to provide a non T psychologistic interpretation of subjectivity. Husserl agrees with Frege; to adopt psychologism is to give up truth. But this should not prevent us from investigating the subjective perspective. On the contrary, Husserl thinks that an appropriate rejection of psychologism must be able to show how propositions are correlated to and grounded in subjective intuitions without thereby reducing them to psychological phenomena. Obviously this calls for an interpretation of subjectivity that makes a sharp distinction between the subjective perspective and the psychological realm. Phenomenology is devoted to the development of a notion of subjectivity that is in accordance with our experience of the world. A fundamental tenet of phenomenology is that philosophy should not dispute this experience but rather account for it. Hence, phenomenology must avoid a notion of subjectivity in which it becomes a problem to account for how a subject can ever hook up with the world. In other words, a phenomenological interpretation of subjectivity must radically disassociate itself from what is often referred to as a worldless, Cartesian subject, a res cogitans. But neither can an interpretation of SUbjectivity consistently advocate a position according to which the human order is described only in the categories appropriate to the physical order. Such an interpretation is obviously not compatible with the phenomenal basis for undertaking this very interpretation, that is, our experience of the world.




Founding Community


Book Description

Phenomenology, in its traditional encounters with ethics, has commonly aimed at a more descriptive rather than prescriptive goal. The direction of this project, however, is both phenomenological and prescriptive as I attempt to provide a phenomenological foundation for communitarian ethical theory. I argue, following Husserl, that the Ego and the Other arise together in sense and thus we are committed to community in a foundational way. I am always and fundamentally constituted as a member of a community - as a Self among Others - and, given this, there are certain ethical implications. Namely, there is a communal Good of which my good is but a perspective; indeed, it is a perspective on a Good which encompasses the whole of the living world and not just humanity. Consequently, we are foundationally imbedded in a deep community and a deep communitarian ethic.




Husserl and the Question of Relativism


Book Description

The question of relativism is a perennial one, and as fundamental and far reaching as the question of truth itself. Is truth absolute and universal, the same everywhere and for everyone? Or is truth historically, culturally, biologically, or otherwise relative, varying from one epoch or species to another? Although the issues surrounding relativism have attracted especially intense interest of late, they continue to spark heated controversies and to pose problems lacking an obvious resolution. On the side of one prevalent form of relativism, it is argued that we must finally recognize the historical and cultural contingency of our available means of cognition, and therefore abandon as naIve the absolute conception of truth dear to traditional philosophy. According to this line of thinking, even if there were univer sally valid principles, knowledge of them would not be possible for us, and thus an absolute conception of truth must be rejected in light of the demands of critical epistemology. However, when truth is accordingly relativized to some contingent subjective cognitive background, new difficulties arise. One of the most infamous of these is the logical inconsistency of the resulting thesis of relativism itself. Yet an even more serious problem is that the relativization of truth makes truth itself contingent, thereby undermining the motivation for preferring one belief or value to another, or even to its opposite.




Content and Object


Book Description

This study is a revised version ofa book, published in February 1990 under the same title, as my Ph.D. thesis at the University of Stockholm. Revision of an earlier work poses specific problems, some of which deserve mentioning. After the appearance of the first version of this book new literature on related subjects and a new version of the principal HusserI text involved in the discussion have appeared. The newer literature contains both accounts of Twardowski's thought and its relations to HusserI's philosophy, though without referring to my study from 1990, largely because the texts concerned were con ceived parallell to it, though published later, or independently of it. It would seem anachronistic, in this situation, to enter into new and ex tensive discussions with the authors of this literature. The choice made here has been to update the original study, adding references to texts published after my study, and to take account of points of views expressed. I have retained the major part of the basic information giv en in the 1990 version, although some of it might now be more famil iar to interested students than it was in 1990.




