This paper is a transcription and translation by Marina Banchetti of two memories of Edmund Husserl that Alfred Schutz recounted as part of a panel of philosophers discussing their memories of Husserl at Royaumont in 1957. One memory concerned Husserl lecturing in Prague without notes on the dignity of philosophy. The other had to do with Schutz ordering oranges for Husserl during his final illness.

A network (1) of dates, persons, activities and publications relating to the beginning of phenomenology in France is listed below, thus enabling to substantiate the direct objective of this essay: (2) estimate how much Aron Gurwitsch contributed to the reception of phenomenology in France during the 1930s, to what extent he contributed, how and when. (3) The indirect objective is to establish the legacy of Gurwitsch in France after he was exiled to the United States. (4) Another objective is related tacitly with this: to show that in his Parisian stage Gurwitsch was not merely in a kind of transit, unimportant, “between” the life of the novice researcher in Germany and life of the relevant phenomenolgist in the US. He played an important role in France. This to the point that without Gurwitsch, probably French phenomenology would not have followed the path it followed in the years after his departure. (5) Yet, paradoxically, this crucial role was exercised implicitly and has had to be explicated.

This never published paper by Benita Luckmann describes the ori­gins and uniqueness of the New School for Social Research. It portrays Alfred Schutz’s arrival in the United States, his reasons for working at the New School, his exchange with Talcott Parsons, the debate over his presentation of the Stranger in the General Seminar, and his many efforts to recruit Aron Gurwitsch to the New School. It also provides an account of Gurwitsch’s experience of life in exile, his friendship with Schutz, and his time at the New School after Schutz’s death.

The particularly significant theory of the symbol of Alfred Schutz is based on a combination of the two perspectives of phenomenological individualism and pragmatic realism. This theory on the one hand explains processes of symbolic meaning constitution from a phenomenological viewpoint, specifically following Edmund Husserl. On the other hand it demonstrates the functioning of symbols through pragmatic social action, which is relevant for symbolic reality construction. The paper elaborates both perspectives within the Schutzian theory of the symbol with reference to diverse interpretations of Franz Kafka’s novel The Castle. It outlines the decisive capacity of symbols to overcome and harmonize diverse and often contradictory meanings that are expressed and at the same time united by the symbol itself.

Alfred Schutz made a point which is crucial for understanding communi­cation and social coordination. Through symbols, signs or indications we experience that which transcends our experience. However, Schutz never solved the conceptual problems his claim implied. A solution is proposed through constructive criticism of Schutz. Symbols, signs and indications are based on typical expectations. In contrast, ‘experiences of transcendence’ are analyzed as experiences which deviate from typical expectations due to a tendency inherent to experience, as opposed to deviations prompted by the frustration of types. Such experiences are shown to be constitutive of our use of symbols, our use of language, and our relation to individual others. Experiences of transcendence do not passively reflect the situation, but they are motivated in their selectivity by ‘anxiety.’ Anxiety is phenomenologically under­stood as the expectation of atypical experiences. While anxiety motivates deviations from types, it is itself motivated by previous frustrations of types. Through this dynamics of motivation, experiences of transcendence and typical experiences refer to each other. Even so, the two categories are logically distinct. The possibility of communication and social coordination can only be explained by assuming, in addition to shared types, anxiety as a shared readiness to transcend types.

