Alfred Schütz (13 April 1899 – 20 May 1959) was an Austrian social scientist, whose work bridged sociological and phenomenological traditions to form a social phenomenology, and who is gradually achieving recognition as one of the foremost philosophers of social science of the [twentieth] century.[1] Schütz attempted to relate the thought of Edmund Husserl to the social world and the social sciences. His Phenomenology of the Social World supplied philosophical foundations for Max Weber's sociology and for economics.[2]
Schütz was born in Vienna, Austria into an upper-middle class family as an only child. He studied law and business at the University of Vienna where he received his degree in law. He worked as an international lawyer for Reitler and Company, and moved to the United States in 1939, where he became a member of the faculty of The New School. He taught sociology and philosophy as well as serving as chair of the Philosophy department. Schütz died in New York City at the age of 60.[3] His primary focuses were concentrated on phenomenology, social science methodology and the philosophy of Edmund Husserl, William James and others.
Schütz is unique as a scholar of the social sciences in that he pursued a career as a lawyer for an Austrian banking firm for almost his entire life, teaching part-time at the New School for Social Research in New York and producing key papers in phenomenological sociology that fill three volumes (published by Nijhoff, The Hague).

Work
 

This section requires expansion. (December 2009)
Schütz's principal task was to create a philosophical foundation for the social sciences. He was strongly influenced by Ludwig von Mises, Henri Bergson, William James, and Edmund Husserl. Contrary to common belief, George Herbert Mead - whose 'concern with the analysis of meaning in social interaction paralleled that of Schütz, although it had been arrived at by a completely different road'[4] - was of little importance for Schütz, who was very critical of his behavioristic approach.[5] Although Schütz was never a student of Husserl, he, together with a colleague, Felix Kaufmann, studied Husserl's work intensively in seeking a basis for interpretive sociology derived from the work of Max Weber. This work and its continuation resulted in 1932 in his first book, Der sinnhafteAufbau der sozialen Welt (literally, The meaningful construction of the social world, but published in English as The phenomenology of the social world). The publication brought him to the attention of Husserl, whom he 'frequently thereafter visited'; but 'although he corresponded with Husserl until the latter's death [in 1938], he was unable for personal reasons to accept the offer to become his assistant'[4] at Freiburg University.
Schütz's main concerns were with the way in which people grasp the consciousness of others while they live within their own stream of consciousness. He talked much about intersubjectivity but in a larger sense. He used it to mean a concern with the social world, specifically the social nature of knowledge. A great deal of his work deals with the life world. Within this, people create social reality as well as they are constrained by the preexisting factors and structures that are in place both socially and culturally. He was very focused on the dialectical relationship between the way people construct social reality and the obdurate social and cultural reality that they inherit from those who preceded them in the social world[6]
Schütz's writings had a lasting impact on sociology, both on phenomenological approaches to sociology (especially through the work of Thomas Luckmann and Peter L. Berger) and in ethnomethodology through the writings of Harold Garfinkel. Luckmann was heavily influenced by Schütz's work. Luckmann, a student of Schutz (along with Peter L. Berger), ultimately finished Schutz's work on the Structures of the Lifeworld after Schutz died by filling out his unfinished notes. Berger and Luckmann went on to use Schütz's work to further understand human culture and reality.[7]

Phenomenology

Phenomenology originated with Edmund Husserl. Schütz became friends with Husserl and soon after began working on this concept. Phenomenology is the study of things as they appear (phenomena). It is also often said to be descriptive rather than explanatory a central task of phenomenology is to provide a clear, undistorted description of the ways things appear.[8]

The Lifeworld

In this world of everyday life, people both create social reality and are constrained by the preexisting social and cultural structures created by their predecessors.[9] Within this world, relationships between the social and natural world are what come into doubt. There is this existence of meaning which comes into play yet most people simply accept the world how it is and never second guess the concept or problem of meaning.[10] Schütz delves even more into specific relationships such as the difference between intimate face-to-face relationships and distant and impersonal relationships.

The four divisions of the lifeworld

'Schütz is, according to Natanson, phenomenology's spokesman of the Lebenswelt...the mundane lifeworld',[11] which he divided into four distinct subworlds in what has been called 'the crux of Schütz's theoretical contribution. He believes that our social experience makes up a vast world...distinguish[d] between directly experienced social reality and a social reality lying beyond the horizon of direct experience'.[12] The former consisted of the Umwelt of what Schütz termed consociates or fellow-men - of the man who 'shares with me a community of space and a community of time'.[13]
By contrast, 'those who I am not directly perceiving fall into three classes. First comes the world of my contemporaries (Mitwelt), then the world of my predecessors (Vorwelt), and finally the world of my successors (Folgewelt)'.[12] The last two represent the past and the future, whereas one's contemporaries share a community of time, if not space, and 'are distinguished from the other two by the fact that it is in principle possible for them to become my consociates'.[12]
Schütz was interested in mapping 'the transition from direct to indirect experience...as two poles between which stretches a continuous series of experiences',[14] as well as in what he called the progressive anonymisation of the Mitwelt a 'scale of increasing anonymity. There is, for instance, my absent friend, his brother whom he has described to me, the professor whose books I have read, the postal clerk, the Canadian Parliament, abstract entities like Canada herself, the rules of English grammar, or the basic principles of jurisprudence'.[15] For Schütz, 'the further out we go into the world of contemporaries, the more anonymous its inhabitants become', ending with the most anonymous of all - 'artifacts of any kind which bear witness to the subjective meaning-context of some unknown person',[16] but nothing more.
In his later writings, Schütz explored the way that 'in social situations of everyday life relations pertaining to all these dimensions are frequently intertwined...in various degrees of anonymity'.[17] Thus for instance, 'if in a face-to-face relationship with a friend I discuss a magazine article dealing with the attitude of the President and Congress toward...China...I am in a relationship not only with the perhaps anonymous contemporary writer of the article but also with the contemporary individual or collective actors on the social scene designated by the terms President, Congress, China'.[18]

