Action theories: Phenomenology

Question 1

What is the philosophical basis for phenomenology?

Answer 1

• we can never have definite knowledge of what the world outside our minds is really like ‘in itself,’ all we know is what our senses tell us

Question 2

How does Husserl argue that we make sense of the world?

Answer 2

• we impose meaning and order on it by constructing mental categories

Question 3

Give an example that demonstrates Husserl’s argument that we impose meaning and order on the world by constructing mental categories

Answer 3

• a category such as ‘four-legged furniture to eat off’ enables us to identify a particular set of sensory data as a ‘table’

Question 4

How does Schutz’s phenomenological sociology apply the ideas of Husserl to the social world?

Answer 4

• he argues that the categories and concepts we use are not unique to ourselves but are shared with other members of society

Question 5

What does Schutz call these shared categories of meaning?

Answer 5

• typifications

Question 6

What does the variety of meaning of any given experience depend on according to Schutz?

Answer 6

• social context

Question 7

Because meaning isn’t given by the action itself but by its context, what can result?

Answer 7

• meanings are potentially unclear and unstable

Question 8

What is the function of typifications?

Answer 8

• to stabilise and clarify meanings because we agree on the meaning of things

Question 9

What are the benefits of having clear and stable meanings established by typifications?

Answer 9

• we can communicate and cooperate and achieve goals

Question 10

According to Schutz, members of society to a large extent do have a shared ‘life world,’ give examples of what this includes

Answer 10

• shared assumptions about the way things are, what certain situations mean, what other people’s motivations are etc

Question 11

Why does Schutz consider our shared ‘life world’ as ‘recipe knowledge’?

Answer 11

• we can follow it without thinking too much and still get desired results

Question 12

Why do both Schutz and Husserl believe that the social world can only exist when we share the same meanings?

Answer 12

• the social world is a shared, intersubjective world

Question 13

Give an example that Schutz uses to illustrate that society appears to us as a real, objective thing and how is this illustrated?

Answer 13

• posting a letter to a bookshop to order a book

- we assume some unknown and unseen individuals will perform a series of operations in a particular sequence

Question 14

Because we end up receiving the ordered book, what does this encourage us to adopt?

Answer 14

• the ‘natural attitude’ - the assumption that the social world is a solid, natural thing out there

Question 15

Though the receiving of the ordered book may encourage us to adopt the ‘natural attitude,’ what does it show for Schutz?

Answer 15

• that all those involved (ie. postal workers) share the same meanings which allows cooperation and the achievement of goal

Question 16

Though Luckmann recognises Schutz is right to focus on shared commonsense knowledge, how does he critique Schutz?

Answer 16

• he believes that while reality is socially constructed, once it has been constructed it takes on a life of its own and becomes an external reality that reacts back on us