Some decades before Umberto Eco refounded semiotics in the sixties, Alfred Schutz had already elaborated a theory on signs and symbols. Moreover, as Schutz himself affirms, neither was he the first to do so. The thoughts of Charles Sanders Peirce had already clearly influenced American pragmatism, and thinkers like George Herbert Mead and Ernst Cassirer had developed a theory of symbols, both referred to by Schutz in his later works. Nonetheless, sign theory was already present in his first book, Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt, and can be traced to the influence of Edmund Husserl. Schutz’s focus on the analysis of the relationship between individual and society fomented his perception of the importance of intermediary communication and sign processes as the setting and interpretation of signs, “Zeichensetzung und Zeichendeutung”, reflections that in his later working phase resulted in a proper sign theory, which is analyzed in the following article. Based on Husserl’s concept of pairing, Schutz here develops his theory of appresentational references, comprising a subdivision of: marks, indications, signs and symbols. This involves the concept of representation, a relationship between the signifier and the signified, and a subjective as well as constructive interpretation by actors. Consequently, this concept involves an objective sign system, a social situation and, as inserted into a process of communication, complementary producers (senders) and receptors (receivers) of signs and symbols. In the final comments the question is addressed whether, and in what sense, given the preceding theory of appresentational references, Schutz would hold that reality is a symbolic construction, as proposes the title of the 2016 conference on Schutz in Tokyo, The Symbolic Construction of Reality.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the idea that members are fully competent at what they do. With that aim, I start with a Schutzian and Ethno­methodological account of what it is like to be a member of the tango scene in the dance halls of Buenos Aires. I specify different degrees and kinds of competences. On the one hand, there are fully competent members (sanctioned dancers) and incompetent members (the “beginners”). The incompetent members are the vast majority in comparison to the few fully competent ones. On the other hand, there are technically competent members and socially competent ones. Technical competence is very hard to acquire, thus it is very rare. Social competences, instead, are accessible to all members. These different ways of being a member are heterogeneous and indicate a significant diversity of competences and skills. I conclude that not all members are alike and that each one is challenged in a particular way.

Husserl focused perhaps more than any other philosopher on the relationship between philosophy and psychology. This problem was important to him because the European project of universal science must include sciences of consciousness that address questions of meaning, value and purpose so crucial for humanity. This paper provides a sketch of the later Husserl’s thinking on this issue in order to clarify the relationships among transcendental philosophy as the mother of the sciences, psychology as the foundational mental science, and the various regional sciences of persons. Radicalizing and extending the transcendental tradition to free philosophy from naturalism, Husserl developed methods and fundamental concepts for understanding consciousness in its distinctive world constituting function. In parallel fashion, Husserl traced the historical failures of psychology to its naturalistic philosophy, from which he liberated the discipline by means of phenomenological reflections on the intentional property of its subject matter. This pure focus on mental processes resulted in the clarification of the transcendental phenomenological foundation of psychology as well as a recognition of the paradoxical manner in which psychological processes are both world constituting and mundanely present in the lives of persons. The apperceptive synthesis of transcendental consciousness and mundane embodiment in the identification of the person is proposed as essential for a non-naturalistic, intentional psychology, which provides appropriate concepts and the method of intentional analysis for such sciences of persons as sociology, history, literary studies, and religious studies. The problems, means, and inevitable inadequacies of communicating transcendental insights in language are discussed. Analysis of the complexity of living persons discloses their transcendental dimension in the manifolds their mundane activities and in their products, including use, cultural, and art objects as well as social institutions. Attention is drawn to resources in phenomenology beyond Husserl and in the genuine psychological intuitions of non-phenomenologists for generating non-naturalistic, phenomenologically grounded person sciences.

The paper explores biographical experiences for the understanding of social phenomena, both in the writings of Alfred Schutz himself and in sociological empirical approaches based on his work. Schutz handles biography at least in two different ways: as a manner to investigate the “because” motives for one’s action and as a way to exemplify his theoretical considerations. The first step will be to discuss the biographical experience as a key aspect to understand the motivation for action. It will be argued that for Schutz, biography is not exclusively an individual life’s trajectory, but results of both individual and social experiences, synthesized on the individual relevance systems, which are embedded by the relevance systems of the community in which one has been socialized. In the second step the paper verifies how Schutz deals with his own biographical experiences to discuss theoretical and empirical aspects of his sociology. Examples of the first kind of use of biography by Schutz are, for instance, “The Stranger” and “The Homecomer”, which will be considered in this paper. A third step aims to discuss how these writings influenced empirical researches in sociology based on biographical narratives as a way to access empirically the social construction of reality.

