Hum Stud DOI 10.1007/s10746-016-9382-8 THEORETICAL / PHILOSOPHICAL PAPER
Type and Spontaneity: Beyond Alfred Schutz’s Theory of the Social World Jan Straßheim1,2
Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016
Abstract Alfred Schutz’s theory of the social world, often neglected in philosophy, has the potential to capture the interplay of identity and difference which shapes our action, interaction, and experience in everyday life. Compared to still dominant identity-based models such as that of Ju¨rgen Habermas, who assumes a coordination of meaning built on the idealisation of stable rules (primarily those of language), Schutz’s theory is an important step forward. However, his central notion of a ‘‘type’’ runs into a difficulty which requires constructive criticism. Against the background of Schutz’s theory of meaning inspired by Bergson and Husserl, his idea of types ‘‘taken for granted until further notice’’ is shown to express a primacy of identity which, in the final analysis, leads into the implausible scenario of ‘ubiquitous tunnel vision’. This makes it necessary to go beyond Schutz and assume an inherently motivated tendency towards difference in meaning termed ‘spontaneity’. Where spontaneity and the opposed tendency towards identity of meaning work together in the application of types, they enable embodied subjects to interact with the world and with each other in the routine yet flexible and sometimes innovative ways which we all know. Keywords Phenomenology Meaning Relevance Novelty Rationality Theory of action
& Jan Straßheim
[email protected] 1
Graduate School of Letters, Arts and Sciences, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan
2
Rokkakubashi 5-14-14-203, Kanagawa-ku, Yokohama, Japan
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Introduction Alfred Schutz’s theory of the social world is still neglected in philosophy. One reason is that Schutz is often perceived as a sociologist only. But perhaps more importantly, Schutz’s theory expresses a tension between identity and difference which later on came to be decided in favour of identity. His notion of typicality in particular addressed both the relative stability and uniformity of meaning-patterns and their openness to revision, modification, and change. But in the year Schutz passed away, a paper by Chomsky (1959) heralded a paradigm of thinking about the social world primarily in terms of shared rules and structures, in short, of identity rather than difference, which made Schutz’s more balanced concepts appear obsolete and inconclusive. This trend, exemplified in the explanatory models of communication of John Searle and Ju¨rgen Habermas, has come under increasing criticism bolstered by findings on the role of relevance in communication. Rules cannot reflect the necessarily flexible and sometimes innovative character of our everyday experience, action, and interaction. Schutz tried to go beyond existing theories based on identity as early as the 1920s, and his account remains superior to the more recent models too. However, in order to appreciate Schutz’s lasting significance not only for sociology but also for social philosophy and phenomenology and to build on it productively, we must go one step further beyond his account as well. Constructive criticism is needed because within the tension between the patterning and openness of meaning, a primacy of patterning is implicit in Schutz’s notion of ‘‘taking things for granted until further notice’’. If thought out to its end, this primacy leads to a picture of the social world which I call ‘tunnel vision’ and which is implausible for the same reasons as the later rule models. In order to preserve Schutz’s insight on the essential openness of typification, it is necessary to give up even his moderate primacy of typical identity and assume an inherently motivated tendency towards difference in meaning for which I propose the term ‘spontaneity’ (a term found already in Schutz). While spontaneity is logically independent from the opposed tendency towards identity of meaning, both tendencies are involved in allowing us—at least in principle—to create, apply, revise, or change types as the situation requires. The paper contains two main parts. The first part gives an analysis of Schutz’s theory while the second part gives an argument for going beyond it. The former part is not meant to attempt an even remotely complete or detailed presentation of Schutz’s theory, but to lay out those elements which are critically assessed in the latter part. I will start out by presenting the significance of Schutz’s central concept of types ‘‘taken for granted until further notice’’ by contrasting it especially to the role of ‘‘idealisation’’ in Habermas. The concept of typification will then be analysed in more detail against the background of Schutz’s theory of ‘‘meaning’’ inspired by Max Weber, Henri Bergson, and Edmund Husserl with an emphasis on its praxeological dimensions. In the following critical part, I first point out a primacy of identity in meaning implied by Schutz’s idea of types ‘‘taken for granted until further notice’’ and his related conception of a ‘‘problem’’; this primacy is
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shown to lead into the scenario of ‘ubiquitous tunnel vision’. In order to avoid this implausible consequence, the notion of ‘spontaneity’ is introduced as a tentative but necessary amendment to Schutz. In the concluding section, I sum up the results and add some final comments on a theory of the social world informed by the idea of ‘spontaneity’.
Alfred Schutz’s Theory of the Social World The Concept of a ‘‘type’’: Its Background and Lasting Significance One reason for the success of Max Weber’s writings at the beginning of the twentieth century was that they differed from most other approaches at the time which tried to capture the social world in terms of objective laws or determinants. Instead, Weber suggested taking into account the subjective vantage points of the people involved. Sociology, he argued, should aim to interpret social action in terms of the ‘‘meaning’’ which it has to the actors themselves. This take emphasised the multiplicity of different perspectives rather than the supposed identity of shared rules or structures. But since as a sociologist, Weber was not interested in subjective phenomena as such, he focused on social phenomena in a way which implied a trade-off between identity and difference. Descriptions of social phenomena, he said, were based on ‘‘ideal types’’. An ideal type is constructed as if it remained identical across all instances; however, as a mere type, it allows for instances which differ from the ideal, and it is sometimes even constructed in order to detect them. As Alfred Schutz saw, Weber’s key concept of ‘‘meaning’’ stood in need of a philosophical clarification. The category bore the burden of bridging the divide between identity and difference in that it applied both to the generalising concepts of social scientists and to the concrete situations of social action as experienced from the subjective viewpoints of the actors. So in the 1920s, Schutz set out to revise the concept of meaning by consulting a radical philosopher of the non-identical. Henri Bergson had described experience in terms of what he called dure´e, a ‘stream’ of experience which not only differed completely from subject to subject but also from moment to moment. The identity of a concept, a person or a thing is selectively projected onto this stream, Bergson suggested, and hence does not do justice to its ever-changing fullness. Schutz drew on this position critically to develop a theory of meaning (Schutz 2013a).1 He showed that a pure and full stream of experience precluded not only identity, but also difference. The experience that my situation here and now is different from another situation goes beyond the stream in that it carves out the distinct ‘here and now,’ opposes it to another such unit and sets up a standard of comparison between the two (Schutz 2013a: 81). The statement that the dure´e involves constant change 1
There is a tension in Schutz’s use of the concept of meaning (see Srubar 1988). From the 1930s on, Schutz tends to restrict the term to reflexive, conscious meaning revealed in retrospection (1967: §12; 1962d: 210f). But especially in the early and often neglected Bergsonian manuscripts, the term is wider and includes bodily and affective phenomena. My reading of Schutz is based on the wider concept which remains valid even in the later texts.
