Discuss Husserl’s intersubjective lifeworld and explain the roles both Durkheim and Weber played in influencing Schutz’s work.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Husserl used the term lifeworld (Lebenswelt) to refer to the world of existing assumptions as they are experienced and made meaningful in consciousness (Wagner 1973:63). Husserl (1913) explains how intentional consciousness, that is, directing our attention in one way or another, enables the phenomenologist to reconstruct or bracket his basic views on the world and himself and explore their interconnections. In doing so, Husserl made the lifeworld, or “thinking as usual” in everyday life situations, a legitimate object of investigation. Phenomenology investigates the systematic bracketing of all existing assumptions regarding the external world.
Durkheim used the term collective conscience to refer to the “totality of beliefs and sentiments common to average citizens of the same society” that “forms a determinate system which has its own life” (1893/1984:38–39). However, in contrast to Durkheim, Schutz does not conceptualize the preorganized and pregiven elements of the lifeworld as acting on the individual with the external power of constraint. Rather, in accordance with the basic premises of symbolic interactionism (see Chapter 5), Schutz views one’s “natural attitude” as based on the acceptance, interpretation, redefinition, and modification of cultural elements by the individual (Wagner 1973:64). Schutz sought to expand on Weber’s conceptualization of Verstehen and interpretive sociology (verstedhende Soziologie) by formulating his own concept of meaning. Starting with Weber’s conceptualization of action as behavior to which a subjective meaning is attached, and drawing heavily on Husserl (as well as Bergson), Schutz envisions social action as an action oriented toward the past, present, or future behavior of another person or persons.