The paper aims to analyze the potentiality of Schutzian phenomenology to account for the problem of social order. Firstly, we expose the existence of aninterpretive scheme of Parsonian roots in contemporary social theory that introduces the dualistic dilemma subjective action versus social order in the analysis ofSchutz’s perspective. According to this interpretive scheme, Schutz fails to master the problem of social order. Secondly, and in clear opposition to those interpretations, we show three main contributions which have put forward the argument that it is possible to find in Schutz’s work a theory of social order: Harold Garfinkel’s early writings, the recent Austrian School of Economics’ reception of Schutz and the present-day interpretation in German sociology. In the context of these discussions, our reflections have explored the pragmatic dimension of the order of the life-world based on a phenomenonological constitutive analysis which provides a basis for a comprehensive theory of social order of Schutzian roots.

This paper presents an empirical study that analyzes everyday practices regarding the health care and education of middle class families grounded in aphenomenological perspective. Everyday practices are linked to the system of expectations and goals built around practices, constituting a configurations of meaning that involves both aspects of the Life-World, which is affected by social class and other social determinants that define areas of experiences and opportunities for social interaction. In this sense, we see that social class and gender intersect each other, enabling and limiting horizons of expectations for children, raising specific jurisdictions to males and females. Finally, we reflect on how the constitution of meanings and everyday practices influences the construction of social relations of the educational and health environments.

Our aim is to put into consideration the topics of “semantics”, “types”, “lifeworld” and “intersubjectivity” following the social theories of Alfred Schutz and Niklas Luhmann. First of all, and inversely to Luhmann’s perspective which receives the schutzian theory comparing equal types and semantics, we will show that types are inherent to subjectivity. Secondly, and consequently, we state that the social systems theory in the analysis of the “lifeworld”, does not pay attentionto the past character of its constitution. Last, but not least, we will point out that all these aspects are framed in a critique of the phenomenological notion of intersubjectivity, which from the luhmannian point of view, ignores the autonomy of consciousness, as well as the emergent character of the social.

The individual, as an actor in the social world, relies on “a stock of knowledge at hand” (Schutz). However, he also addresses the cultural and historic forms of validity based on the perspectives of his own interests, reasons and wishes, ambitions, religious and ideological commitments. In this sense, not only does thesocial world constitute the main scene of our actions but also the locus of resistance. These days of highly social complexity and growing cultural interaction mobilize different identification and differentiation processes. In extraordinary situations of change, such as migration for reasons of work or study, or reasons of political or allegedly religious exile, a reformulation of socio-cultural spaces occurs, which is coupled with a rupture of social connections of support and belonging. This refers to a lifestyle under a “transience” status, which may last, in certain cases, all life long. The “place of roots” fails and the subject ends up feeling a stranger even in its own spaces. In this sense, the foreigner’s right (xenos) to hospitality resides precisely in not being considered the absolute other, the barbarian, the savage who is absolutely excluded and heterogeneous, but in being someone whose identity should be guaranteed. Upon answering this requirement, the foreigner undertakes responsibility before the law and before its hosts: the foreigner becomes “a subject of rights”.

This essay aims to interpret Japanese university reform plans in terms of knowledge. For this aim, a history of attempts at university reform after Second World War is described briefly (sec. 2), and the underlying tone of these reform plans is explored by asking why the university had to start attempts at reforming their education and research system, what these plans signify, and what results from them (sec. 3). Then, it is asked where such reform plans lead the Japanese university, and a conclusion is drawn that as regards to knowledge expected to be produced and transmitted in university, the present Japanese university becomes to be a different kind of institution from the university based on the W. von Humboldt’s ideas (sec. 4). This leads attention to A. Schutz’s theory of knowledge, especially his distinction between knowledge and information, his insight into horizonal structure of knowledge as well as his ideas about higher education founded on his theory of knowledge, and why and in which context Schutz’s theory of knowledge is significant for elucidating a university “crisis” in Japan is explicated (sec. 5).

