Schütz's theory of man

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Revision as of 09:02, 7 September 2011

Alfred Schütz (1899-1959) was an Austrian social scientist who was inspired by the phenomenological philosophy of Edmund Husserl. (Springer, 1972, p. XVII) Schütz doesn't have complete theory on human nature, but describes “the essence of human condition as the subjective experience of acting and adopting attitudes towards the everyday ‘lifeworld’ ” (Campbell, 1981, p.200). In his theory of man, Schütz follows Husserl in his idea that people need to reflect on their own behavior (experiences which happened in the past) in order to understand their actions. Understanding behavior and attributing meaning to it, can only be obtained by judging your behavior in moments of reflection. While reflecting, people select experiences out of their memory, which makes us see that our behavior is meaningful.

According to Schütz (Campbell, 1981, p.201) these memories are always split up in moments and times, while the everyday life experiences exists of a constant ‘flow’ of actions and experiences that merge into another. This makes Schütz believe that there are aspects in everyday life which cannot be grasped when we reflect on ourselves. But it’s in peoples nature to take certain things for granted, and to change others in the desired manner (Campbell, 1981, p.202).

Schütz idea was that people experience their everyday life according to their own ‘stock of knowledge, which means that every individual acts or reacts according to his own history: what he learned or experienced in the past within his own society. Also our future actions therefore depends on our inherit stock of knowledge. Schütz emphasizes this strong relation between actions in the past, present and future (Campbell, 1981, p.204). Our stock of knowledge is in turn, organized by a collection of typifications: definitions we gave ‘things’ for example trees, chairs, dogs etc. which enables people to organize and recognize them in the everyday world (Campbell, 1981, p.203).

The agent is because of his personal stock of knowledge able to act in a free way (see also free will). People can act intentionally and spontaneously. Schütz accepts that the fact that people may be influenced by social groups and societies and their place in the world. On the other hand Schütz believes that experiences of people are given to them and that people can also act in a reflexive way (f.e. blushing) (Campbell, 1981, p.204).

References:

Campbell, T. (1981). Seven theories of human society. Oxford University Press: Oxford

Springer, J. (1972). The phenomenology of the social world. Northwestern University Press: Evanston