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and that it is different from another dure´e is therefore based on a highly selective operation. This operation already marks what Schutz saw as ‘‘meaning’’. Meaning in the most general sense is an articulation which, as opposed to the richness of the Bergsonian dure´e, highlights only certain aspects, transitions, and boundaries while ignoring other possibilities. Both identity and difference presuppose meaning, i.e., selective articulation. It follows from Schutz’s theory that meaning should not be restricted to the special case of identical meaning or meaning-structures as postulated, e.g., in semantics or logic. Meaning in his sense is also at the basis of differences and changes, of concrete contexts and the subjective quality of my situation here and now. Schutz argued that it is meaning which produces phenomena as volatile as affective states, sensual perception, or the experience of my own body. As Weber had merely implied, meaning could now be demonstrated to span the wide range between the changing and varied perspectives of subjects and the fixed and general concepts used by scientific observers. The highly selective character of the latter concepts does not separate them from subjective experience, but on the contrary, the selectivity of meaning is their common denominator. This idea of a selective articulation, however, needed to be clarified. First of all, how should we understand the interplay of difference and identity in meaning? If meaning is thought of as the successive articulation of a constantly flowing stream of experience, it is obvious that ‘‘the problem of meaning is a time problem,’’ as Schutz (1967: 12) wrote. In the late 1920s, he became aware that Husserl’s study of the consciousness of internal time was important to his project. In the following years and decades, Schutz increasingly saw ‘‘typification’’ at the centre of his theory. His notion of typicality drew on Husserl, most of all on the fundamental ‘‘idealisations’’ which Husserl had termed ‘‘and so forth’’ and ‘‘I can do it again’’ and, more specifically, on Husserl’s concept of ‘‘presumptive certainty’’ which is ‘‘always, so to speak, on notice’’ (1973: §77). Schutz put particular stress on the point that while everyday life is based on the idealisation that things will go on as has been typically experienced so far, any type remains valid only as long as this implicit expectation is not frustrated. Schutz expressed this in the formula, recurring in variations, that things are ‘‘taken for granted until further notice’’. The position implied criticism of Husserl. Schutz was sceptical of the claim that phenomenology could attain universally and necessarily identical concepts which Husserl termed ‘‘eidetic’’ and of which the various ‘‘types’’ operative in different cultures were mere instances. Schutz argued that the limits of eidetic variation were in any given case drawn in advance by the respective types from which the variation started. ‘‘Ideation,’’ Schutz concluded, ‘‘can reveal nothing that was not preconstituted by the type’’ (1966b: 115). This meant that the limits of a Husserlian ‘‘eidos’’ are not universal and necessary, but culturally contingent. But even within the same culture it remained unclear how something like the strict identity of an eidos was supposed to transcend the differences in subjective meaning between the members of that culture. Against Edith Stein’s efforts to apply Husserl’s eidetic method to social phenomena, Schutz (1962c) suggested describing the social world
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in terms of types which its members used in interaction with each other, all of which were valid only ‘‘until further notice’’. Schutz’s position remains important today because his criticism applies to later positions which fell back behind his insight. Ju¨rgen Habermas criticises Schutz, explicitly striking out his qualification ‘‘until further notice’’ and insisting that a social group rests on strictly identical structures which, he says, enable its members to communicate (1987: 130f.). These structures are above all tied to a shared language, analysed by Habermas in terms of ‘‘rules’’ which guarantee identity of meaning. His explanatory model is distinct from his normative theory easily confused with it.2 According to him, an open plurality of opinions and interests paradoxically requires unquestionable conformity of meaning because in order to discuss our differing ‘‘validity claims,’’ we must first understand what the contents of our respective claims are (1984b: 139). Most of the identical structures, Habermas (1984a) avows, are the product of ‘‘idealisations’’ on the part of the philosopher who abstracts away from a wealth of empirical differences. But this approach is justified, he says, because (1) people use the same idealisations in their everyday interaction and because (2) only the identity of meaning thus provided can explain the possibility of communication. Habermas’s explanatory model, however, conflates two kinds of idealisation which Schutz’s qualification ‘‘until further notice’’ was meant to distinguish. This may be exemplified in the field of language. It has been shown that the use of a natural language does not actually follow ‘rules’ in a strictly identical manner (Bu¨hler 2011; Wittgenstein 2001; Davidson 1986; Knoblauch 2002). Habermas does not ignore this well-known fact. On the contrary, he recognises that in much of our empirical everyday communication we use ironical, metaphorical, indirect, vague, or elliptical utterances, all of which may express meanings noticeably different from what the rules of semantics or syntax would prescribe. However, in order to explain the possibility of communication, he advocates a formal model built on a conscious idealisation which disregards these differences. The problem with his model is that this is not the kind of idealisation people use in their everyday interaction. If it were, we would not be open to the many exceptions to linguistic rules, but we would be blind to them. As listeners, we would invariably miss other people’s irony, take all their metaphors literally, etc. As speakers, we would carefully avoid such uses of language, if only because otherwise we would invariably be misunderstood. If this is absurdly different from our real interaction, it is because people use what Schutz called ‘‘types,’’ i.e., idealisations which are open to differences and ready to be suspended or modified whenever such differences occur. This flexibility of communication has been attested more recently by studies indicating that in the meaning of utterances (that is, in their propositional core contents, not only in implications or nuances), differences which are ‘‘relevant’’ here and now can always, and quite often do, override semantic identity (Wilson and Sperber 2012). Still, most of the time we understand each other in such cases without even noticing that a typical pattern of meaning has been flouted. 2
On the status of normativity in a Schutzian theory, see ‘‘Conclusions’’ below.
