Phenomenology of the Social World

by Schutz, Alfred

• ISBN13: 9780810103900
• ISBN10: 0810103907
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1967-09-01
• Publisher: Northwestern Univ Pr

Summary

This book contains a thoroughgoing analysis of the role of objectivity versus subjectivity in the social sciences and the nature of human action . It also presents a philosophical analysis of the nature of social science as such, and raises as well as answers the fundamental question of whether to and to what extent the social sciences can provide us with a genuine understanding of human beings.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	xv
Author's Preface	xxxi
Preface to the Second German Edition	xxxiii
Glossary	xxxv
The Statement of Our Problem: Max Weber's Basic Methodological Concepts	3	(42)
Preliminary Survey of the Problem	3	(12)
Max Weber's Concept of Meaningful Action	15	(5)
The Pregivenness of the Alter Ego and the Postulate of the Understanding of Subjective Meaning	20	(5)
Critique of Max Weber's Concepts of ``Observational'' and ``Motivational'' Understanding	25	(6)
Subjective and Objective Meaning	31	(7)
Transition to the Analysis of the Constituting Process. Clarification of the Concept of ``Attaching Meaning to an Act''	38	(7)
The Constitution of Meaningful Lived Experience in the Constitutor's Own Stream of Consciousness	45	(52)
The Phenomenon of Inner Duration. Retention and Reproduction	45	(8)
Husserl's Meaning-endowing Experiences and the Concept of Behavior	53	(4)
The Concept of Action. Project and Protention	57	(6)
Conscious Action and Its Evidence	63	(3)
Voluntary Action and the Problem of Choice	66	(3)
Summary: The Essence of Meaning in Its Primordial Sense	69	(2)
Amplification of the First Concept of Meaning: The Attentional Modification of Meaning	71	(3)
Further Amplification: Configurations of Lived Experiences. Context of Meaning and Context of Experience	74	(4)
The Construction of the World of Experience and Its Ordering under Schemes	78	(5)
The Schemes of Experience as Interpretive Schemes. Self-Explication and Interpretation. Problem and Interest	83	(3)
Motivational Context as Meaning-Context. (A) The ``In-Order-To'' Motive	86	(5)
Motivational Context as Meaning-Context. (B) The Genuine Because-Motive	91	(6)
Foundations of a Theory of Intersubjective Understanding	97	(42)
The General Thesis of the Alter Ego in Natural Perception	97	(5)
The Other's Stream of Consciousness as Simultaneous with My Own	102	(5)
The Ambiguities in the Ordinary Notion of Understanding the Other Person	107	(6)
The Nature of Genuine Intersubjective Understanding	113	(3)
Expressive Movement and Expressive Act	116	(2)
Sign and Sign System	118	(8)
Meaning-Establishment and Meaning-Interpretation	126	(3)
The Meaning-Context of Communication. Recapitulation	129	(3)
Subjective and Objective Meaning. Product and Evidence	132	(4)
Excursus: A Few Applications of the Theory of Objective and Subjective Meaning in the Field of the Cultural Sciences	136	(3)
The Structure of the Social World: The Realm of Directly Experienced Social Reality, the Realm of Contemporaries, and the Realm of Predecessors	139	(76)
Introduction	139	(1)
Preliminary Survey of the Problem	139	(5)
Social Behavior, Social Action, Social Relationship	144	(1)
Max Weber's Concept of ``Social Action.'' Other-Orientation and Affecting-the-Other	144	(7)
Weber's Concept of Social Relationship. Orientation Relationship and Social Interaction	151	(8)
The Motivational Context of Social Interaction	159	(4)
The World of Directly Experienced Social Reality	163	(1)
The Face-to-Face Situation and the We-Relationship	163	(4)
Analysis of the Face-to-Face Relationship	167	(5)
Direct Social Observation	172	(4)
The World of Contemporaries as a Structure of Ideal Types	176	(1)
The Transition from Direct to Indirect Social Experience. Continuous Social Relationships	176	(5)
The Contemporary as an Ideal Type. The Nature of the They-Relationship	181	(5)
The Constitution of the Ideal-Typical Interpretive Scheme	186	(8)
Degrees of Anonymity in the World of Contemporaries. The Concreteness of the Ideal Type	194	(8)
Social Relationships between Contemporaries and Indirect Social Observation	202	(5)
The World of Predecessors and the Problem of History	207	(1)
The Past as a Dimension of the Social World	207	(8)
Some Basic Problems of Interpretive Sociology	215	(36)
Summary of Our Conclusions to This Point	215	(5)
Indirect Social Observation and the Problem of Knowledge in the Social Sciences	220	(4)
The Function of the Ideal Type in Weber's Sociology	224	(5)
Causal Adequacy	229	(5)
Meaning-Adequacy	234	(3)
Objective and Subjective Probability	237	(2)
Interpretive Sociology's Preference for Rational Action Types	239	(2)
Objective and Subjective Meaning in the Social Sciences	241	(8)
Conclusion: A Glance at Further Problems	249	(2)
Selected Bibliography	251	(2)
Index	253