Alfred Schutz - The Phenomenology of the Social World
Chapter One - The Statement of Our Problem: Max Weber’s Basic Methodological Concepts
1. Preliminary Survey of the Problem
● Debate between social scientists who treat social phenomena as if they were natural
phenomena (causally determined) and those who see social phenomena as belonging to a world of
‘objective mind’, intelligible but not under scientific laws (interpretive sociology)
○ in the latter, social scientists’ attitudes are determined by their own
presuppositions
■ but simply interpreting the social world according to our
presuppositions (subjective biases) runs contrary to good research, which should
be unbiased
● Weber thought that the social sciences should abstain from value judgements
○ importantly, he reduced all social relationships/structures/cultural
objectifications/realms of objective mind to elementary forms of individual behaviour (as
did Simmel)
■ sociology is to study social behaviour by interpreting the
subjective meaning of the intentions of individuals
● this is to be done through constructing
‘ideal types’
○ Weber had good theory, but didn’t explore its presuppositions
■ he makes no distinction between:
● action and act
● meaning of the producer and meaning of
the produced
● meaning of my own action and meaning
of someone else’s
● self understanding and other-
understanding
■ doesn’t show how meaning is constituted
○ in order to understand the way the other self is grasped as an ideal type,
we need to recognise the way acts are interpreted as a part of the whole social world
■ Weber took for granted the meaningful phenomena of
the social world as a matter of intersubjective agreement, without examining
what constitutes meaning
● Hence we can see the complicated relation between the social sciences and their subject
matter - the structure of the social world is meaningful for its actors and also for its scientific
interpreters
○ in experiencing others as others we understand their behaviour, and
assume they understand ours
■ it is through these acts of interpretive meaning that the
structure of the social world is constructed
○ the social scientist interprets the world of already constituted meanings -
the meaningful acts of people in their everyday experience
■ there is a stratification of meaning-interpretation, and
these are two types: the meaning-understanding of everyday life, and the
Chapter One - The Statement of Our Problem: Max Weber’s Basic Methodological Concepts
1. Preliminary Survey of the Problem
● Debate between social scientists who treat social phenomena as if they were natural
phenomena (causally determined) and those who see social phenomena as belonging to a world of
‘objective mind’, intelligible but not under scientific laws (interpretive sociology)
○ in the latter, social scientists’ attitudes are determined by their own
presuppositions
■ but simply interpreting the social world according to our
presuppositions (subjective biases) runs contrary to good research, which should
be unbiased
● Weber thought that the social sciences should abstain from value judgements
○ importantly, he reduced all social relationships/structures/cultural
objectifications/realms of objective mind to elementary forms of individual behaviour (as
did Simmel)
■ sociology is to study social behaviour by interpreting the
subjective meaning of the intentions of individuals
● this is to be done through constructing
‘ideal types’
○ Weber had good theory, but didn’t explore its presuppositions
■ he makes no distinction between:
● action and act
● meaning of the producer and meaning of
the produced
● meaning of my own action and meaning
of someone else’s
● self understanding and other-
understanding
■ doesn’t show how meaning is constituted
○ in order to understand the way the other self is grasped as an ideal type,
we need to recognise the way acts are interpreted as a part of the whole social world
■ Weber took for granted the meaningful phenomena of
the social world as a matter of intersubjective agreement, without examining
what constitutes meaning
● Hence we can see the complicated relation between the social sciences and their subject
matter - the structure of the social world is meaningful for its actors and also for its scientific
interpreters
○ in experiencing others as others we understand their behaviour, and
assume they understand ours
■ it is through these acts of interpretive meaning that the
structure of the social world is constructed
○ the social scientist interprets the world of already constituted meanings -
the meaningful acts of people in their everyday experience
■ there is a stratification of meaning-interpretation, and
these are two types: the meaning-understanding of everyday life, and the