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Habermas’s model fails to explain this smooth flexibility of communication. Failure to conform to shared linguistic rules has no role in it other than that of producing ‘‘situations of disturbed mutual understanding’’ (Habermas 1987: 134). The same argument may be made beyond language, which is often used as a model or even a basis for social coordination at large. Appropriating Husserl’s notion, Habermas claims that our ‘‘lifeworld’’ is ‘‘linguistically constituted’’ (1998b: 335).3 While Schutz too thinks that a shared language plays an important role in sustaining the patterns of a particular ‘‘lifeworld,’’ he talks about ‘‘types’’ where Habermas talks about ‘‘structures’’ (Habermas 1987: 130; Schutz 2011a: 182).4 If we distinguish between the kinds of idealisation for which these terms stand, it becomes obvious that we are dealing with two completely different ideas of a ‘‘lifeworld’’. The kinds of identity involved do not entail the same role for difference. A Schutzian type keeps our action and experience on an identical course, but it may always be questioned whenever a ‘‘problem’’ occurs (Schutz 1966a). Habermas rejects this built-in dynamics at the explanatory level; the ‘‘lifeworld’’ as such cannot become ‘‘problematic’’ at all, he claims, ‘‘it can at most fall apart’’ (1987: 130). He points out that there is—already in Husserl—an intrinsic connection between the concept of a ‘‘lifeworld’’ and that of a ‘‘crisis’’ (1998a: 243). But, as in the case of language, we may suspect that everyday social coordination involves a flexibility which is not adequately captured as a mixture of rigid rule adherence and occasional crisis management. At first sight at least, Schutz’s concept of types ‘‘taken for granted until further notice’’ seems better equipped to reflect our flexibility. Schutz’s Theory of ‘‘meaning’’ and Its Praxeological Interpretation Can we further clarify the kinds of identity (type vs. structure) and difference (problem vs. crisis) which came up in comparing Schutz and Habermas? We should first of all take a closer look at Schutz’s theory of meaning. As noted above, Schutz describes meaning as the form of selective articulation which is at the root of our experience and action. The selectivity of meaning draws a line within the Bergsonian stream of experience; this line marks a difference between those portions of the stream which are included in a meaning-construct and those which are not. In other words, meaning is constituted by a difference which is logically prior to all other relations of identity or difference, because these involve a comparison between two units of meaning so constituted. But how is this line drawn? And how can it be crossed? Schutz (2013a), following Bergson, tries to imagine that which lies beyond or below all meaning-selections. Assuming that meaning is the basic form of the 3
Similarly, according to John Searle, the ‘‘background’’ common to all individuals of a group which provides the ‘‘glue that holds society together’’ is structured by ‘‘institutions’’ (including the shared language) all of which rely on a ‘‘formal linguistic mechanism’’ of ‘‘rules’’ (2010: 7ff.). Habermas’s view of language was strongly influenced by Searle.
4
By ‘‘structures of the lifeworld’’ or ‘‘meaning structure,’’ Schutz refers to phenomenological (rather than concrete social) structures. Central among these ‘‘structures’’ is the typicality of all social phenomena.
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articulation of experience, the dure´e should be an undifferentiated fullness of indefinite density which reaches across the entire spectrum of experience from the level of bodily sensations and affective processes to planned action or intellectual thought (in fact it should undermine the very distinction between these levels). Regardless of whether or not the dure´e is merely an analytical construct, this characterisation suggests that with any particular selection of meaning, an inexhaustible wealth of material is left out. Given the sheer mass of material, to say that most of it is ‘excluded’ by a meaning-selection cannot mean that the rest is discarded after consideration, but rather that it is not considered in the first place. The same point follows when we describe meaning in terms of potential alternative articulations excluded, as Schutz does when bringing Husserl into the Bergsonian picture (1967: 46ff). Husserl speaks of the ‘‘transcendence’’ of meaning, distinguishing between the actual experience and a wealth of potential experiences which may or may not be actualised at a later point. The inner or outer ‘‘horizons’’ of experience can never be reached; it is always possible to discover still new aspects in an object or to connect it to something else in a new way (Husserl 1973: §8). Again, this implies that any particular selection of meaning stands out against an infinity of alternatives. And since the number of alternative possibilities is infinite,5 most of them were not ‘unselected,’ but they were not taken into account to begin with. In other words, the selectivity of meaning can never be based on a weighing of all possible options. This is true even when, in deliberating on various courses of action, we believe that we do make a ‘choice’ in this sense. In Schutz’s later analysis, the options which stand to choice at the moment of decision are constructs based on a complex process of pre-selection on various perceptive, interpretive, and motivational levels. The ‘‘problematic possibilities’’ are very few if compared to the indefinite number of ‘‘open possibilities’’ (as Schutz puts it using a distinction of Husserl’s), most of which never enter the equation at all (Schutz 1962a: 81f.). This analysis of choosing a course of action illustrates the more general point that, to use a visual metaphor, meaning-selections ‘mask out’ most of what they do not include. Whatever transcends the borders of meaning here and now is not ‘visible’ unless another meaning-selection makes it so by drawing the borders anew. Although these metaphors aim at meaning quite generally, they may also apply to vision in the literal sense, for instance in situations of ‘‘inattentional blindness’’ (Simons and Chabris 1999). The phenomenon of choosing among courses of action is also helpful in that it allows us to reconstruct the dynamics of ‘‘taking things for granted until further notice’’ in terms of a practical reason informed by the theory of meaning. If the options I see before me ‘mask out’ a vast amount of alternative possibilities, perhaps including unknown risks and chances, it is all the more important how the meaning-selections which form my options are motivated. Since—as argued above—they cannot be motivated by an ideally ‘‘rational’’ 5
An infinite number of possibilities is a case of potential infinity in Aristotle’s sense (Physics III 4–6, 204a ff.), which avoids the paradoxes of actual infinity. Likewise, in the case of language, ‘‘the context’’ relevant to understanding a particular utterance is selected from an infinity of possible contexts (Sperber and Wilson 1986/1995: 132ff.).
