The Reach and Limits of Social Phenomenology: Schutz' Work Revisited

CARLOS BELVEDERE

Phenomenology 2005

Zeta Books

Lugar: Bucharest; Año: 2007; p. 53 - 69

A reading of Schutz´s work shows that phenomenology has found serious obstacles for a proper understanding of the social. It has often undertaken the study of the social by focusing on four fundamental fields: community, history, life-world, and action. It has adequately attempted to establish each of these spheres. But has phenomenology accurately accounted for the social? We recognize in Schutz´s work two different ways of exploring the social: a non-phenomenological ontology; and a hermeneutical path which draws more on sturctural linguistics than on phenomenological hermeneutics. Nevertheless, Schutz´s work provides essential elements for reestablishing social thinking upon a more strict phenomenological foundation.