Alfred Schutz’ article on the well-informed citizen can, among others, also be read as a treatise on the information flow in democratic society. To be “well-informed” is a challenge the citizen has to keep up with in order to play his role in civil society, and being well-informed is also to be seen as a preconditionfor a fairly functioning political community. For Jürgen Habermas, it is the free press that guarantees public communication of democratic societies and which isthreatened by the colonisation of the life-world by system constraints following capitalistic logic. The systems nowadays threatening the life-world have additionallybecome digital in nature, questioning the traditional division of public and private, whereby the challenge of the well-informed citizen set up by Schütz hasnot lost any relevance nor contemporary interest. On the basis of Schutz’ framework, these questions are debated in the context of Habermas’ Structural Changeof the Public Sphere, Volker Gerhardt’s theory of the Public Sphere, and Vilém Flusser’s analyses of the new telematic digitalized society.

In this paper, I intend to show the relevance of Schutz’s account of interpersonal understanding within the context of the contemporary social cognition debate. Currently, the research on the nature of everyday interpersonal understanding is taking place almost exclusively within the field of interdisciplinary cognitive science. Generally speaking, since the mid-nineties the so-called social cognition debate is dominated by two opposed theoretical outlooks which divergeconcerning the ultimate mechanisms responsible for our understanding of Others, namely the theory-theory of mind (TT) and the simulation theory (ST). Yet, in the last couple of years, there is a phenomenological turn taking place in this debate. Thinkers like Zahavi, Gallagher and Overgaard, among others, return to classical phenomenological accounts of empathy—like those of Husserl, Stein, Scheler and Merleau-Ponty—to propose an alternative theoretical outlook on intersubjective understanding, namely the direct perception theory (DPT). However, this recuperation of classical phenomenological approaches to intersubjective comprehension is, to some extent, incomplete. Indeed, DPT supporters tend to neglect the valuable contributions that Schutz made to the study of this problem. This is quite curious, not only because Schutz’s phenomenological theory of interpersonal understanding agrees, to some degree, with the main thesis of the direct perception theory, but also because it contains of insights that may be helpful to formulate a more solid and self-clarified version of it.

The stock of knowledge at hand is one of the most important concepts of Schutzian social theory. However, it would seem that attempts to consider thestructures of the Life-World have not included social stratification in relation to the stock of knowledge at hand. By analyzing certain data from Argentina’s 2001

Long debated has been whether or not the “objectivistic” epistemologies, quantitative methods and causal explanations, developed by the natural sciences forthe study of physical objects, their actions and interactions, might also be applied to the study of human subjects, their experiences, actions and social interactions. Pointing out that such supposedly objective approaches would be singularly inappropriate to the study of the significance or meanings, qualitative values and freedom of choice, widely regarded as essential aspects of human subjects, their experiences, actions, and social interactions, and drawing attention, a la Alfred Schutz, to the two meanings of the term “subjective” (i.e. of the subject, and, unverifiable) it is first argued that many of the claims of the natural sciences themselves are “empirically” unverifiable, in the Positivistic sense (i.e. attested to by the evidence of the five senses) of that term. Moreover, and most crucially, it is further argued that the “objectivity” of an experience cannot be empirically established on the basis of its supposed correspondence to some (quasi Noumenal) “objective” world—for, as precisely appearance or experience transcending, the existence of such a world, much less its nature, is clearly empirically unverifiable—and must therefore rest upon inter-subjective coherence, which in turn must, as Schutz has pointed out, depend precisely upon the very subjective experiences which those who would council such an “objective” approach, had ipso facto, sought to avoid as unverifiable. Thus, paradoxically, the criterion of objective verification cannot itself be objectively verified, but rests upon appeals to “subjective” experiences.