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weighing of all conceivable possibilities, it is ‘‘reasonable’’ (see Schutz 1964a) to repeat meaning-selections which have proven valid. This ‘proof’ of validity may consist in the fact that a meaning-construct has either proven valid in my own experience so far or that it is socially approved as valid and hence comes at least with the pretension that it has proven valid in the experience of generations before me. It is, in other words, reasonable to establish and follow ‘‘typical’’ patterns of meaning. Yet these patterns can never be ‘proven’ valid in the sense of being rationally established as infallible or universal (as an eidos might). The reason is the same that justifies their use in the first place: any meaning-selection may mask out as yet unknown risks or chances, and therefore any typical pattern may at some point prove invalid, even after generations of successful use. This may happen even in the middle of an action, when the actual performance differs from the typical expectations which formed the basis for the project.6 In other words, it would appear that Schutz’s two-part formula of ‘‘taking things for granted,’’ but only ‘‘until further notice,’’ is apt not only as a phenomenological description, but also as a praxeological principle. It is in line with this argument that typical patterns of meaning should, to the extent that they prove successful repeatedly, turn into ‘‘routines,’’ that is, they should be engrained, through processes of ‘‘sedimentation,’’ so deeply that we are not even conscious of them but take them as self-evident parts of our world. This is the full import of ‘‘taking things for granted’’ which shapes much of our daily lives on the wide range of levels connected by the abstract concept of meaning. Our trained sensual perception follows typical patterns which make us see, hear, and smell a certain situation from the outset as a street lined with tall trees and old cars driving along it. The patterns involved also include expectations of what cars and trees typically do and cannot do, which allows us, on a practical level, to cross the street safely, through complex bodily movements which are of course habitualised as well. The praxeological argument furthermore implies that the various routines should be organised and integrated with each other, even across different levels. In what Schutz calls ‘‘recipes,’’ typical bodily movements are interlinked with typical occasions which call for them, with typical goals they serve, and even with typical ways in which they may fail. Similarly, in our more theoretical pursuits (thinking, for Schutz, is a form of action), typical topics, questions, and solutions as well as lines of interpretation channel in advance much of what we think and write. The entire array of typical patterns, finally, is embedded within wider systems of types which may be regarded as types of a higher order. Again, this integration may develop in personal experience, but large parts of it are socially derived. Nevertheless, however deeply engrained and self-evident these patterns may become, they are still types. Unlike eidetic structures, they remain open to revision and change. They may go unquestioned, but only as long as we have no reason to question them. This is true even of overarching systems integrating various types, the continuation of which is equally ‘‘taken for granted’’ only ‘‘until further notice,’’ 6
This is one reason why Schutz distinguishes the ongoing process of ‘‘acting’’ from the ‘‘action’’ as initially projected or as observed in retrospect (1967: §10).
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to repeat the Schutzian formula. Against the background of his theory of meaning thus outlined, we are now in a better position to understand and critically assess this second clause of the formula, along with the idea of a ‘‘problem’’ related to it.
Going Beyond Schutz The Threat of ‘tunnel vision’ How can we receive ‘‘further notice’’ that what we took for granted so far might have to be revised or changed? What makes us question a heretofore unquestioned certainty? At first sight, a number of occasions come to mind. One obvious scenario is that an exterior change occurs or a material obstacle gets in our way. A practical ‘‘recipe’’ for action may then fail to produce the typically expected result, or its routine execution may prove impossible. Or in cognition, a self-evident belief may clash with ‘‘counterevidence’’ (Schutz 1962b: 12). There are also internal obstacles: under particular circumstances, typical patterns taken for granted in different areas may interfere with each other (my drinking habit may hamper my routines in driving a car; my Christian beliefs may or may not prove inconsistent with my witch-hunt). While the changes and revisions required on such occasions are ‘‘imposed’’ upon us, Schutz also cites the ‘‘voluntary shifting of our attentional focus’’ as an ‘‘intrinsic’’ reason for deviating from the routine path (2011a: 160). However, this variety of ways to receive ‘‘further notice’’ may be reduced to a general principle if we bear in mind Schutz’s theory of meaning. First of all, it is doubtful whether the last scenario, the ‘‘voluntary’’ or ‘‘intrinsic’’ motivation to revise a type, constitutes a category of its own. If typical patterns of meaning channel our interest in that they structure our action and experience quite generally, it is not clear how a true change in interest could come about. Indeed, Schutz tends to analyse this category in one of two ways (2011a: 160f.). Either a change in interest is due to types of a higher order which prompt changes under typified conditions, such as a working routine with fixed lunch breaks. If seen as part of my working routine, my decision to turn from my paper to the cafeteria is ‘‘intrinsically’’ motivated, but it is not an example of the change or revision of a type. Or a change in interest is called for by an ‘‘imposed’’ factor of one of the other kinds: the unexpected failure of some typical pattern of meaning brings to our attention what we merely took for granted so far and forces us to re-assess our situation and look actively for a solution. In this case, the ‘‘voluntary’’ change is ultimately ‘‘imposed’’ too. It seems, then, that ‘‘further notice’’ is always given by the disturbance of a type which forces us more or less violently to revise or alter the type in question. Schutz (1966a) aptly chooses the term ‘‘problem’’ in a general characterisation of these phenomena. We take things for granted, he says, unless a ‘‘problem’’ occurs. Only then do our types become ‘‘problematic’’. And even where, in our search for a solution, we radically re-assess the type in question and look for new information to help us, this process is based on our interpretive patterns and the typically structured information we already have, he stresses. In other words, our choice on how to
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proceed in the matter is a ‘‘choice’’ as it was analysed for the case of action cited above, that is, a choice among the range of ‘‘problematic possibilities’’ preconstituted through typification (Schutz 1966a: 126f.). Now this understanding of typification displays a peculiar primacy of identity over difference which is expressed in the asymmetry of the two-part formula ‘‘taking things for granted until further notice’’. The typical pattern, once established, comes first in any situation ‘‘until’’ it is challenged. The formula implies that the unquestioned routine course of things is the default which needs no explanation (it is, in this respect, ‘‘taken for granted’’ by the theoretical observer as well), whereas a revision of the routine depends on a ‘‘problem’’ which triggers it. A problem, in turn, depends on the existence of the routine for which it is a problem. If defined as the interruption or disturbance of a routine course, the very notion of a problem depends on that of a routine. ‘‘The problematic emerges on the foundation of the unproblematic,’’ as Schutz (2011a: 164) writes in a related context. This asymmetry implies that the formation of types should be, other things being equal, a one-way road towards stabilisation. ‘‘All typification is relative to some problem’’ (Schutz 1966a: 128) in that a type originates as a solution to a problem. But this means that the original problem has now been eliminated. To the extent that successful routines are construed, less and less ‘‘problematic’’ occasions should arise which would make us question the routines. To the extent that types are successfully organised and mutually adjusted within systems of types, the likelihood of internal conflict between established patterns of meaning should also decrease. The result would be a growing stability of meaning which takes over more and more sectors and levels of life unless, of course, the process is disturbed by a ‘‘problem’’; but more and more occasions for such disturbance should be prevented by the same process. Add to this the Schutzian argument that the process of solving problems through typification is not restricted to individual development, but that it also structures the history of a group or a society, and the tendency towards stable identity becomes massive indeed. While a type (unlike an eidos) remains—in principle—open to revision, this openness comes into effect only if and when it is forced to appear by the occurrence of a ‘‘problem’’. A type is open only in that it may be broken open. The taken-for granted use of a type then seems better described as rigid rather than flexible, with the clause ‘‘until further notice’’ seeming empty and expendable.7 In this sense, the massive process of stabilisation just described is in fact a process of ossification. What is more, types ‘‘taken for granted until further notice’’ channel our cognition and volition quite generally. A type produces meaning-selections, and, as argued in the previous section, meaning-selections ‘mask out’ what lies beyond their borders. This would make a type akin to a rigid stencil which cuts out anything beyond its outer or inner borders. A scenario would ensue which I would like to call (again using a visual metaphor) ‘ubiquitous tunnel vision,’ or ‘tunnel vision’ for short. I use the term ‘tunnel vision’ as an abbreviation for the hypothesis that meaning-selections ‘mask out’ alternative possibilities not only here and now, but permanently insofar as they follow fixed patterns. The metaphor expresses the idea 7
See also the similar role of a clause like ‘‘no other disturbing factors being present’’ in a formal system described by Waismann (1951).
