The Reification of the Other as a Social Pathology: Traces of a Phenomenological Critical Theory in Alfred Schutz

ALEXIS EMANUEL GROS

Schutzian Research: A Yearbook of Worldly Phenomenology and Qualitative Social Science

Zeta Books

Lugar: Bucarest; Año: 2020 vol. 12

2067-0621

The present paper constitutes an attempt to articulate, systematize,and further develop the implicit traces of a phenomenological critical theory that,according to Michael Barber?s reading, are to be found in Schutz?s thought.It is my contention that a good way to achieve this aim is by reading Schutzagainst the background of novel, phenomenologically and hermeneutically informedaccounts of Critical Theory in the tradition of the Frankfurt School,such as Hartmut Rosa?s. In order to achieve the stated objective, I will proceedin four steps. First (1), I will briefly reconstruct the mostly negative receptionof phenomenology, the interpretive social sciences, and Schutz by both theFrankfurt School and contemporary critical social theory. Second (2), I willpresent Barber?s alternative reading of Schutzian phenomenology as entailingan implicit ethics and a rudimentary critical theory based thereon. !ird (3),I will sketch out Rosa?s formal model of Critical !eory as an heuristic meansfor articulating Schutz?s unspoken social-critical insights. Finally (4), establishinga dialogue between Barber?s reading of Schutz and Rosa?s account, I willprovide a preliminary articulation of Schutz?s rudimentary critical theory.