Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Alfred Schutz, Thomas Luckmann, The Structures of Life-World v. 2
Alfred Schutz, Thomas Luckmann, The Structures of Life-World v. 2
Northwestern University
Studies in Phenomenology
and
Existential Philosophy
General Editor James M. Edie
Consulting Editors
Richard M. Zaner
and
David J. Parent
THE
STRUCTURES
OF TH E
LIFE-W ORLD
V o l u m e II
Alfred Schutz
and
Thomas Luckmann
Northwestern University Press
Evanston, Illinois 60201
Translators' Preface xi
Translators' Note xv
Chapter Five:
The Life-World as the Province of Practice 1
vii
viii
C O N T E N T S
4. Choice 31
a. Open and Problematic Possibilities 31
b. Choosing 35
c. Social Conditions of Choice 42
C. Action 46
1. The Decision 46
2. The Course of Action 49
a. Beginning and End 49
b. The Sequence of Steps 53
c. Changes during Execution 55
E. Social Action 65
1. Action in Society 65
a. The Socialized Actor 65
b. Socially Oriented Action 68
Chapter Six:
The Boundaries of Experience and the Boundary Crossings 99
a. The Boundaries of the Life-World 99
1. Boundaries of Life 99
2. Boundaries of Experience, Experience of Boundaries 102
3. The "Little" Transcendencies in Everyday Life 106
4. "Medium" Transcendencies: The Others 109
a. Fellowmen 109
b. Contemporaries and the Generations 114
C O N T E N T S
Appendix 159
Arrangement of the Appendix 161
Editor's Preliminary Remarks 163
Schutz's Project Outline for Structures o f the Life-World
Based on His "File Cards" 165
Survey of Contents of the Notebooks 181
Contents of the Notebooks and Dictionary 185
Notes 327
Index 333
Translators' Preface
This book cannot be the book as Schutz would have written it.
It is not even the book I think he would have written: a
complete submersion of my own thought and work in his plan
was neither possible nor, I am sure, was it something that
Schutz would have wished under the circumstances.7
The Life-World
as the
Province of Practice
separates action from inaction? And how does a person, more pre
cisely, experience his own action and that of others?
To start from the beginning again, reaching back to previous
analyses: processes of consciousness consist of multiply intercon
nected syntheses.1 From an Ego-pole, as Husserl showed in his in
vestigations, intentional performances are directed at something that
discloses itself in its universal structure, whether it happens to be a
perceiving or a fictional presentation, memory, judgments, etc. On
the basis of the analyses of this structure carried on diligently by Aron
Gurwitsch,2 we distinguish between a thematic kernel, the thematic
field in which a kernel is imbedded, and an open horizon in which
the thematic field stands. How one particular thematic kernel and not
another happens to come into relief in the stream of consciousness
at any given time, how a theme happens to be experienced routinely
or explicated as a problem, was described in the analyses of the rel
evance-systems.3 Summing up these findings without going into de
tails again, we can say that experiences are constituted as thematic
kernels within the syntheses of consciousness; in the constitution of
experiences, interconnected thematic, interpretative, and motivai rel
evances work together systematically.
Along with the kernels of current phases of lived experiences,
thematic components are also represented.4 The lived experience of
a visual object of perception includes, for example, not just the view
of the front side, given impressionally and currently in direct evi
dence, but also its hind side, which is appresented simultaneously—
though not in original evidence. With all lived experiences, which
belong to the everyday life-world, “their” type—i.e., the one with
which they are endowed on the basis of prior experience—is auto
matically appresented as the total context of characteristic thematic
elements. Even before overlaying by objectivations (mainly semantic
classifications) which are socially mediated and deposited linguisti
cally in the subjective stock of knowledge, a schematic context of
tactile, olfactory, and utilitarian qualities is (in our example of a seen
object) fused through passive syntheses with the actually grasped vi
sual form. All these syntheses, including the appresentations of the
type subjectively relevant in each case, produce the unity of everyday
objects, qualities, and events taken for granted in the natural attitude.
They cause the apparently simple occurrence of these objects, quali
ties, and events in the course of lived experience.
The Ego focuses its attention on some lived experiences. How
this happens has also been described in Volume I, in the analysis of
the relevancy systems. Lived experiences adverted to an attentive Ego
3
A C T I O N A N D T H E U N D E R S T A N D I N G
time that can inform others who observe a person’s action or inaction,
just as it also gives the actor himself information about the course of
the action. Of course, conduct does not appear in the same perspec
tive to the actors and to the observers. Moreover, the actor himself
does not always, much less absolutely, need mediated information
about his behavior, for he can apprehend it directly from his own
project and he has it under control in his inner perception of the
course of action. But the actor is at the same time the observer of
other people’s actions; every person acts, and every person experi
ences the action of others. The perspectives under which conduct is
seen as action, indeed by both actors and observers, are interrelated
systematically as nuances of meaning of typically similar or identical
processes; they are, in principle, interchangeable. In the natural
attitude of everyday life, everyone is, precisely from his dual role
as actor and observer prior to any theoretical reflection, perfectly
well aware that although in principle conduct embodies action only
very imperfectly, in practice it points to action in an extremely
useful way.
