Week 9 Phenomenology PDF

Foundations of sociological thought Phenomenology and the social construction of reality Alfred Schutz 1899 – 1959), Peter Berger (1929 – 2017), Thomas Luckman (1929 – 2016)  Readings   A. Schutz, The Phenomenology of the Socia...

Foundations of sociological thought Phenomenology and the social construction of reality Alfred Schutz 1899 – 1959), Peter Berger (1929 – 2017), Thomas Luckman (1929 – 2016)  Readings   A. Schutz, The Phenomenology of the Social World, (1932/1967)  P. Berger and T. Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality, (1966)  P. Berger, The Sacred Canopy (1967)* *not included in our textbook  Phenomenology Source: ADE 2021  Phenomenology – root meaning  Phenomenology – from Greek phainomenon – appearance (as opposed to reality)  A study of what appears to the mind or in lived experience vs. “objective” reality  Has been around for centuries  remember “Plato’s cave” and (maybe) Immanuel Kant (late 1700s)?  It has developed as a full-blown approach in philosophy and sociology in the 20th century (SEP 2013)  a Plato’s Cave, https://universaltheosophy.com/philosophy/the-allegory- of-the-cave-part-1/, accessed March 1st, 2022.  20th century phenomenology in philosophy  Phenomenology as a “science of the essence of consciousness” from “the first person perspective”  intentionality (Husserl 1913)  We are “thrown into the world”, our being is always “being-in-the-world” (in-der–Welt-sein) (Being and time, Heidegger 1927)  Our lived experience and our perceptions is what matters  Key ideas  People experience the social world as their own world (lifeworld) (Lebenswelt): the world of existing assumptions as they are experienced and made meaningful in our individual consciousness (Wagner 1973:63)  Intersubjectivity refers to the sharing of consciousness – the idea that we know that another person is apprehending reality in a similar way; it implies attempts to “enter the mind” of another person – the “woodcutter example” from the reading  Key ideas  “Biographically articulated” stocks of knowledge (Erfahrung) provide actors with rules (recipies) for interpreting interactions, social relationships, organizations, institutions, and the physical world, they consist of what has already been experienced and is thus taken for granted (Schutz 1967:80)  experience accumulated over the course of life  Typification – constructing a standardized idea of a social situation based on standardized preconceived assumptions   Influences  Symbolic interactionism, socialization through interactions with “significant others”, the importance of the mind – Mead and Goffman  Verstehen ; interpretive understanding (Weber  Intersubjectivity – collective conscience and collective representations, social facts (Durkheim)  Alienation, entrenchment of the social order through ideology (Marx)  Ritualization of social interaction – Durkheim and Goffman  Social interactions – Alfred Schutz  The “Thou–orientation”  Direct, intimate, close experience of another person – the “we-relationship”  Opportunity to get to know them  An “interlocked relationship” – we can directly experience how we impact another  Interaction in the here and now  Social interactions – Alfred Schutz  The “They-orientation”  Indirect experience of another person  I experience another person merely as my contemporary and as a type  typification: looking at another merely through the lens of their social function  cashier, postman, teacher…  Interaction at a distance, both spatially and temporally  The social world according to Schutz  Umwelt (German: “the-world-around”): realm of directly experienced social reality, product of face-to-face relationships defined by a high degree of intimacy, as actors are in one another’s immediate copresence  the “we-relationship”  Mitwelt (German: “the-world [shared] with [sb]”): (world of contemporaries) is the realm of indirectly experienced social reality, people are experienced only as “types,” or within larger social structures, rather than individual actors the “they-orientation” (ADE 2021)  Examples: “decreasing vividness” or intensity of connections Alfred Schutz’s theoretical orientation Applerouth, Classical and Contemporary 3e © 20121 Sage Publications, Inc.  The social construction of reality. Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann  The social construction of reality  The social construction of reality – the idea that the social world does not, in and of itself, exist as an independent reality outside of individuals (like, for example, for Marx or Durkheim), but it is instead created and re-created as such, and then comes to be treated as real through social interactions, objectivated in social institutions, and internalized (ie. infused with personal meaning) by the individuals.  