Why social scientists still need phenomenology

Pierre Bourdieu famously dismissed phenomenology as offering anything useful to a critical science of society – even as he drew heavily upon its themes in his own work. This paper makes a case for why Bourdieu’s judgement should not be the last word on phenomenology. To do so it first reanimates phenomenology’s evocative language and concepts to illustrate their continuing centrality to social scientists’ ambitions to apprehend human engagement with the world. Part II shows how two crucial insights of phenomenology, its discovery of both the natural attitude and of the phenomenological epoche, allow an account of perception properly responsive to its intertwined personal and collective aspects. Contra Bourdieu, the paper’s third section asserts that phenomenology’s substantive socio-cultural analysis simultaneously entails methodological consequences for the social scientist, reversing their suspension of disbelief vis-à-vis the life-worlds of interlocutors and inaugurating the suspension of belief vis-à-vis their own natural attitudes.

A Critical Phenomenology of Walking: Footpaths and Flightways

It is hardly difficult to imagine writing about critical phenomenology and walking. One might pause over the method of critical phenomenology as a meta-odos, a thinking of the path. Or consider the steps critical phenomenology takes and the unique pitch of its gait as it traverses the borderlands between phenomenology and critical theory. One might query how these two have the capacity to walk so well side by side, so much so that they can become as one, barely distinguishable against an open sky. Such an inquiry would no doubt track how it is that phenomenology walks toward things, through things, into things, suspending the eye of the natural attitude and proceeding ever so carefully and yet bluntly in search of what springs toward it. But such an inquiry would also track how that very process is a scripted processual, notwithstanding all the suspensions upon which it steps. Who and what writes and rewrites the script of what appears, when, and how? What inscriptions define appearances in advance and diaeretically cut them clean from one another? And what are the unscripted forces still at work? Ferreting out the work of scripts and inscriptions, such an inquiry would pause over the hidden structures that constrict what might feel like a free flight of the mind, a bit of unfettered rambling in the fields of consciousness. Thinking critical phenomenology as walking, then, means tracking the two moving in tandem. Phenomenology pulls toward the horizon of experience, while critical theory veers toward structural analyses. Together, they tread a uniquely illuminating path.

УЛОГА ФЕНОМЕНОЛОШКОГ СТАВА У ПРОБЛЕМУ ДРУШТВЕНЕ СТВАРНОСТИ АЛФРЕДА ШИЦА

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.

The Phenomenon of Common Sense and the Thinking of Alfred Schutz

This article deconstructs Alfred Schutz’s thinking to its ownmost (Wesen) meaning: the rendition of the phenomenon of common sense. It discerns the exposition of the meaning of common sense as the foundational movement (ἀρχὴ κινήσεως) that runs through the course of Schutz’s constitutive phenomenology of the natural attitude. It predicates this thesis on Schutz’s elucidation of the phenomena of the life-world (Lebenswelt), typification and common sense as a single phenomenon: κοινἠ πρᾶξῐς (common praxis). The analysis includes hermeneutic-phenomenological considerations. It proposes to enhance the interpretability of Schutz’s thinking and its availability to the human sciences.

Naivität als Kritik

"Naiveté as Critique. The present paper addresses the similarities between the concept of “critique” used in phenomenology and the one put forth by critical theory in analyzing their corresponding understanding of “naiveté”. While Husserl develops a broad concept of naiveté in his reflections regarding the phenomenological reduction, where he characterizes the natural attitude as such as “transcendentally naive”, this concept becomes more nuanced when considering the unavoidable naivetés of phenomenology itself, on the one hand, and the complications brought to the mutual relationship between naiveté and critique with his turn towards the life-world. This turn, the paper shows, can be seen as a metacritical reinvestment of naiveté that can also be traced in the works of Adorno. Keywords: Husserl, Adorno, life-world, metacritique, physiognomics. "

Gender Muddle: Reply to Dembroff

Robin Dembroff’s “Escaping the natural attitude about gender” replies to my “Are women adult human females?”. This paper responds to Dembroff’s many criticisms of my arguments, as well as to the charge that “Are women...?” “fundamentally is an unscholarly attempt to vindicate a political slogan that is currently being used to undermine civic rights and respect for trans persons”. I argue that Dembroff’s criticisms fail without exception, and explain why the claims about my motives are baseless.

