Collected Papers I. The Problem of Social Reality

Le present volume rassemble plusieurs etudes qu' Alfred Schutz avait consacrees a diverses questions qui gravitent autour d'un probleme philosophique majeur: celui de la socialite. La plupart de ces etudes ont Me publiees ailleurs, mais elles etaient dispersees et d'un acces parfois difficile. Tel quel, l'ouvrage que nous presentons n' est que la premiere partie d'un ensemble dans lequell'auteur se proposait de faire reunir par son disciple et ami Maurice Natanson les nombreux essais qu'il avait ecrits depuis son arrivee aux Etats-Unis au debut de la demiere guerre. La mort l'empecha de voir realiser ce projet. 11 nous a semble que la pUblication successive de cet ensemble, dans la fidelite aux indications laissees par l'auteur, etait Ie plus bel hommage que nous pussions rendre a ce penseur qui fut notre ami et meritait sans nul doute de tenir dans Ie courant phenomenologique une place de premier plan que faillirent lui refuser les circonstances dramatiques de sa vie, jointes a sa trop grande modestie per­ sonnelle. II me faudrait ici parler de l'homme, evoquer sa finesse d'esprit, son ironie penetrante, sa serenite et son courage dans l' exil, l' event ail tres vaste de ses preoccupations, Ie don de jeu­ nesse et de sympathie grftce auquel il entreprit a quarante ans d'assimiler avec bonheur une culture nouvelle, pour y exceller bientOt.

I / On the Methodology of the Social Sciences.- Common-Sense and Scientific Interpretation of Human Action.- I. Introduction: Content of Experience and Thought Objects.- 1. The constructs of common-sense and of scientific thinking.- 2. Particular structure of the constructs of the social sciences.- II. Constructs of Thought Objects in Common-Sense Thingking.- 1. The individual’s common-sense knowledge of the world is a system of constructs of its typically.- 2. The intersubjective character of common-sense knowledge and its implication.- a. The reciprocity of perspective.- b. The social origin of knowledge.- c. The social distribution of knowledge.- 3. The structure of the social world and its typification by common-sense constructs.- 4. Course-of-action types and personal types.- a. Action, project, motive.- b. Social interaction.- c. The observer.- III. Rational Action within Common-Sense Experience.- IV. Constructs of Thought Objects by the Social Sciences.- 1. The postulate of subjective interpretation.- 2. The social scientist as disinterested observer.- 3. Differences between common-sense and scientific constructs of action patterns.- 4. The scientific model of the social world.- 5. Postulates for scientific model constructs of the social world.- a. The postulate of logical consistency.- b. The postulate of subjective interpretation.- c. The postulate of adequacy.- V. Scientific Model Constructs of Rational Action Patterns.- VI. Concluding Remarks.- Concept and Theory Formation in the Social Sciences.- Choosing Among Projects of Action.- I. The Concept of Action.- II. The Time Structure of the Project.- III. In-Order-To and Because Motive.- IV. Fancying and Projecting.- V. The Foundation of Practicability.- a. The world as taken for granted.- b. The biographically determined situation.- VI. Doubting and Questioning.- VII. Problematic and Open Possibilities According to Husserl.- VIII. Choosing Among Objects within Reach.- IX. Choosing Among Projects.- X. Bergson’s Theory of Choice.- XI. Leibniz’s Theory of Volition.- XII. The Problem of Weight.- XIII. Summary and Conclusion.- II / Phenomenology and the Social Sciences.- Some Leading Concepts of Phenomenology.- Phenomenology and the Social Sciences.- Husserl’s Importance for the Social Sciences.- Scheler’s Theory of Intersubjectivity and the General Thesis of the Alter Ego.- I. Scheler’s Concept of Man.- II. Scheler’s Concept of Person.- III. Scheler’s Theory of Intersubjectivity.- a. The problems involved.- b. Inference and empathy.- c. Scheler’s perceptional theory of the alter ego.- IV. Critical Observations.