ALFRED SCHUTZ, 1899-1959
Author(s): Hans Jonas
Source: Social Research, Vol. 26, No. 4 (WINTER 1959), pp. 471-474
Published by: The New School
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ALFRED SCHUTZ, 1899-1959
To do justice to the work of Alfred Schutz the thinker and scholar is
impossible in the scope of a brief homage, and well-nigh impossible in
any one frame, for it stretches beyond the particular boundaries and
in its many facets taxes the competence of experts in several fields.
The philosopher, the sociologist, the psychologist, the musicologist
would have to be united in the person of the reviewer, as they were in
Alfred Schutz himself - and to hope for that catholic combination to
be present among us once more would indeed be asking too much.
Thus the very difficulty of an appropriate tribute indicates the irre-
placeable loss we have suffered, and the confession of our insufficiency
becomes itself a tribute of a kind.
Conscious of my own limitations I can only try, in all modesty, to
point to some aspects of his work, in achievement and in promise,
through which his stature may become visible. I include "promise"
with a mixture of admiration and sadness. Had the sexagenarian been
granted only two more years of life and productivity, he would have
given us that systematic presentation of his thought to which the
published articles of two decades, and a bulk of manuscript drafts and
notes, were the tantalizing prelude. The trials of emigration and
exile, the demands of a new language, doubly exacting to his artistic
sensitivity, the burden of two simultaneous professions, a delicate
health - from these his untiring energy and devotion wrested the heroic
harvest. As it is, we are left with an unfinished symphony; but what
is there is enough to serve as a measure of what we have missed.
One life-long quest stands out from Alfred Schutz's writings and oral
teaching: to imbue the social sciences with the spirit of philosophical
inquiry. As a positive science, concerned with one segment of reality,
sociology requires a pre-sociological determination of its objects, of the
cognitive aim adequate to those objects, and of the method adequate
to both. That prior determination, without which sociology would,
in the historical circumstances, simply be at the mercy of the cognitive
model imposed by the ascendancy of the natural sciences, can derive
only from a reflection on the primary ens or entia that constitute its
field. The proximate ens - society - is reducible to the primary entia
of which it consists: men.
In German academic thought at the turn of the century the sciences
of man (Geisteswissenschaften) had come to be contrasted to the sciences
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472 SOCIAL RESEARCH
of nature (Naturwissenschaften); in respect of
goal, this division by objects was defined by H.
of "understanding" (verstehende) and "expla
ences. Max Weber's verstehende Soziologie refl
Yet the concept of Verstehen, since W. Dilth
pragmatically useful, remained theoretically u
to the logical and objective quality of "expla
logical and subjective tinge. But "psycholog
is also its object, in so far as the social reality c
of "subjects," and these relations, physical as m
ing them and the actions mundanely expressing
their sustaining modus essendi. This mode inv
understanding of meaning (Sinnverstehen)
sociality, and so the social sciences are twic
problem of "understanding": in their object, w
phenomenon, and in themselves, where it is th
Now "meaning" and "understanding" are achie
ness, which is the life of subjectivity. Thus a
this was Alfred Schutz's initial and abiding
sociology its foundation; and foundation it wou
and the epistemological sense at once, furni
essendi of the object also the modus cognoscen
with the understanding of the one the self-und
The two coincide in the understanding of und
cidence can be expected from a theory of subj
case of the human sciences the object and the s
the same: man, that is, the subject of subjectivi
Responding to the philosophical postulate con
in his book Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen
in die verstehende Soziologie (Vienna 1932) und
retrace the roots of the problems inherent in t
fundamental facts of the life of consciousness
meant to make available to sociology the ins
philosophy of consciousness, and to demonstrat
analysis of the basic data of the social sphe
Husserl's theories of consciousness - the duree of the former, the
"transcendental phenomenology" of the latter - Schutz found the
philosophical tools he needed. Preeminently it was Husserl's rigorous
analysis of the "intentional acts" of consciousness and his theory of the
Lebenswelt (life-world) as the stratified product of those acts which
lastingly determined the viewpoint and the method (not to forget the
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ALFRED SCHUTZ 473
standards of descriptive precision) for his
and sociology.
To bring together Max Weber's verstehen
serl's "transcendental phenomenology" can
oversimplification, as the aim of the book in
care and patience, so characteristic of the
artist in Schutz to the discipline of the scient
from a clarification of meaning-acts in gene
into meaning-contexts, over the "constitution
ence and its ordering under "schemata," to t
of the "understanding of others" (Fremdve
structural analysis of the social world (Umwel
thou-relation, the we-relation, social action,
interpretation of Weber's "ideal types." Thos
social reality - truly its "conditions of possibil
granted within it and more or less unreflect
social sciences, are here with the means of "co
into the light of articulate understanding
sociology has still to reap the harvest waitin
and challenging work.
The major themes and problems of the b
remained with Schutz through the following
the philosophical problem of intersubjectivity
one of sign and symbol on the one hand, the
sciences on the other. But we must not forg
of general principles, the loving and penetrati
social particulars - see the delightful studies
"The Homecomer" 3 - and of artistic creation - see the beautiful
paper on "Mozart and the Philosophers." 4 In philosophy he did not
stand still, and he was on the way when his final illness cut short his
plans. In the book of 1932 we may discern the philosopher teaching
the sociologist, and the philosopher was secure in an orthodox accept-
ance of Husserl's transcendental standpoint, that is, in the confidence
that the "transcendental ego" suffices for a derivation of the phenome-
non of intersubjectivity which underlies all social experience. Subse-
quently the sociologist's awareness of the primacy of this experience
iAs is his preference of Husserl to Bergson, whose "intuition" does not quite
escape the vagueness of the term Verstehen mentioned before.
2 American Journal of Sociology, vol. 49, no. 6 (May 1944) pp. 499-507.
*Ibid., vol. 50, no. 5 (March 1945) pp. 369-76.
* Social Research, vol. 23, no. 2 (Summer 1956) pp. 219-42.
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474 SOCIAL RESEARCH
forced the philosopher to revise that confidence
whose inner drama one can only divine, Schut
covered and designated the limits of the "tran
such, and therewith also of the phenomenolog
was so deeply attached.
We witness this new departure in the grand c
"The Problem of the Transcendental Intersubje
in which Schutz comes to the conclusion tha
ground the constitution of transcendental inte
of consciousness of the transcendental ego has
to suppose that intersubjectivity is not a probl
can be solved within the transcendental sphere,
ontological category of man's being in the wor
every philosophical anthropology. As long as m
intersubjectivity and the we-relation underl
categories of human being. The very possibi
one's self, the discovery of the ego, the capaci
epoche, but also the possibility of all commun
ing a communicative environment are founded
perience (Urerfahrung) of the we-relation.
certainty that not an analysis of transcendent
an ontology of the life-world will be able to
relation of intersubjectivity which forms th
sciences" (pp. 105 fL).
Where this new departure would have led the
shall not know. But fragmentary as is his wor
doomed to be, the image of the man is com
further perfection. If a thinker also teaches th
of truth through the manner of his service, th
a legacy beyond the lasting achievements of h
a pure and noble soul whose loyalty to the spiri
by suffering: and the adversity of fate.
Hans Jonas
Graduate Faculty of the New School
5 "Das Problem der transzendentalen Intersubjektivitat bei Husserl/' in
Philosophische Rundschau, vol. 5, no. 2 (1957) pp. 81-107.
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