Thus a complex but inseparable connection exists between ac
tion, as a course of experience subjectively projected in advance, and
conduct, which can be grasped by one’s fellowman as the embodiment
of action. According to the principle of the reciprocity of perspec
tives, a man “sees” that others act just as he does, just as he also “sees”
that others treat him as an actor. He remains in his own eyes (and so
not just within an intentional ethics but also in an analysis of con
sciousness) the ultimate authority to decide whether or not he has
acted in a given case; but it is the others, his fellowmen, who (on the
basis of socially objectivated rules of typical, observable courses of
conduct deposited in the stock of knowledge) ascribe the typical pres
ence or nonpresence of a goal, a plan of action. As the authority that
is valid in practice, the others decide whether something was an action
or not. But in a certain sense one is oneself “the others,” though not
in the individual case of a detached action, but rather in the total
context of the manner of living. For, after all, one applies, just as other
people in the last analysis also apply, the socially constructed rules
that ascribe certain types of action to certain norms of conduct.
One’s conduct is not, therefore, merely incidentally correlated
with one’s action. This relation is grasped consciously and manages,
to a certain degree, to control one’s conduct as a significant expression
of one’s action for other people to see. Where it matters, one gears
one’s behavior to interpretation by others. This is not so much a
matter of intentional deception—though of course that possibility
8
T HE P R O V I N C E OF P R A C T I C E
also exists. As will be shown below,6 two other consequences are more
important. First, steering one’s own behavior toward anticipated inter
pretation by others is a basic presupposition of communicative action.
Secondly, this teaches us that the behavior of others is not only nat
urally an imperfect embodiment of their action, but that it also arti
ficially by human intention partly expresses and partly conceals, or
possibly even just simulates their action. This knowledge is of great
importance for everyday practice: one learns both to “adjust” one’s
own conduct appropriately to the goal of action and also to improve
one’s interpretations of the conduct of others.
At the conclusion of these remarks, surely it is hardly necessary
to point out that of course not only action but also experience that
is not preplanned is at least in part detectable from conduct. When
a person in a dangerous situation turns pale and does nothing, it is
an obvious conclusion that he is at least startled. The conduct of
others enables us to draw conclusions not only about their action but
also about how they internally experience what is happening to them.
conduct are not selective enough for the actor himself to grasp his
action adequately. On the whole, however, the delimitations of think
ing and operating will coincide for actor and observer alike: actors
are observers, and observers are actors. Indications of action con
tained in conduct—which are immediate for operation, circumstan
tial for thought—are typified appropriately and graphically, insofar
as generally significant kinds of operating and thinking are con
cerned, and deposited in the social stock of knowledge. There are of
course limiting cases: it is not, e.g., completely inaccurate to say that
some people “think aloud.” But in general and for the most part,
thinking is both action that does not engage in the surrounding world
(as the actor sees it) and action that is not detectable from conduct
(as the other person sees it). Incidentally, a theory of action that is
organized in terms of observer categories (not just methodologically
or for research practice, but also dogmatically in its ontology or the
ory of science) must miss its object.
4. Work
Among the many different kinds of operation, one especially merits
closer examination. All operation, as controlled corporeal conduct, in
some way engages in the world. But not every operation changes the
surrounding world in a way that is significant for the practical objec
tives of everyday life. On this point we should not be misled by the
metaphysical question—which is not pertinent for everyday prac
tice—whether every action, indeed every event, be it “inner” or “outer,”
does not change reality. If after merely accidental “thinking aloud”
I happen to frame my train of thought intentionally in words, I have
gone over from thinking to operating: something has changed essen
tially in the mode of action. But in the surrounding world nothing
has noticeably changed, and in myself hardly anything noticeable.
Now assume that I clothe my train of thought in words for
someone else and ask him to cut down a tree. When he does cut it
down, I have then engaged in the surrounding world in a manner
that changes it, although I myself have not lifted a finger. The effect
resembles what I would have achieved if I had personally cut down
the tree. Add a somewhat less simple example: In a no-smoking com
partment I ask a smoker to stop smoking. If he does not heed my
request and I remove his cigarette from his mouth and throw it out
the window, the result is in a certain sense also the same: he is no
longer smoking. The social situation, however, has changed much
12
T H E P R O V I N C E OF P R A C T I C E
more drastically than in the example of chopping down the tree one
self or asking someone else to do it. Yet all these examples have one
thing in common. Some determinate effect, a change in the natural
and social world, was achieved by a plan of action. It is, moreover,
quite clear that man’s surrounding worlds are not merely part of
nature, but are also always social. We will not at this point go into the
difficult problem of the flexible and historically variable boundaries
of the social world.8
One can dream about cutting down trees, one can observe it,
think about it, talk about it, convince others to do it, or do it oneself.
