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One Cognitive Style Among Others: Towards a Phenomenology of the Lifeworld and of Other Experiences

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The Multidimensionality of Hermeneutic Phenomenology

Part of the book series: Contributions to Phenomenology ((CTPH,volume 70))

Abstract

In his pioneering sociological theory, which makes phenomenological concepts fruitful for the social sciences, Alfred Schütz has laid foundations for a characterization of an manifold of distinct domains of experience. My aim here is to further develop this pluralist theory of experience by buttressing and extending the elements of diversity that it includes, and by eliminating or minimizing lingering imbalances among the domains of experience. After a critical discussion of the criterion-catalogue Schütz develops for the purpose of characterizing different cognitive styles, I move on to examine its application to one special style, the lifeworld. I appeal, on the one hand, to Husserl’s characterization of the lifeworld as a world of perception, and on the other hand to the layer-model of the lifeworld developed by Schütz and Thomas Luckmann. A consequence of this approach is that the lifeworld appears as a socially definable context that is detached from other experiences but on an equal footing with them with respect to their claim of validity. The term “lifeworld” does not denote a category that encompasses culture or nature but refers to a delimited action-space. Finally, I draw upon Schütz’s criterion-catalogue to characterize two domains of experience outside of the lifeworld, which play a central role for the process of differentiation of experience in modernity and for the phenomenological analysis of types of experience: experimental science and subjectivity.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    On Schütz’s sociology, see Natanson (1970); List and Srubar (1988); Embree (1999).

  2. 2.

    Schütz (1971), 266.

  3. 3.

    Ibid., 265.

  4. 4.

    The foundation for this approach are spelled out in “On Multiple Realities” (1945), and “Symbol, Reality, and Society” (1955), in: Schütz (1973), 207 ff. and 287 ff.

  5. 5.

    On Schütz’s theory of the lifeworld, cf. Grathoff and Sprondel (1979); Srubar (1988); Endress, Psathas and Nasu (2004).

  6. 6.

    Schütz (1971), Vol. 1, 243.

  7. 7.

    Cf. Heller (1986), 154.

  8. 8.

    Kant (1900 ff.), Vol. V, B 868.

  9. 9.

    Schütz (1971), Vol. 1, 264.

  10. 10.

    Ibid., 397 (267).

  11. 11.

    Ibid., 296ff., 392 and 395.

  12. 12.

    Ibid., 265.

  13. 13.

    Ibid., 266 (267).

  14. 14.

    Ibid., 266 (397f.).

  15. 15.

    Ibid., 265.

  16. 16.

    This presentation of the criterion catalogue follows Schiemann (2002), 86ff.

  17. 17.

    Schütz (1971), Vol. 1, 243ff. and 265, in the original not emphasized, as for all further characterizations of the criteria.

  18. 18.

    Ibid., 243.

  19. 19.

    Ibid., 264 (393).

  20. 20.

    Ibid., 265.

  21. 21.

    Ibid., 244.

  22. 22.

    Schütz and Luckmann (1979), 47.

  23. 23.

    Schütz (1971), Vol. 1, 297.

  24. 24.

    Ibid., 265.

  25. 25.

    Ibid., 270.

  26. 26.

    Ibid., 277.

  27. 27.

    Schwemmer (1987), 207.

  28. 28.

    Schütz (1971), Vol. 1, 263 and 265.

  29. 29.

    Ibid., 265 and 268.

  30. 30.

    Ibid., 279.

  31. 31.

    Ibid., 286.

  32. 32.

    Ibid., 265.

  33. 33.

    Ibid., 265.

  34. 34.

    Schütz and Luckmann (1979), Vol. 1, 73.

  35. 35.

    Schütz (1971), Vol. 1, 265.

  36. 36.

    The concept of a context of lifeworldly experience, which draws upon Husserl and Schütz, has been elucidated further in Schiemann (2005), chapter 1.1.2. Along with a given background knowledge, the three criteria form a sufficient condition for lifeworldly experience, cf. ibid. Chapter 1.1.2, paragraph 3.1.2.

  37. 37.

    Husserl (1977), 63f.—also emphasized in the original.

  38. 38.

    Husserl (1976), 49f., 171; Husserl (1968), 58f.

  39. 39.

    Husserl (1976), 107.

  40. 40.

    Husserl (1948), 54.

  41. 41.

    Husserl (1977), 57.

  42. 42.

    Ibid.

  43. 43.

    Ibid., 59—emphasized also in the original.

  44. 44.

    Husserl (1948), 53.

  45. 45.

    Ibid., 55.

  46. 46.

    Schütz and Luckmann (1979), Vol. 1, 63ff.

  47. 47.

    Ibid., 73ff.

  48. 48.

    Ibid., 74f.

  49. 49.

    Ibid., 87.

  50. 50.

    On lifeworldly typologies, cf. Schiemann (2005), chapter 1.1.2, paragraph 3.1.2.

  51. 51.

    Schütz and Luckmann (1979), Vol. 1, 90f.

  52. 52.

    Ibid., 95ff.

  53. 53.

    Ibid., 48f., 356ff.; Schütz (1971), Vol. 1, 281ff.

  54. 54.

    Cf. Schiemann (2002).

  55. 55.

    Taylor (1992), 109ff., 207ff. I use the concept of modernity here in a sense that encompasses modernity in its contempary period; cf. Schiemann (2009).

  56. 56.

    Cf. Bürger (1998).

  57. 57.

    Varela and Shear (1999).

  58. 58.

    Smith and Thomasson (2005); Kriegel and Williford (2006).

  59. 59.

    For overviews of recent literature on experimentation, see Heidelberger and Steinle (1988); Radder (2002).

  60. 60.

    Blumenberg (1986).

  61. 61.

    Schmitz (1990).

  62. 62.

    The definitions belonging to a subjective context of experience were developed in Schiemann (2005), Chap. 1.2.2, and are discussed critically in relation to Schütz’s concept of “scientific contemplation” in Schiemann (2002).

  63. 63.

    Husserl (1976), 70.

  64. 64.

    Husserl compares the change in attitude that occurs in the transition from the natural to the transcendental attitude with the change in attentional directedness that “normal people” make when they move from lifeworldly occupations (“father”) to their jobs (“shoemaker”) or to politics (“citizen”) (ibid., 139ff., 154), i.e. when they cross the boundaries separating domains of experience.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Philosophisches Seminar & IZWT, Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Gaußstr. 20, D-42119, Wuppertal, Germany

    Gregor Schiemann

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  1. Fordham University, New York, New York, USA

    Babette Babich

  2. St. Kliment Ohridski University, Sofia, Bulgaria

    Dimitri Ginev

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Schiemann, G. (2014). One Cognitive Style Among Others: Towards a Phenomenology of the Lifeworld and of Other Experiences. In: Babich, B., Ginev, D. (eds) The Multidimensionality of Hermeneutic Phenomenology. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 70. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01707-5_3

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