- a. Intersubjectivity as a transcendental problem.- b. Intersubjectivity as a mundane problem.- V. The General Thesis of the Alter Ego and its Time Structure.- VI. The Perception of the Alter Ego.- VII. The Problem of Perspectives Related to Intersubjectivity.- Sartre’s Theory of the Alter Ego.- I. Sartre’s Criticism of the Realistic and the Idealistic Approach to the Problem of Intersubjectivity.- II. Sartre’s Criticism of Husserl, Hegel, and Heidegger.- a. Husserl.- b. Hegel.- c. Heidegger.- III. Sartre’s Own Theory of the Other’s Existence.- IV. Sartre’s Theory of the Body.- V. On Husserl’s Theory of the Other.- VI. Critical Observations Concerning Sartre’s own Theory.- III / Symbol, Reality and Society.- On Multiple Realities.- I. The Reality of the World of Daily Life.- 1. The natural attitude of daily life and its pragmatic motive.- 2. The manifestations of man’s spontaneous life in the outer world and some of its forms.- 3. The tensions of consciousness and the attention to life.- 4. The time perspectives of the “ego agens” and their unification.- 5. The social structure of the world of daily life.- 6. The strata of reality in the everyday world of working.- 7. The world of working as paramount reality; the fundamental anxiety; the epoché of the natural attitude.- II. The Many Realities and their Constitution.- III. The Various Worlds of Phantasms.- IV. The World of Dreams.- V. The World of Scientific Theory.- Language, Language Disturbances, and the Texture of Consciousness.- I. Goldstein’s Theory of Language.- II. Philosophical Interpretations of Language Disturbances.- III. Relevance and Typification.- Symbol, Reality and Society.- I. Introductory Remarks.- 1. Some controversial points in the present discussion of signs and symbols.- 2. Plan of the following investigation.- II. Appresentation as the General Form of Significative and Symbolic Relations.- 1. Husserl’s concept of appresentation.- 2. The various orders involved in the appresentational situation 29.- 3. Bergson’s theory of concurring orders.- 4. Application of Bergson’s theory to some controversial opinions concerning signs and symbols.- 5. The principles governing structural changes of appresentational relations.- a. The principle of the relative irrelevance of the vehicle.- b. The principle of variability of the appresentational meaning.- c. The principle of figurative transference.- III. The World within my Reach and its Dimensions, Marks, and Indications.- 1. The World within my actual and potential reach and the manipulatory sphere.- 2. Marks.- 3. Indications.- IV. The Intersubjective World and its Appresentational Relations: Signs.- 1. The World of everyday life is from the outset an intersubjective one.- 2. Our knowledge of the other mind is itself based on appresentational references.- 3. The general thesis of the reciprocity of perspectives.- a. The idealization of the interchangeability of standpoints.- b. The idealization of the congruency of the systems of relevances.- 4. The transcendence of the Other’s world.- 5. Comprehension, manifestation, signs, communication.- a. Comprehension.- b. Manifestation.- c. Types of signs.- d. Communication proper.- e. Language, pictorial, expressive, and mimetic presentation.- 6. World within reach and world of everyday life.- V. The Transcendence of Nature and Society: Symbols.- 1. The experience of this transcendence.- 2. Symbolization.- a. Definition.- b. Genesis of the symbolic appresentation.- c. The particularities of the symbolic appresentation.- VI. On Multiple Realities.- 1. William James’s subuniverses; finite provinces of meaning.- 2. The paramount reality.- 3. The definition of symbol restated.- 4. The transition from the paramount reality to other finite provinces of meaning, experienced through a shock.- 5. The concept of finite provinces of meaning illustrated by symbols in science and poetry.- VII. Symbol and Society.- 1. The dependence of appresentational references on the social environment.- 2. The symbolic appresentation of society.- VIII. Concluding Remarks.