Alfred Schutz's Phenomenological Theory of Interpersonal Understanding in the Light of the Contemporary Debate on Social Cognition

ALEXIS EMANUEL GROS

Buenos Aires

Conferencia; 2nd Conference of the International Alfred Schutz Circle for Phenomenology and Interpretive Social Science; 2014

International Alfred Schutz Circle for Phenomenology and Interpretive Social Science

My paper aims to show how Alfred Schutz's phenomenological theory of interpersonal understanding can contribute to the contemporary debate on social cognition. Since the nineties, this debate is dominated by two opposite theories, namely the theory-theory of mind (TT) and the simulation theory (ST). Broadly speaking, the former claims that we get to know other's mental states on the basis of a general theory of the workings of human mind, while according to the latter, in order to understand others we have to simulate undergo their psychological states, that is, we must place ourselves in her mental shoes. Within the last couple of years, however, there is a phenomenological turn taking place within the social cognition debate. Authors like Dan Zahavi and Shaun Gallagher, among others, put into question the primacy of both TT and ST, and pose an alternative theory of interpersonal understanding: the so-called phenomenological proposal or direct perception theory (DPT), which draws its inspiration from Max Scheler's and Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological accounts of empathy. In general terms, the DPT claims that we immediately perceive other's mental states in her bodily expressions without needing to resort to extra-perceptual cognitive mechanisms such as simulation routines or inferential reasoning. Yet within the context of this renaissance of classical phenomenological approaches to interpersonal understanding, Schutz's major contributions to the study of this phenomenon have not received the attention they deserve. Indeed, by means of a critical appropriation of the works of Edmund Husserl, Max Weber, Henri Bergson and Scheler, Schutz puts forward an original and novel phenomenological theory of Fremdverstehen. This theory, on the one hand, is perfectly compatible with the current phenomenological proposal insofar as it conceives of interpersonal understanding as a process of eminently perceptual character, while on the other hand, it provides a set of theoretical insights which can act as a corrective to the shortcomings of DPT. (I) Firstly, while maintaining the perceptual character of Fremdverstehen, Schutz?s proposal does justice to the unsurmountable inaccessibility of other's mind; (II) secondly, it emphasizes the temporal and rhythmical character of interpersonal understanding; (III) thirdly, it doesn't restrict itself to the so-called face-to-face relationship, but takes into account the different time and space perspectives in which the other manifests itself; (IV) fourthly, it draws attention to the important role of social stock of knowdlege in getting to know other's thoughts; and (V) finally, it distinguishes between the understanding of communicational and non-communicational behavior of the alter ego. Taking as a starting point the view that there is a relative continuity throughout Schutz's thought from Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt to Strukturen der Lebenswelt, my paper intends to systematically reconstruct Schutz's account of Fremdverstehen in order to demonstrate its current topicality within the framework of the contemporary debate on social cognition.