Micro Theory's Presuppositions: Mead, Schutz and Garfinkel

• In Event: 221 - Regular Session. Sociological Theory: Calculation, Cognition, Choice, and Motive

Abstract

Abstract. This paper concerns the presuppositions of micro theory -- the nature of everyday life, and the nature of a valid explanation in the micro sphere.
Mead accepted everyday life pretty much as it presents itself to us. But Schutz saids that we suspend disbelief in everyday life, even though we could doubt parts or all of this ontological sphere. Schutz then set aside this doubt and proceeded pretty much as an ordinary sociologist
Garfinkel, following Schutz, noted the questionability of everyday life, but being more stubborn he did not suspend this doubt. He thoroughly doubted everyday life, calling it a “fix.” He then showed how we often engage in dialogue, using ethnomethodogical practices, to agree on some ambiguous aspects of everyday life.
If everyday life is as doubtable as the social phenomenologists claim, a new Hobbesian issue should be faced -- though now it is not a war of all against all in the moral sphere but in the cognitive or meaningful sphere as well. Schutz and Garfinkel claim we make a social contract in the cognitive sphere (of everyday life) although Schutz works with this social contract and Garfinkel, calling it a fix, insistently rejects it.
The micro presuppositions then are whether we suspend disbelief in the natural attitude. And whether we have a social contract, in the cognitive as well as in the moral order. A valid explanation must take this contract into account.

Author

• Norbert F. Wiley, University of Illinois-Urbana