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that the sector of the world which our meanings cut out for us here and now persists along a straight line through time, thus producing a ‘tunnel’. The implication of this hypothesis would be that if a type produces a ‘tunnel’ of meaning, and if our action and experience is generally characterised by types, the situation described as ‘tunnel vision’ would be ubiquitous. In this scenario, any novel element of a situation which is not already included within the established system of types cannot even be perceived unless it becomes a ‘‘problem’’ which interrupts the typical pattern or causes it to break down. Following straight ahead the course narrowly prescribed by our system of types, we cannot see a ‘‘problem’’ coming until we crash into it by accident while remaining oblivious of anything we do not happen to hit. ‘‘Taking things for granted until further notice’’ is like drinking and driving at night. But this scenario is implausible. Phenomena similar to ‘tunnel vision’ do occur in some fields and cases, as in blind love, professional blinkers or political stereotypes. But tunnel vision is not ubiquitous. It does not characterise our entire life in all its aspects. Worse still, the scenario is indistinguishable from the model proposed by Habermas which I criticised above. A mere type, though taken for granted, is open to revision if interrupted or disturbed—but so is a ‘‘rule’’ according to Habermas’s idealisations, which provide for the possibility of a ‘‘crisis’’.8 Like Habermas’s model, the scenario of ubiquitous tunnel vision paints life as a mixture of mechanical regulation and occasional crashes. And again, this picture does not correspond to the mostly unagitated and covert flexibility in our everyday lives. It is equally implausible in terms of a practical reconstruction. While it may be reasonable to repeat and polish patterns which have proven viable so far, it would be unreasonable to follow types in a way which makes us blind to risks or dangers outside the selective frames cut out by the types and which makes us smash into problems without even the chance of an advance warning. This picture would also seem to conflict with Schutz’s own observation that our ongoing action can incorporate ‘‘deviations’’ from the initial project which happen ‘‘spontaneously,’’ that is, without any conscious reflection (2004: 162f.).9 Schutz himself seems to have suspected these strange consequences in his later manuscripts. He wonders how it is possible that we have experiences which are not ‘‘merely new,’’ but ‘‘novel’’ in that they lie beyond the scope of what has so far been typically familiar to us (2011a: 125, 134). In another manuscript, he asks what could be the foundation of our unquestioned confidence that things will go on in typically the same way despite our inevitable experience that they do not (1996b: 197). No doubt, he would not have endorsed the scenario of ubiquitous tunnel vision. But as it seems, he did not get to the root of the difficulties in his theory which, in the final analysis, lead up to it. One last and highly significant instance of ‘‘further notice’’ is pointed out by Schutz in several places: people ‘‘impose’’ changes and revisions upon each other. Socially ‘‘imposed relevances’’ could overcome individual tunnel vision. Somebody else (an elder, an expert, a bully, or simply my next door neighbour) may have a 8
Schutz reserves the word ‘‘crisis’’ for severer instances of a ‘‘problem’’ (2011a: 164).
9
The English translation (Schutz 1967: 64) renders Abweichungen (i.e., ‘‘deviations’’) as ‘‘the variables are given values,’’ which is something quite different; also, the reference to spontaneity is left out.
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different view, they may see further than I do, and they may show me that my perspective leaves out important aspects. While the idea remained underdeveloped in Schutz’s writings due to his early death but also for conceptual reasons (Go¨ttlich 2012), it can be assessed in the abstract as a possible remedy against the scenario of tunnel vision, which I would like to do in the rest of this section. The tendency towards the stabilisation of types and their organisation into allencompassing systems described above would be found not only in individual experience, but also on the social level. In fact, Schutz says that the ‘‘socially approved’’ systems of typification in a group exist prior to the individuals who are born into the group and that the bulk of the types which an individual takes for granted is ‘‘derived’’ from these systems, the shared language in particular being a ‘‘treasurehouse’’ of types (1962b: 19, 2011a: 182). But under such circumstances, tunnel vision should be shared as well, for it is not clear why the types used by two individuals should differ in the first place. This would take away the basic premise for ‘‘imposing relevances’’. Of course, individuals from different groups or subgroups may come across each other. And importantly, groups include internal differences such as age, gender, or profession, many of which are themselves stabilised by types such as those applying to roles, sub-cultures, or power relations (Schutz 1964b). Often there is a shared routine for dealing with these differences, as in the typified exchanges between customers and employees of the postal service (Schutz 1962b: 25f.). But where there is no such routine, the differences could not overcome individual tunnel vision unless a revision or change of types is forcibly ‘‘imposed’’ in the now familiar sense. That is, one of the parties should cause the other a ‘‘problem’’ by interrupting or disturbing their routine. Otherwise, the audience will stubbornly ignore any difference between themselves and the other and continue seeing the world, including the other, in the way they typically do.10 And even if the audience is successfully disturbed, it is up to them how they will ‘‘solve’’ the problem—one of the most ‘‘reasonable’’ choices, in fact, would be to get back to business and ignore the other’s different view, at least unless the ‘‘problem’’ is repeated. Again, both stubborn ignorance of other perspectives and the more or less violent imposition of problems do occur in social encounters. But in the scenario outlined, these would be the only mechanisms. Insofar as the picture of tunnel vision is indistinguishable from Habermas’s model, it is not surprising that it should end up presenting the same implausible idea of interaction as a mixture of inflexible rigour and crisis management. Still, in the analysis of a social world, Schutz’s notion of a type is a significant step forward if compared to the Husserlian eidos, or to the idealisations of Habermas. A type is open to difference, and this openness should be captured, but not in the way it is expressed in Schutz’s formula of ‘‘taking things for granted until further notice’’. In order to avoid the implausible consequence of ubiquitous tunnel
10 If interpreted within the scenario of tunnel vision, the ‘‘general thesis of reciprocal perspectives,’’ qua ‘‘typification taken for granted’’ until ‘‘counterevidence’’ (Schutz 1962b: 12), would explicitly describe such an attitude of stubbornly ignoring interindividual differences.
