scholarly journals An Approach to the Analysis of Religious Reality in the Social Phenomenology of Alfred Schütz

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 309-327
Author(s):  
Alexey Sitnikov
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Alfred Schutz ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Multiple Realities ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
Alfred Schütz ◽  
Social Phenomenology

The article deals with the social phenomenology of Alfred Schütz. Proceeding from the concept of multiple realities, the author describes religious reality, analyses its relationship with everyday, theoretical, and mythological realities, and identifies the areas where they overlap and their specifics. According to Schütz’s concept, reality is understood as something that has a meaning for a human being, and is also consistent and certain for those who are ‘inside’ of it. Realities are structurally similar to one another as they are similar to the reality that is most obvious for all human beings, i.e., the world of everyday life. Religious reality has one of the main signs of genuine reality, that of internal consistency. Religious reality has its own epoché (special ascetic practices) which has similarities with the epoché of the theoretical sphere since neither serve practical objectives, and imply freedom from the transitory issues of everyday life. Just as the theoretical sphere exists independently of the life of a scientist in the physical world and is needed to transfer results to other people, so the religious reality depends on ritual actions and material objects in its striving for the transcendent. Individual, and especially collective, religious practices are performed physically and are inextricably linked with the bodily ritual. The article notes that although Schütz’s phenomenological concept of multiple realities has repeatedly served as a starting point for the development of various social theories, its heuristic potential has not been exhausted. This allows for the further analyzing and development of topical issues such as national identity and its ties with religious tradition in the modern era, when religious reality loses credibility and has many competitors, one of which is the modern myth of the nation. Intersubjective ideas of the nation that are socially confirmed as the self-evident reality of everyday life cause complex emotions and fill human lives, thus displacing religious reality or forcing the latter to come into complex interactions with the national narrative.

scholarly journals Don Quixote and the social system: Interpreting Ronald Laing’s concept of ontological insecurity from Alfred Schütz’ and Talcott Parsons’ theories of social action

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 191-207
Author(s):  
Christopher Schlembach
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
Social System ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Don Quixote ◽  
Alfred Schutz ◽  
Talcott Parsons ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
Alfred Schütz

Alfred Schütz and Talcott Parsons, two towering authorities of Weberian social thought are rarely interpreted in the same theoretical perspective (with the exception of Harold Garfinkel). This article intends to show that Schütz’s later writings about the constitution of social reality in the pluralized and differentiated modern society and Parsons’s concept of the social system converge with reference to their common problem of understanding interaction. In this article, I use Ronald Laing’s psychiatric thought of the early 1960s as a starting point to discuss some of the points of intersection between Schütz and Parsons. Laing argued that psychosis is not a phenomenon of the individual mind. Rather it must be understood in terms of an interaction system that is constituted by doctor and patient. The patient cannot maintain ego borders strong enough to establish a role-based social relationship and feels ontologically insecure. It is necessary to understand the patient in his existential position which constitutes his self as a kind of role. Schütz and Parsons reflected on similar interaction systems. Schütz analyzed the little social system that is established between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza; Parsons addressed the social system between doctor and patient. It is argued that Schütz and Parsons analyzed the conditions under which a social system can be established, but they also look at its breakdown leading to the situation as described by Laing.

scholarly journals УЛОГА ФЕНОМЕНОЛОШКОГ СТАВА У ПРОБЛЕМУ ДРУШТВЕНЕ СТВАРНОСТИ АЛФРЕДА ШИЦА

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (27) ◽  
pp. 47-73
Author(s):  
Душан Миленковић
Keyword(s):  
Special Reference ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Scientific Theory ◽  
Alfred Schutz ◽  
Natural Attitude ◽  
Multiple Realities ◽  
The World ◽  
Alfred Schütz

In this paper, the thought of the Austrian-born theorist Alfred Schutz, presented in the articles published in the first volume of his collected papers, is examined from the perspective of the role that Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological attitude plays in it. Advocating the importance of analyzing the structure of the world of everyday life in his phenomenology of the natural attitude, Schutz uses various aspects of Husserl’s phenomenology, without paying special attention to the phenomenological attitude itself. Therefore, the paper discusses the extent to which Schitz’s understanding of the natural attitude and its world depends on this concept of Husserl’s philosophy, with special reference to Shutz’s theory in his article “On Multiple Realities”. After showing that Husserl’s phenomenological attitude cannot be compared to the “attitude of scientific theory” discussed in the article on multiple realities, the paper additionally analyzes the absence of the phenomenological attitude in Schutz’s thought while turning to Maurice Natanson’s critique of Schutz’s theory.

scholarly journals El problema de la “realidad” en el marco de la influencia Hispánica en la obra de Alfred Schutz

2021 ◽  
pp. 245
Author(s):  
Carlos Belvedere
Keyword(s):  
Don Quixote ◽  
Alfred Schutz ◽  
The Social ◽  
Alfred Schütz ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Pragmatic Dimension ◽  
The Way

