1.3 Time to think again
1.3.2 Alfred Schutz as primary guide
Alfred Schutz's work has provided much of the foundation for sociology of knowledge as an academic discipline.102 Schutz had an atypical career in that he taught and
Harvey, Handbook of Theological Terms, 79.
10 Berger and Luckmann, from whose foundational work the above quotation was taken, say that their objective is to understand the processes by which "knowledge" is developed, maintained, and communicated within social situations so that people in all societies achieve a "taken-for-granted 'reality.'" The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise on the Sociology of Knowledge (New York: Anchor Doubleday, 1966), 3.
101 Ibid.
102 Most of the biographical and intellectual background information on Schutz's life contained in this section is taken from Michael Barber, "Alfred Schutz," The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta (Summer 2006): http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2006/entries/schutz/.
wrote about practical philosophical matters while also pursuing a successful career in international banking. Shortly before the outbreak of World War 2, Schutz emigrated from Europe to the United States. Here, he took up a part time post at The New School for Social Research in New York and continued to work in banking. In his teaching and writing Schutz entertained a broad scope of interests, ranging from philosophical thoughts on the social sciences, to politics, literature, and music. Today Schutz's influence comes down to us through the work of many followers. His student Thomas Luckmann, for example, co- authored a posthumously published work of Schutz's103 and later joined with Peter Berger of Boston University to produce a classic volume, The Social Construction of Reality.
While Schutz's training in Western philosophy could be overbearing for some practical contexts, his additional background in law, social sciences, and business prompted him to focus not just on theoretical insights but on how people make sense of the physical world in which we exist. As he began forming his own views on how knowledge is acquired in everyday settings, Schutz was particularly impressed with the methods of Max Weber.
But Schutz disliked the way in which Weber seemed to gloss over some basic ideas about cognition and knowledge that affected people's ordinary existence.104 To fill in these gaps, Schutz turned to philosophical insights concerning consciousness and time that Henri Bergson offered and to Edmund Husserl's investigations into fundamental human activities.105
103 Alfred Schutz and Thomas Luckmann, The Structures of the Life-World, trans. Richard M. Zaner and H.
Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973).
104 He liked that Weber didn't completely equate social sciences with natural sciences—which would too thoroughly open up social science to problems of testability and verification that have plagued debates between theology and science—but added to Weber important ideas about interpretation and prior meaning as affecting how people act in real life. Barber, "Alfred Schutz," 3.
105 Harvey, Handbook of Theological Terms, 184. Husserl, a mathematician, used insights from Gallileo and Descartes to "disclose an entirely new sense of the world," during 19th century debates about the ultimate foundations of empirical psychology. Paul S. MacDonald, Descartes and Husserl: The Philosophical Project
The sweep of Schutz's work encompasses far more than can be accommodated in this study, but several highpoints of his theories concerning meaning and action are especially pertinent. Hearkening back to our opening claim that everyday perceptual disparities involve cognitive processes related to meaning, Schutz maintained that "the meaning problem" of life is perpetually tension-filled because it involves experiences of ourselves and others within what is commonly now called "real time"107 along with on-going thinking about our experiences. He identified one level of our existence as constituting inner thought processes, memories, and reflections upon circumstances. Schutz referred to this state of existence as
"duration" and said that we plan future actions and look back upon past deeds through complex processes that choose from and interpret many aspects of duration. Another level of
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existence is what he termed "the world of daily life." This consists of physical objects, including our own bodies and those of others, and the environment in which we live, move, and simply are. Both these inner and outer states of existence are "real."
What is particularly important, though, is that people take the world of daily life for granted. This is so significant because people never question the reality of the everyday world and an "unquestioned and unchallenged certainty concerning the world at large underlies, supports, and enters into every particular mental activity."109 What is more, since
of Radical Beginnings (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), 20ff. Husserl's inquiries regarding the physical world as well as his employing journey and exploration imagery in his writing have quite obvious counterparts in Schutz's efforts.
106 Schutz, Life Forms and Meaning Structure, 52.
107 Note the designation of the present as "real" time.
108 Alfred Schutz, Collected Papers, Vol, I: The Problem of Social Reality, ed. Maurice Natanson (The Hague:
Martinus Nijhoff, 1962), 208. In other writings, Schutz and his followers referred to this environment as "the world of common sense," and "the everyday life-world." Aron Gurwitsch, "Introduction," in Collected Papers, Vol. Ill: Studies in Phenomenological Philosophy, by Alfred Schutz, ed. Use Schutz (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975), xi, xii.
109 Gurwitsch in Schutz, Collected Papers, Vol, HI, xiii.
we all experience the everyday life world in the company of others, we take it for granted that everyone else experiences the world in essentially the same ways that we do.110
Schutz also delineated multiple inner realities that people inhabit. These include (among others) not only the compilation of memories and experiences we carry in our heads;
but information handed down to us by others; realities of dreams while sleeping and so on.
Since all these inner realities differ from person to person we can get into trouble when we attempt to interpret the meaning of others' actions for we may not know anything about the inner realities they are drawing from as they act. In other words, we could see someone do Action A with Object B and assume that his or her objective in acting was simply to do what was visible or verifiable in that action. But because we have no access to that person's own inner reality or duration, we really can't be certain as to why he or she acted as observed.111
In many writings, and particularly a series of pragmatically oriented essays, Schutz often explained his ideas by using map imagery.11" When talking about how people move through an inherently contradictory everyday world, he said we orient ourselves within
"zones of various relevance" in order to make things coherent.113 Since these zones of relevance are not discrete units but intermingle, they can be likened to a topographical, rather than a political, map of the countryside.114 These zones are also related to different roles we play within society—parents, citizens, workers, for example—all of which are "real" yet all of which entail different interests. How we define a given problem depends upon the vantage point (or role) from which we address that problem.
110 Ibid.
111 Barber, "Alfred Schutz," 4.
112 These include "The Stranger," "The Homecomer," "The Well-informed Citizen," and others. See Alfred Schutz, Collected Papers, Vol. II: Studies in Social Theory, ed. Arvid Brodersen (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976).
113 Schutz, Collected Papers, Vol. II, 125.
114 Ibid., 125-126.
The significance of Schutz's work for our present concerns should begin to be apparent as we look back on the two opening vignettes. When, for example, we from the Global North or West go to work on African development issues, how can we be sure we are in territory that is adequately accounted for on our "maps?" (My Zimbabwean bishop appeared to understand that supplies and equipment constituted a real lay training program, or at least were adequate enough for him not to be concerned about what that program would teach.) What if our sending organizations give directions and make evaluations using another "map?" (The European mining investors seemed to understand that financial and production data were real enough indicators for them to make adequate decisions about their employee's performance. What had I overlooked by concentrating on imparting ideas and what did they miss by never seeing the environment that was earning them money?) While Schutz undoubtedly did not have such international development policymaking and practice situations in mind when he wrote and taught, much of what he said is remarkably relevant to the case study that follows.