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vision, Schutz’s theory of meaning and typification should be modified. We need to go one step further. Spontaneity This step beyond Schutz begins with recognising that the deviation from an established type, or the revision of its previously unquestioned character, is not necessarily conditional on the trigger of a ‘‘problem’’ which disturbs the typical way of things. In other words, patterns of meaning must involve a sensitivity to differences which is not dependent (not even indirectly via the concept of a ‘‘problem’’) on the logically opposed tendency of such patterns to persist in their identity. If a theory of meaning is to avoid the implausible scenario of ubiquitous tunnel vision, processes of modification, variation, or innovation must be acknowledged to have a motivation of their own. Without such an intrinsically motivated openness, meaning—both linguistic meaning and meaning in a broader sense as in Schutz or Weber—could not be open to difference at all. On the level of everyday experience, such openness clearly exists. It is not true that we are blind to unusual aspects of situations as long as they do not impede our routines and thereby force us to attend to them. On the contrary, novel aspects may strike us as interesting in their own right, precisely because they are novel. Curiosity, for instance, is a major motivating force. If types were ‘‘taken for granted until further notice,’’ curiosity would be dormant unless aroused by the failure of a routine, and it would ultimately aim at restoring the routine. This is in fact what is argued in Thomas Luckmann’s edition of Schutz’s manuscripts (Schutz and Luckmann [1980] 1989, vol. 1: 225). But quite to the contrary, we often deviate from a routine for the sake of diversion, even at the risk that our curiosity may hamper the routine. After all, routines in particular tend to become boring. The seemingly trivial phenomenon of boredom is another indication of an active openness to differences in meaning which may run counter to the identity of a routine.11 If such openness is a central prerequisite for social interaction and the use of language as we know it (as opposed to the scenario of tunnel vision), then curiosity, boredom, and related phenomena should be studied not only by psychologists, but also by social philosophers and sociologists. A tendency of meaning-processes to open up to differences is quite compatible with the praxeological argument for following typical patterns of meaning given above. Not only would it be unreasonable to follow types blindly and crash into critical problems without any advance warning. Given Schutz’s account of meaning, even the routine application of a type presupposes that meaning be open to difference. The Bergsonian idea of a constantly changing stream of experience which is selectively articulated by meaning-constructs implies that there cannot be strict identity of meaning. There is no such thing as an exact repetition of the same meaning because the ‘material’ from which meaning is construed is different at any given instant; and the very idea of recurrence implies that the second time around is not identical with the first time (Schutz 2011a: 127). If, therefore, the situations in 11
See Heidegger (1996) for an existential analysis of boredom.
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which we apply a typical pattern are always different and therefore to some extent always ‘new,’ a tendency of meaning to open up to difference is involved even in the strictest application of the pattern. Both tendencies of meaning are at play in selecting what is typically relevant here and now. In order to acknowledge the key role of difference even in the seeming ‘identity’ of meaning, the impulse towards openness of meaning should not be reduced to cases where it is particularly salient or even conscious. What we register as an itching curiosity or as unbearable boredom are only striking manifestations of a more general tendency which is at work even in the routine activities we perform in the background of our everyday lives. We are in the habit, even in theoretical analysis, of attributing smooth and unobtrusive performance to the existence of some mechanism or rule which, we think, guarantees identical recurrence. This bias may have contributed to the fact that Schutz, when talking about changes in typical meaning, focused on ‘‘problems’’ which trigger the conscious search for a solution, and it may contribute to the fact that rule models, such as that of Habermas, are still dominant. But nothing compels us to think that changes and variations in meaning cannot happen in a similarly smooth and unobtrusive way. The active openness of meaning which we must assume to avoid the scenario of tunnel vision may go unnoticed for the most part. This seems true in the case of our everyday use of language, which shows an enormous ‘‘plasticity’’ and ‘‘productivity’’ (Bu¨hler 2011: 400) without our giving it much thought—we just talk and listen. I would like to refer to this active yet mostly discreet tendency towards differences in meaning as ‘spontaneity’. The term suggests first of all (1) the inherent impulse or active motivation (spons) behind this tendency which does not depend on its logical opposite, the tendency towards identity of meaning. Second (2), the word suggests the often smooth and covert manner in which this tendency shapes our everyday action and experience. Modifications in meaning may occur automatically, as they do when they help us apply a type to the situation at hand. In such cases, ‘automatic’ (the Greek equivalent of ‘spontaneous’) should not be understood as ‘mechanical,’ but as its antithesis. Third (3), Schutz uses the word ‘‘spontaneity,’’ especially in his notes and manuscripts, to indicate a tendency towards difference in meaning. He criticises as ambiguous Husserl’s notion of ‘‘spontaneity’’ (1966b: 113), which, in the terms of the present discussion, does not distinguish between the selectivity of any single meaning-construct and the dynamics of meaning-processes. Schutz turns to Leibniz instead, whose definition of ‘‘spontaneity’’ he rephrases as, variously, ‘‘the effort to arrive at other and always other perceptions’’ (1962d: 213) or ‘‘the capacity to proceed from apperception to ever new apperceptions’’ (1966a: 121).12 With the argument from ‘tunnel vision’ in mind, we could elaborate as follows on Schutz’s remarks. Spontaneity is an ‘‘effort’’ 12
For the reference to Leibniz see already Schutz (2013b: 227). Schutz also makes largely uncritical use of Husserl’s concept of ‘‘spontaneity’’ in earlier works (e.g., 1967). In several other places, he uses the predicate ‘‘spontaneous’’ to characterise a freedom and activity of actors to be distinguished from ‘‘imposed relevances’’ (e.g., 1964b: 126f., 1966a: 122); but as his account stands, this sits odd both with his theory of choice and with his closer analyses of ‘‘intrinsic’’ relevances (see the previous two sections). A reconstruction of ‘spontaneity’ along the lines suggested here might help clarify and support his characterisation.