En este trabajo paso revista a las diferentes acepciones del concepto de realidad en la obra de Alfred Schutz y las tensiones que lo surcan. Así es que describo una dimensión pragmatista de la realidad, y muestro cómo ella entra en contradicción con una idea marcadamente realista y objetivista. En este contexto, la obra de Schutz se presenta como atravesada por una tensión irresuelta en tres frentes problemáticos: realismo –constructivismo; egología– intersubjetividad; relativismo– fundacionalismo. La intrepretación schutziana del Quijote ilustra magníficamente de qué modo operan estas contradicciones. Al respecto, si bien Schutz se siente cercano a la exégesis de Ortega y Gasset, argumentamos que su Quijote es más afín al de Unamuno. Otra diferencia sustancial que lo distancia de Ortega, a pesar del profundo respeto que sentía por él, es el modo en que ambos cuestionan concepciones colectivistas de lo social como la de Durkheim: Schutz considera que lo social es abstracto y, por ende, irreal, mientras que Ortega lo concibe como una realidad sustituta. Además, Schutz piensa que lo social se enfrenta al individuo, mientras que Ortega muestra que se contrapone a la interacción.In my paper I review the different meanings of the concept of reality in the work of Alfred Schutz and the tensions that cross it. I describe a pragmatic dimension of reality and then I show how it clashes with an idea re-markably realistic and objectivist. In this con-text, Schutz's work is presented as crossed by an unresolved tension on three fronts: realism – constructivism; egology - intersubjectivity; relativism - foundationalism. The Schutzian intrepretación of Don Quixote superbly illustrates how these contradictions operate. In this regard, although Schutz felt close to the exegesis of Ortega y Gasset, I argue that his Quixote is more akin to that of Unamuno. Another substantial difference with Ortega, despite the deep respect Schutz had for him, is the way in which both challenge collectivist social concepts like Durkheim’s: Schutz considered that the social is abstract and therefore unreal, while Ortega conceived it as a substitute reality. Also, Schutz thinks that the social is opposed to the individual while Ortega shows that it opposes interaction.

scholarly journals From Prototypical Stimuli to Iconographic Stimuli: The Power of Images in the Study of Social Representations

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 391-401
Author(s):  
Ida Galli ◽  
Roberto Fasanelli
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Social Representation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Social Object ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
Methods And Techniques ◽  
Interdisciplinary Effort

When we are interested in the image of a social object, we are interested in what individuals have perceived about that object, the ways in which they have interpreted those perceptions, and what they think about that object. Fully agreeing with the idea that the use of iconographic stimuli can enhance the traditional methods and techniques that are used to study any social representation, in this article, two techniques will be presented. The first, the prototypical stimuli technique, was proposed in the second half of the 1980s by Galli and Nigro. The second technique, iconographic stimuli, creatively integrate images and words in a single tool, was designed more recently to study the social representation of culture by Galli, Fasanelli, and Schember. Researches here reviewed clearly shows that the image has the great power to attract to itself the very objects depicted, a power that the word often does not possess. It is images that make people reflect, help them to think about issues concerning the fundamental aspects of everyday life. The work here presented, carried out in first person by the writer, as well as by all the other authors who are concentrating their efforts in this direction, only represents a starting point of reflection. New and more articulated studies will be able to support with heuristic evidence what so far seems to be configured as a suggestive hypothesis, which in any case will require a wider and shared interdisciplinary effort.

Entrainment and the Social Origin of Musical Rhythm

2019 ◽  
pp. 183-198
Author(s):  
Martin Clayton
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Collective Agreement ◽  
Alfred Schutz ◽  
Social Origin ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Musical Rhythm ◽  
The Social ◽  
Rhythmic Coordination ◽  
Alfred Schütz

Chapter 12 develops Maurice Halbwachs’ concern with social interaction in theorizing rhythm. Taking inspiration from Halbwachs’ view of rhythm as social not natural, the chapter outlines a new approach to the question that Halbwachs leaves unanswered: If musical rhythm is social in origin, how does it come into being—how is his “prior collective agreement” reached? Alfred Schütz, although casting Halbwachs as the straw man in his famous essay “Making Music Together,” did not contest the latter’s point about the social origin of rhythm. Schütz’s argument—that all communication is made possible by what he called the “mutual tuning-in relationship” in which individuals come to share their experience of inner time—does contradict Halbwachs: for Schütz, rhythmic coordination is prior to any collective agreement. The author argues that rhythm in fact emerges spontaneously both in individuals and, crucially, in interactions between them, and that it is therefore both natural (physiological) and social in origin.

scholarly journals ”Så griner vi heldigvis lidt af det”. Ægtepars erfaringer med demens i et hverdagslivs sociologisk perspektiv

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tania Dræbel ◽  
Kirsten Teglgaard Lund ◽  
Anne Liveng
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Married Couples ◽  
Social World ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Alfred Schutz ◽  
Dementia Diagnosis ◽  
Care Relationship ◽  
Alfred Schütz

“Fortunately, we laugh a bit about it”. Couples experiences with dementia in an everyday life sociological perspectiveThe article examines changes in the relation between spouses in married couples, where one partner has a dementia diagnosis. Seven qualitative interviews with couples are analyzed with Alfred Schutz sociology of everyday life as a theoretical framework. The analysis asks the question how spouses reinvent routines in an everyday life characterized by a growing unpredictability, and thereby creates new meaningfulness and roles. The analysis illustrates how partners orient themselves in a changed social world, and thereby manage to live an everyday life with dementia. Three modes of relation to each other and to the illness are found, which could partly be understood in connection to the seriousness of the illness: first the couple manage challenges in a marital alliance, later an agreement with new roles and tasks for the partners is established, and towards the final stages of dementia marriage is described as an asymmetrical care relationship.

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