The society is a human product. Humans are social products (the subjective/objective dialectic of the social order)  The “reality” of the social world  “Common sense knowledge is the knowledge that I share with others in the normal, self-evident routines of everyday life” (Berger and Luckmann 1966:23)  It is what allows us to perceive the reality of everyday life as “reality,” to “suspend our doubts” so that we can act in the world (bracketing)  The social world is taken for granted, which frees us from constantly having to make decisions about every minute detail of our social lives  How is social order created?* 1) Externalization – we “externalize” ourselves to (ie. we interact with) our social environment  society as a human product 2) Objectivation and 3) reification: the social order becomes accepted as pre-arranged and attains reality through habitualization and institutionalization  society as an objective reality 4) Internalization – individuals accept the social world as personally meaningful, ie. real (taken for granted, apprehended as objective and real, and compelling!)  humans as a social product (Hiebert 2014) Objectivation  Habitualization  Habitualization the process by which the flexibility of human actions is limited. By nature, our daily life consists of a series of repeated actions  All activity is subject to habitualization, as repeated actions inevitably become routinized  anthropology of religion  Habitualized actions set the stage for institutionalization  Institutionalization  Humans develop in nature but also – in society. We are relatively weak and vulnerable compared to the other species in the animal kingdom, and so we need elaborate social arrangements to survive  Humans create shared institutions  institutions exert their influence on humans and shape social roles (“reciprocal typification of habitualized action by types of actors” (Berger and Luckmann 1966:54; ADE 2021)  social expectations that the interaction will look the same, time and time again (stability, certainty)  Examples  the development of elaborate rituals around religion, marriage, sexual life, work life, education  Historicity and control  Institutionalization  historicity and control  Institutions are there before we are born and will be there after we are gone (Remember Durkheim’s social fact?)  They arise as a result of long historical (context-dependent) processes  they “harden” over time (Hiebert 2014)  “The institutions confront the individual as undeniable facts” (Berger and Luckmann 1966 in ADE 2021)  Reification  Reification is “the apprehension of human phenomena as if they were something other than human products” (remember Durkheim’s idea about the society confronting us as “god”?)  Nature/Cosmos/Divine will  Reification  deification: not a coincidence!  Legitimation of the social world  The society runs on a certain common sense worldview (ideas) and ethos (values)  nomos (Greek: law): ”the sum total of all patterns the society objectivates” (Chernus, n. d.)  Nomos needs to be unquestioned, taken for granted  order and stability  Religion legitimizes the nomos by positing that it is fixed and permanent  The “sacred canopy” of shared, unquestioned assumptions shield us from chaos, uncertainty, meaninglessness, and anomy (Berger 1967)  Internalization  Internalization  we accept the objectivated social order as personally meaningful for us (ie. perceived as real)  Internalization is achieved by a crucial, intimate process of primary socialization  The social world is “filtered” to us by our “significant others” (taken from Mead)  Also: more impersonal secondary socialization (Berger and Luckmann 1966)  Internalization Primary socialization refers to “the first socialization an individual undergoes in childhood, through which he becomes a member of society” (1966:130–1). Secondary socialization refers to subsequent processes of socialization that induct “an already socialized individual into new sectors of the objective world of his society” (ibid.) and ADE 2021 The social construction of reality  Berger and Luckmann’s theoretical orientation Applerouth, Classical and Contemporary 3e © 2021 Sage Publications, Inc. The social construction of reality cycle We create/sustain the existing social order We pass the internalized social Social order “creates” order to the following and “traps” us generations through socialization We accept the constructed social order as objective and real  Discussion questions 1. In what ways does phenomenology differ from the other theoretical approaches discussed in the course so far? Provide examples. 2. Pick a social institution and use it to explain the stages of the externalization – objectivation – reification – internalization cycle as per Berger and Luckman. 3. Use an example from the social life to explain typification (Schutz) and reciprocal typificiation (Berger) 4. Identify in what ways can the ideas of Schutz, Berger and Luckman be connected to the thought of Durkheim and Goffman  Conclusion  We experience social reality as phenomena, subjective experiences rooted in our lifeworlds  The society depends on the dialectic of subjective meaning and objectivated and internalized social order  The paradox of the social construction of reality: the society is the human creation even as it is then approached by people as something external (suprahuman)