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in the sense of an active impulse towards different meaning-constructs (even where there is no ‘‘problem’’). At the same time, it is the ‘‘capacity’’ which allows us to leave the straight paths delineated in advance by the opposite tendency towards identical meaning; this capacity is equally involved in the routine application of meaning-patterns to different, ‘‘ever new’’ situations. So interpreted, spontaneity might be the answer to Schutz’s worries in his later texts mentioned in the previous section. To use his distinction (2011a: 125, 134), spontaneity allows us to have ‘‘novel’’ experiences beyond what is typically familiar, the kind of experience which seemed to elude his account—but at the same time it allows us to have ‘‘merely new’’ experiences within the scope of what is typically familiar to us. Perhaps Schutz did not find a unified answer to his question because the primacy of identical meaning implicit in his theory made him look in the wrong direction. What, he wondered, could be the foundation for our unquestioned confidence that things will go on in typically the same way despite our repeated experience of the contrary (1996b: 197)? The answer might be that precisely because there is no such foundation, our confidence in types is in fact not ‘‘unquestioned’’ in this sense. Spontaneity is a tendency to question our confidence in existing types precisely because things quite often do not go on in the same typical way. This tendency does not imply, of course, that we always question our confidence in established types. But if there were no such tendency, our confidence would always remain unquestioned in the absence of a ‘‘problem’’. Some considerations which Schutz noted in 1958, the year before his death, indicate the relationship between spontaneity as a tendency towards difference in meaning and the experience of such difference (1996a: 234f.). Reflecting on critical points made by Charles Morris, he writes that ‘‘the content of experience […] always points beyond itself’’ into the horizons of potential new experiences which may or may not be actualised at a later point. Using Husserl’s notion of the ‘‘transcendence’’ of present meaning, he adds that ‘‘I always experience the content of experience as transcending itself’’. In his analysis of this phenomenon, he describes ‘‘spontaneity’’ as ‘‘transcendence of experience,’’ which in turn is connected to ‘‘experience of transcendence’’ (1996a: 234f.). His chiasmus becomes clearer if we look at some examples he gives of the latter experience. Described most fundamentally as the experience of our own ‘‘finitude,’’ of the ‘‘incompleteness’’ of every experience (1996a: 235f), it appears more tangibly in everyday experiences as that of falling asleep and waking up, of growing older, of people and occasions coming and going, or of others being different from myself and having other viewpoints (1996a: 236ff.). If we carry this line of thought further, we might say that these are examples of occasions which spur on our spontaneity. The repeated experience that things do not always continue to work as they typically used to and as I and even my entire culture have found valid so far may familiarise us with the fact that there is an as yet unfamiliar aspect to everything. As Schutz puts it elsewhere: Paradoxically expressed, we are familiar […] with the fact that large dimensions of our lifeworld are unknown to us. This is nothing else but
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another expression for the experience of transcendency which is immanent to our lives. (2011a, b: 178) The various ‘‘experiences of transcendence’’ exemplified above may contribute to a constant and active sensitivity to novel, as yet unfamiliar phenomena, to chances and risks which arise beyond routine expectations and also beyond the few ‘‘problematic possibilities’’ in our choices of action. In a word, they may fuel spontaneity. This is fully compatible with Schutz’s insistence that expectations always arise out of experiences. But experiences of transcendence contribute to a special category of expectation related to Schutz’s somewhat opaque notion of ‘‘fundamental anxiety’’. This is the term he uses in other texts to describe the experience of the ‘‘finitude of my own being’’ (1996a: 236). All our plans and relevances, he says, are founded upon this ‘‘anxiety’’ (1962d: 228f., 2013b: 275f.). The word is quite apt if interpreted in the light of spontaneity understood as a familiarity with the unfamiliar. Whereas fear is about specific objects, anxiety is unspecific. In this sense, to be fearful is to expect something which is the same in type as something previously experienced and known to be dangerous or otherwise dreadful in a typical way. Anxiety, in contrast, is more open and less directed; to be ‘anxious’ is, in a way, to expect the typically unexpected.13 Nevertheless, the term ‘‘anxiety’’ is unfortunate because it tends to reiterate the primacy of identical patterns which, as argued above, plagued Schutz’s theory. Anxiety may be ‘‘fundamental,’’ but it is so as something we run away from, a ‘push factor’ which makes us enclose ourselves within the security and familiarity of types and idealisations in order to get rid of it. So understood, anxiety would be the most abstract manifestation of a ‘‘problem’’ in the sense outlined above. But if a theory of the social world is to avoid the dead end of ‘tunnel vision,’ there must also be a more positive appeal to the unfamiliar as indicated in phenomena like curiosity and boredom. In order to express this more general tendency in our experience and action, ‘spontaneity’ may be a more useful word. Perhaps it was partly the primacy of patterns which made Schutz relay the idea of ‘‘fundamental anxiety’’ to an ontological or even metaphysical level at a remove from phenomenology. If, as I suggested, the notion of ‘spontaneity’ is required to describe the dynamics of our everyday lives, it is a phenomenological concept on a par with those of meaning and typicality.
Conclusions A theory of the social world should go beyond the assumption of ideally identical rules or structures and acknowledge the essential openness of action and experience to difference. In this respect, the Schutzian ‘‘type’’ is a major step forward from the 13
The distinction between anxiety and fear introduced by Kierkegaard and taken up by Heidegger is not explicitly made by Schutz, but he repeatedly refers to both authors when writing about ‘‘fundamental anxiety’’ and distinguishes ‘‘anxiety’’ from the ‘‘systems of hopes and fears’’ founded upon it (1962d: 228).
