Is Schutz a Phenomenological Sociologist?

CARLOS BELVEDERE

Salt Lake City

Conferencia; Society for Phenomenology and the Human Sciences 2016; 2016

Society for Phenomenology and the Human Sciences

Is Schutz a phenomenological sociologist? I argue that he is, but not for the reasons alleged neither by the detractors nor by the supporters of phenomenological sociology. He is not a phenomenological sociologist just because he laid the philosophical foundations of the social sciences nor because he provided for an appropriate description of the life-world but because he defined the subject matter of sociology in phenomenological terms, namely: as an exploration of the relative natural conception of the world held by human groups. This idea constitutes the core concept of phenomenological sociology. Philosophical foundations and descriptions of the life-world are important for phenomenology but they are not strictly sociological. Something else than just groundings is needed to start a new scientific perspective. It takes concepts that shape its objects and outline its methodology. This is Schutz?s major contribution to phenomenological sociology: to have drawn our attention to a phenomenon that skips the eye of the mainstream sociologist. By doing so, he made of phenomenological sociology a meaningful idea.