The Person and the Common Life


Book Description

What follows attempts to synthesize Husserl's social ethics and to integrate the themes of this topic into his larger philosophical concerns. Chapter I proceeds with the hypothesis that Husser! believed that all of life could be examined and lived by the transcendental phenomenologist, and therefore action was not something which one did isolated from one's commitment to being philosophical within the noetic-noematic field. Therefore besides attempting to be clear about the meaning of the reduction it relates the reduction to ethical life. Chapter II shows that the agent, properly understood, i. e. , the person, is a moral theme, indeed, reflection on the person involves an ethical reduction which leads into the essentials of moral categoriality, the topic of Chapter IV. Chapter III mediates the transcendental ego, individual person, and the social matrix by showing how the common life comes about and what the constitutive processes and ingredients of this life are. It also shows how the foundations of this life are imbued with themes which adumbrate moral categoriality discussed in Chapter IV. The final Chapters, V and VI, articulate the communitarian ideal, "the godly person of a higher order," emergent in Chapters II, III and IV, in terms of social-political and theological specifications of what this "godly" life looks like.




The Oxford Handbook of Sociology, Social Theory, and Organization Studies


Book Description

Sociology and social theory has always been a major source of new perspectives for organization studies. Access to a series of authoritative accounts of theorists and research themes in sociology and social theory which have influenced developments in organization studies is essential for those wishing to deepen and extend their knowledge of the intersection of sociology and organization studies. This goal is achieved by drawing on a group of internationally renowned scholars committed in their own work to strengthening these links and asking them to provide critical accounts of particular theorists and research themes which have straddled this divide. This volume aims to strengthen ties between organization studies and contemporary sociological work at a time when there are increasing institutional barriers to such cooperation, potentially generating a myopia that constricts new developments. Used in conjunction with its companion volume, The Oxford Handbook of Sociology and Organization Studies: Classical foundations, the reader is provided with a comprehensive account of the productive and critical interaction between sociology and organization studies over many decades. Highly international in scope, theorists and themes are drawn from both the USA and Europe in equal measure. Similarly the authors of the chapters are drawn from both sides of the Atlantic. The result is a series of chapters on individuals and key research themes and debates which will provide faculty and post graduate researchers with appreciative, authoritative and critical accounts that can be drawn on to design courses or provided guided reading to the field




The Oxford Handbook of Sociology, Social Theory, and Organization Studies


Book Description

Sociology and social theory has always been a major source of new perspectives for organization studies. Access to a series of authoritative accounts of theorists and research themes in sociology and social theory which have influenced developments in organization studies is essential for those wishing to deepen and extend their knowledge of the intersection of sociology and organization studies. This goal is achieved by drawing on a group of internationally renowned scholars committed in their own work to strengthening these links and asking them to provide critical accounts of particular theorists and research themes which have straddled this divide. This volume aims to strengthen ties between organization studies and contemporary sociological work at a time when there are increasing institutional barriers to such cooperation, potentially generating a myopia that constricts new developments. Used in conjunction with its companion volume, The Oxford Handbook of Sociology and Organization Studies: Classical foundations, the reader is provided with a comprehensive account of the productive and critical interaction between sociology and organization studies over many decades. Highly international in scope, theorists and themes are drawn from both the USA and Europe in equal measure. Similarly the authors of the chapters are drawn from both sides of the Atlantic. The result is a series of chapters on individuals and key research themes and debates which will provide faculty and post graduate researchers with appreciative, authoritative and critical accounts that can be drawn on to design courses or provided guided reading to the field




Phenomenology and Media


Book Description

During the first decade of its existence, from 1999 to 2008, the Society for Phenomenology and Media held annual international conferences in San Diego (California), Puebla (Mexico), Krakow (Poland), Helsinki (Finland), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Provo (Utah), and Monmouth (Oregon). Papers delivered at these conferences were published in the Society's journal, Glimpse. The current volume is an anthology of essays drawn from the first ten years of Glimpse. From its birth, the Society sought to bridge the gap between contemporary media theory and practice and phenomenological insight. Essays in this anthology include work on digital representation, film, mobile communication, cyberspace, medieval manuscripts, print, radio, the stage, TV, virtual reality, and other media, as well as theoretical papers dealing with media aesthetics, epistemology, ethics, politics, and ontology.