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Husserlian ‘‘eidos’’ as well as from the later Habermasian ‘‘idealisation’’. Taking his inspiration mainly from Bergson and Husserl, Schutz builds his notion of a type on a theory of ‘‘meaning’’ as the selective articulation of a stream of experience. Given the fullness and ever-changing character of situations and embodied subjects, any meaning-construct, and therefore any experience or conduct, neglects an infinity of alternative possibilities. According to Schutz, our social world is structured by ‘‘types,’’ that is, by patterns of meaning which, although to some extent they create identity of meaning, always remain open to revision and change. Schutz describes this dynamics as ‘‘taking things for granted only until further notice’’. However, an analysis of the way in which ‘‘further notice’’ is given in the form of a ‘‘problem’’ revealed a primacy of identity in Schutz’s formula. On the basis of his theory of meaning, this ultimately leads to an implausible scenario which I called ‘ubiquitous tunnel vision’. In this scenario, our lives would in every aspect either follow rigid channels of meaning, or else crash into unforeseen obstacles—‘‘problems’’—which force us to look for a solution. This picture is contradicted by the mostly smooth and unobtrusive flexibility in our everyday lives as well as by practical reason. In order to proceed productively on the way paved by Schutz, a critical development of his account is needed. In addition to a tendency towards identity of meaning, and on a par with it, an independent tendency towards difference of meaning was postulated: ‘spontaneity’. While logically opposed to each other, both tendencies are at play in typification. Spontaneity not only motivates and thereby enables us to become aware of alternative possibilities and have novel experiences, but it is also required to apply types routinely to concrete situations. Spontaneity may have striking effects, but more often it is discreet. Furthermore, the concept sheds some light on the role of ‘‘experiences of transcendence’’ and ‘‘fundamental anxiety’’ as phenomenological notions in Schutz. Where does this leave us? If we go one step beyond Schutz’s theory of the social world by adding and further developing the concept of spontaneity, the account should perform better than the currently still dominant rule-based models. The tendency to habitualise types and stick to them is shared among individuals—but so is the tendency to use types flexibly, to question and modify them. Spontaneity is part of the conditions of a routine yet flexible social coordination and mutual understanding. This is in line with evidence that meaning even in explicit verbal communication is not primarily based on the identity of linguistic rules, but on ‘‘relevance,’’ which includes relevant differences between situations (Wilson and Sperber 2012; Straßheim 2010). On a sublinguistic level too, a phenomenologically informed account of ‘‘common intentionalities,’’ as Schutz (1962c: 144) calls it, is unlikely to confirm Searle’s (1995) hypothesis of a ‘‘collective intentionality’’ based on structures equivalent to the shared rules of language. Finally, on a ‘supralinguistic’ level if you will, we should expect the stability of social institutions to be based not only and not even primarily on rules (pace Searle 2010), but equally on flexibility and sometimes deviation, as Luc Boltanski (2011) has pointed out. A social world based on routine yet flexible coordination is open in principle to differences between groups and within groups. But only in principle. While ‘tunnel vision’ is not ubiquitous (as it would be if there were no spontaneity), it may still, depending on the circumstances, dominate intercultural exchanges. As for
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exchanges within a group, if the openness of meaning is ‘spontaneous’ in the sense of mostly going unnoticed, then smooth and fast everyday interaction does not necessarily depend on an ‘‘anonymity’’ of typified meaning which abstracts away from the individual traits involved (see Natanson 1986). But again, this is no guarantee that individuals will in fact treat each other as individuals or understand and respect each other’s standpoint. Moreover, while spontaneity as an awareness of the other’s difference from myself or my group may help strangers understand each other even across cultural and linguistic borders, conversely it adds an element of strangeness even to the experience of an intimate other. Indeed the difference between the kinds of strangeness may ultimately be gradual (Nasu 2006). Our everyday lives are to a large extent governed by a ‘‘common sense’’ (Schutz 1962b) which treats types as if they were valid for everybody and for all future situations. While the existence of spontaneity distinguishes a common-sense type from a ‘‘rule,’’ it is true that we are often so firmly enclosed within our typical expectations and so convinced that everybody shares them that we ignore alternative possibilities and standpoints even if they are before our very eyes. In such cases, the occurrence of a ‘‘problem’’ which interrupts our typical patterns and forces us to revise them may indeed be the only thing that can motivate us to change. So understood, Schutz’s emphasis on the taken-for granted typicality of everyday life, and his plea that we should strive to become ‘‘well-informed citizens’’ (1964b) who are able to step beyond their established practical and theoretical interests, may be an important critical reminder. Finally, the terms ‘coordination’ or ‘understanding’ should not be restricted to harmony, consensus, or cooperation. If typification and spontaneity are conditions of social coordination, they are as fundamental to the friendly chat as they are to the armed conflict. Verbal insults and propaganda lies depend as much on these general conditions as do scientific arguments and open discussions. Hence, the openness of meaning to difference indicated here by the word ‘spontaneity’ as well as the tendency towards typical identity in meaning should be conceived in normatively neutral terms.14 Obviously, more research is needed as to the nature of the spontaneity of meaning and its role in typification and social coordination. If ‘‘meaning’’ in a wide Schutzian sense is constitutive of action and experience even on bodily and affective levels, perhaps even on the organic level of the individual body, its borders and its interaction with the world, the question of spontaneity is directly relevant not only to our conception of the social world, but also to our conception of the subject. 14 This is not to exclude ethical and political criticism or questions of normativity from social theory; on the contrary. Both tendencies together constitute all concrete social phenomena which we may then either support or criticise. And both are involved even in our expressions of support or criticism. So if we want to reach a critically reflected basis for normative claims, this abstract level of social dynamics should not be normatively invested. Schutz makes a similar remark on his theory of relevance in a letter to Eric Voegelin on October 10, 1952: ‘‘I fell out of the habit of speaking of values or intrinsic values or of thinking in these terms […]’’ (2011b: 224). (The translation is inaccurate here: ‘‘I have consciously broken the habit’’ would be closer to the original Ich habe es mir bewusst abgewo¨hnt.) The reason is not, Schutz explains, that he wants to ‘‘exclude these ideas from the sphere of a scientific analysis,’’ but that he believes ‘‘that the category of relevance is the broader one, in which the value systems […] can and have to be located’’ (2011b: 224).
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Type and Spontaneity: Beyond Alfred Schutz’s Theory of… Acknowledgments Part of the research for this article was funded by a Travel Grant from the Fritz Thyssen Foundation for an extended stay at Waseda University. For insightful comments and criticism related to earlier versions of the paper, I am especially grateful to two anonymous reviewers as well as to Hisashi Nasu, Nobuo Kazashi, Gunter Gebauer, Hubert Knoblauch, Michael Barber, Jochen Dreher, and Holger Straßheim. Compliance with Ethical Standards Conflict of interest The author declares that he has no conflict of interest.
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