The Phenomenological Approach To Social Reality

This volume features fourteen essays that examine the works of key figures within the phenomenological movement in a clear and accessible way. It presents the fertile, groundbreaking, and unique aspects of phenomenological theorizing against the background of contemporary debate about social ontology and collective intentionality. The expert contributors explore the insights of such thinkers as Martin Heidegger, Edmund Husserl, Adolf Reinach, and Max Scheler. Readers will also learn about other sources that, although almost wholly neglected by historians of philosophy, testify to the vitality of the phenomenological tradition. In addition, the contributions highlight the systematic relevance of phenomenological research by pinpointing its position on social ontology and collective intentionality within the history of philosophy. By presenting phenomenological contributions in a scholarly yet accessible way, this volume introduces an interesting and important perspective into contemporary debate insofar as it bridges the gap between the analytical and the continental traditions in social philosophy. The volume provides readers with a deep understanding into such questions as: What does it mean to share experiences with others? What does it mean to share emotions with friends or to share intentions with partners in a joint endeavor? What are groups? What are institutional facts like money, universities, and cocktail parties? What are values and what role do values play in social reality?

Alfred Schutz was born in Vienna on April 13, 1899, and died in New York City on May 20, 1959. The year 1969, then, marks the seventieth anniversary of his birth and the tenth year of his death. The essays which follow are offered not only as a tribute to an irreplaceable friend, colleague, and teacher, but as evidence of the contributors' conviction of the eminence of his work. No special pleading is needed here to support that claim, for it is widely acknowledged that his ideas have had a significant impact on present-day philosophy and phenomenology of the social sciences. In place of either argument or evaluation, I choose to restrict myself to some bi~ graphical information and a fragmentary memoir. * The only child of Johanna and Otto Schutz (an executive in a private bank in Vienna), Alfred attended the Esterhazy Gymnasium in Vienna, an academic high school whose curriculum included eight years of Latin and Greek. He graduated at seventeen - in time to spend one year of service in the Austrian army in the First World War. For bravery at the front on the battlefield in Italy, he was decorated by his country. After the war ended, he entered the University of Vienna, completing a four year curriculum in only two and one half years and receiving his doctorate in Law.

A method of inquiry largely formulated by the German Edmund Husserl and later adapted by Alfred Schutz, phenomenological psychology is explained in this introductory study. It shows how phenomenology can be used in examining the reality of the world of everyday life, and how it provides an antidote to behaviorism, symbolic logic and other positivist systems.

Phenomenological accounts of sociality in Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Scheler, Schütz, Stein and many others offer powerful lines of arguments to recast current, predominantly analytic, discussions on collective intentionality and social cognition. Against this background, the aim of this volume is to reevaluate, critically and in contemporary terms, the rich phenomenological resources regarding social reality: the interpersonal, collective and communal aspects of the life-world (Lebenswelt). Specifically, the book pursues three interrelated objectives: it aims 1.) to systematically explore the key phenomenological aspects of social reality; 2.) to offer novel, state-of-the-art assessments of both central and lesser-known proponents of the phenomenology of sociality (Gurwitsch, Löwith, von Hildebrand, or Walther), and 3.) to contextualize this elaborate body of work in light of contemporary social cognition research, the growing literature in analytic social ontology, and current trends in moral psychology, moral phenomenology, and social and political philosophy. The collection brings together original articles by a host of prominent scholars and upcoming young talents to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date treatment of the topic. It will be essential reading for those studying phenomenological accounts of intersubjectivity, empathy, and community, including analytic, social, moral and political philosophers, and will also be of interest for social scientists and social psychologists.

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."

A watershed event in the field of sociology, this text introduced “a major breakthrough in the sociology of knowledge and sociological theory generally” (George Simpson, American Sociological Review). In this seminal book, Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann examine how knowledge forms and how it is preserved and altered within a society. Unlike earlier theorists and philosophers, Berger and Luckmann go beyond intellectual history and focus on commonsense, everyday knowledge—the proverbs, morals, values, and beliefs shared among ordinary people. When first published in 1966, this systematic, theoretical treatise introduced the term social construction,effectively creating a new thought and transforming Western philosophy.

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.