Hábitos, carácter y personalidad en Husserl

Los hábitos tienen en Husserl un sentido pasivo, derivado de la sedimentación de los actos, y un sentido activo, que unifica las distintas voliciones. En este sentido activo, la individualidad de la persona se manifiesta en el carácter y en las actitudes personales. Para aprehender los rasgos de la personalidad hay que abandonar la actitud científico-natural, por cuanto la unidad de la persona se presenta fenomenólogicamente de modo heterogéneo a la unidad de las cosas físicas. Desde la actitud personalista se sitúan tanto la vida ética y comunitaria como la cultura, que aparece como enlace entre persona y comunidad.The notion of habit has in Husserl a passive sense, deriving from the settling of acts, and an active sense, which unifies the diverse volitions. In this latter sense the individuality of each person manifests itself in character and attitudes. In order to grasp the traits of the personality, it is neccesary to abandon the scientific-natural attitude, since the unity of the person is phenomenologically presented as being heterogeneous to the unity of physical things. From the personalist attitude come ethical and community life and culture, which appears as link between the person and the community.

Realidades múltiples y ámbitos finitos de sentido (de W. James a A. Schütz) a la luz del proyecto fenomenológico-trascendental de "Ideas I"

Aunque inicialmente la propuesta de A. Schütz resulta esclarecedora y sugerente, sin embargo, al proponer hablar de ámbitos finitos de sentido en lugar de realidades múltiples (W. James), se puede encubrir una posibilidad de mala interpretación del proyecto trascendental de la fenomenología. Ello estaría en función de la gran importancia que detenta en Schütz no sólo la actitud natural, sino el mundo de la “realidad práctica”. Me propongo plantear esta problemática a la luz del proyecto husserliano de fenomenología trascendental presentado en Ideen I.Although initially the proposal of A. Schütz is enlightening and suggestive, nevertheless, on having proposed to speak about finite provinces of meaning instead of multiple realities (W. James), it is possible to conceal a possibility of bad interpretation of the transcendental project of Phenomenology. It would be depending on the great importance that holds in Schütz not only the natural attitude, but the world of the “practical reality”. I intend to raise this issue in the light of Husserls transcendental phenomenology project presented in Ideen I.

LA VOCACIÓN DEL ACTOR: UNA PERSPECTIVA FENOMENOLÓGICA

Con este artículo se pretende ensa-yar y mostrar la virtualidad de una fenomenología de la actitud natural —en la línea en que la desarrollan Schütz, Berger, Luckmann, Ortega e incluso el propio Goffman. El tema del análisis corresponde al mundo del “actor”, concretamente, a una perspectiva: la asunción y vivencia de la profesión como una vocación. ¿Es cierto, como suele afirmarse, que esta profesión es vocacional? ¿Y es cierto, por tanto, que el teatro es el lugar privilegiado para llevarla a cabo? Normalmente, estas son las respuestas que suelen darse. Sin embargo, tras nuestro análisis, veremos que la afirmación ni es tan fácil, ni tan cierta.The following article will attempt to explore and delve into the phenomenology of the natural attitude (along the lines of the work developed by Schütz, Berger, Luckmann, Ortega and even Goffman himself). The subject of the analysis corresponds to the world of the “actor”, more specifically to one perspective: the as- sumption and experience of this profession as a vocation. Is it true, as it is often claimed, that this profession is a vocational one? If so, is it true that the theater medium is the ideal place to conduct it? It is usually assumed that the answers to both questions are affirmative. However, after thorough analysis, we shall see that such affirmations aren’t quite as easy or as certain as they might seem.