Biographies
 
Wagner, H. R. (1983). Alfred SchützAn Intellectual Biography. Chicago and London, The University of Chicago Press.
Barber, M. (2004). The Participating Citizen A Biography of Alfred Schütz.New York, State University of New York Press.

Bibliography

1932. Der sinnhafteAufbau der sozialen Welt eineEinleitung in die verstehendeSoziologie. Wien J. Springer.
1941. William James' Concept of the Stream of Consciousness Phenonemologically Interpreted. In Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 1 442-451.
1942. Scheler's Theory of Intersubjectivity& the General Thesis of the Alter Ego. In Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 2 323-347.
1945. On Multiple Realities. In Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 5 533-576.
1948. Sartre's Theory of Alter Ego. In Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 9 181-199.
1951. Choosing Among Projects of Action. In Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 12 161-184.
1953. Edmund Husserl's Ideas, Volume II.In Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 13 394-413.
1953. Die Phänomenologie und die fundamente der Wissenschaften. (Ideas III by Edmund Husserl A Review.) In Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 13 506-514.
1953. Common-sense and Scientific Interpretation in Human Action. In Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 14 1-38.
1954. Concept and Theory Formation in the Social Sciences. In the Journal of Philosophy. 51 257-272.
1957. Max Scheler's Epistemology and Ethics I.In Review of Metaphysics. 11 304-314.
1958. Max Scheler's Epistemology and Ethics II.In Review of Metaphysics. 11 486-501.
1959. Type and Eidos in Husserl's Late Philosophy. In Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 20 147-165.
1962-66. Collected Papers I The Problem of Social Reality. Edited by M.A. Natanson and H.L. van Breda. Dordrecht, The Netherlands MartinusNijhoff Publishers.
1962-66. Collected Papers II.Studies in Social Theory.Edited by A. Brodersen. Dordrecht, The Netherlands MartinusNijhoff Publishers.
1962-66. Collected Papers III.Studies in Phenomenological Philosophy.Edited by I. Schutz, AronGurwitsch. Dordrecht, The Netherlands MartinusNijhoff Publishers.
1967. The Phenomenology of the Social World. Evanston, IL Northwestern University Press.
1970. Reflections on the Problem of Relevance. Edited by Richard Zaner.New Haven, CT Yale University Press.
1971. Das Problem der Relevanz. Frankfurt am Main Suhrkamp.
1970. On Phenomenology and Social Relations Selected Writings. Edited by Helmut R. Wagner.Chicago, IL University of Chicago Press.
1972. GesammelteAufsätze Band I. Das Problem der SozialenWirklichkeit Translated by B. Luckmann and R.H. Grathoff. Dordrecht, The Netherlands MartinusNijhoff Publishers.
1972. GesammelteAufsätze Band II. StudienzurSoziologischenTheorie.Edited by A. Brodersen.Translated by A. von Baeyer. Dordrecht, The Netherlands MartinusNijhoff Publishers.
1972. GesammelteAufsätze Band III. StudienzurPhaenomenologischenPhilosophie Edited by I. Schutz.Translated by A. von Baeyer. Dordrecht, The Netherlands MartinusNijhoff Publishers.
1973. The Structures of the Life-World. (Strukturen der Lebenswelt.) By Alfred Schütz and Thomas Luckmann. Translated by Richard M. Zaner and H. TristramEngelhardt, Jr. Evanston, IL Northwestern University Press.
1976. Fragments on the Phenomenology of Music. In Music Man. 2 5-72.
1977. ZurTheoriesozialenHandelns e. Briefwechsel Alfred Schütz, Talcott Parsons Herausgegeben u. eingel.von Walter M. Sprondel. Frankfurt am Main Suhrkamp.
1978. The Theory of Social Action The Correspondence of Alfred Schütz and Talcott Parsons. Edited by Richard Grathoff.Bloomington Indiana University Press.
1982. Life forms and meaning structure. (Lebensformen und Sinnstruktur.)Translated by Helmut R. Wagner.London Routledge& K. Paul.
1985. Alfred Schütz, AronGurwitschBriefwechsel, 1939-1959.miteinerEinleitung von Ludwig Landgrebe. Herausgegeben von Richard Grathoff.München W. Fink.
1989. Philosophers in Exile the Correspondence of Alfred Schütz and AronGurwitsch, 1939-1959. Edited by Richard Grathoff.Translated by J. Claude Evans.Bloomington, IN Indiana University Press.
1996. Collected Papers IV. Edited by Helmut Wagner, George Psathas, and Fred Kersten. Dordrecht, The Netherlands Kluwer Academic Publishers.