An Agenda for Democratic Society: Alred Schütz's Der Sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt

• In Event: 498 - Regular Session. History of Sociology/Social Thought

Abstract

Alfred Schütz monograph Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt is considered a classic of modern sociology. However, there is some controversy about what the essential contribution is? This paper does not follow interpretations which see Schütz’s work as a philosophical investigation into abstract features of sociability, but argues that it is a book about modern society and democracy based on the legal and rational framework of a Rechtsstaat in which rational structures of reciprocity organize everyday life. The argument that democracy and modern society matters in Schütz’s work is based on three postulates that Schütz proposes: (1) The other (alter ego) has primacy over ego, in everyday life as well as in science; this implies, for example, that in economics the consumer and his or her decision making is the point of reference, which means a shift of emphasis away from business man or the economist. (2) Social life is differentiated and encompasses various realms of interaction; under this condition, social life as relevant for the sociologist is centered around the realm of contemporaries where interaction between strangers takes place, rather than some directly experienced social reality that emulates the world of predecessors (tradition). (3) Rational social action has priority over traditional and affectual action; rationality is institutionalized in the realm of contemporaries, which is seen as a functional precondition for the interaction between strangers in a world with an open future; such rationality (as counterpart of reciprocity) is also a precondition for the knowledge that the social sciences generate.

Author

• Christopher Herbert Schlembach, University of Vienna