This shows that, despite all unclear transitions in individual cases, it
is meaningful to stress the kind of operation that changes the sur
rounding world according to the plan of action. Change is thus not
a purely accidental effect of action. It must rather be intended and
inserted in the plan of action, whether or not the performance of the
act succeeds. Leaving tracks behind in the snow is not part of the
project, but stomping out a path in the snow surely is. This shows
that even this kind of operation cannot be unambiguously attached
to criteria of conduct, but rather must be understood from its mean
ing to the actor. Let us call it work.
This conception of what work means does no great violence
to the colloquial usage of the word. But clearly the precise delineation
suggested does not correspond to the concept’s blurred connotations
in modern industrial societies, not to mention that no such concept
existed in earlier tribal societies. Remnants of early Christian, Calvin
ist, and Lutheran history of ideas are still contained in the capitalist
and Marxist versions of the concept of work in the modern world,
where there is little sign of a unified conception of it—quite apart
from its valuation. The functionalist orientation of most social science
concepts of work is useful for certain ends, but has its own difficulties,
as professional sociology, for example, shows. This holds especially
for historical and intercultural comparative analyses, since the con
cept of work—so central to social organizations of everyday reality
and their ideological corroboration—is subject to historical contrac
tions and expansions. In this context, too, a broad but precise defi
nition of work as a particular kind of life-worldly operation may be
useful.
This definition, of course, includes productive activities in an
economic sense, but it also includes all those forms of social action by
which a change is made in the social world: declarations of love,
marriages, baptism, court deliberations, the sale or even the collecting
of postage stamps, revolutions and counterrevolutions.
13
A C T I O N A N D T H E U N D E R S T A N D I N G
certainly differ greatly on this very point: they reach from tribal lia
bility to pure attitudinal ethics.
in order to avoid them; one avoids them because one fears them. Of
course, a person can try to influence his own attitudes by setting out,
like the fairy tale character, “to learn fear”; he can decide to fight
down his fear of snakes. So quite strictly speaking, attitudes are not
just sediments of encounters and lived experiences but can, though
perhaps only slightly, be stamped by the results of an act. For this
reason alone, attitudes could perhaps be said to be somehow
“motivated.”
But that would be a rather misleading way of speaking. On the
contrary, attitudes themselves obviously have a motivating effect. A
person who is afraid of snakes acts differently in their vicinity from
one who is not. An attitude consists in the readiness (under certain
conditions that are evocable in the typological system of the subjective
stock of knowledge) to steer toward particular goals and to set in
motion certain modes of conduct (the close connection of thematic,
interpretative, and motivational relevance has repeatedly been pointed
out in Volume I!). Naturally this also means: to start with the first “in
order-to” of an in-order-to motivation-chain.
Thus attitudes, like projects, have their prior history. Whereas
normally the prior history of the project can easily be reconstructed
by the actor, that does not hold true for the prior history of attitudes.
The actor is clearly conscious of his attitudes only in part, if at all;
insofar as they happen to consist of the results of an act, they can be
lifted back up to consciousness. Beyond that the actor will find it
difficult, if not impossible, to reconstruct the genesis—and thus an
essential part of the meaning—of his attitudes in the fullness of all
the sediments of lived experience they contain and to understand
them in their context.
able about the whole matter is just that I will decide to transpose it
into fact: I do not in any case want to climb the Triglav via the north
face, nor are climbing lessons absolutely recommendable at my age.
But to go to the top of the Triglav comfortably in two days, staying
overnight in the Kredarica chalet, by the usually safe route, that is an
idea that is easily practicable not only as a project, but I am even
already toying with the idea of making it into a decision.
Now the Alps are always ready to demonstrate to fiatland tour
ists the finer distinctions between such ideas. Everyone will probably
acknowledge that people over a hundred years old cannot climb
mountain faces in winter in shirt-sleeves. To decide on the practica
bility of other ideas, one must however already know somewhat more
about mountains in general, about the Julian Alps in particular, and
especially about one’s own abilities. Before it can be decided whether
we are dealing with practicable or empty Utopias, various questions
must be answered: where one is (if a person is in San Francisco, he
will not be able to “climb” the Salzburg Castle Mountain in the next
few hours); who and how one is (is one lying in a plaster cast?); what
one can do (mountain-climbing at advanced stages of difficulty), and
what one knows (some people, children and adults, intelligent and
stupid, make impracticable projects without realizing that the projects
are impracticable). And even practical, feasible projects, of course, do
not always lead to success. More about this below.
Despite all differences, these examples do have one thing in
common: they can be envisioned, they are composed of typical ele
ments of a subjective stock of knowledge. The first example shows
that such elements of knowledge could be applied contrary to the
facts, in total, envisioned concreteness but with complete awareness
that the fantasies could never become reality. The variations in the
following examples show that the probability of occurrence of the
conditions necessary to carry out the project—the various means to
the end, the individual steps of the act, etc.—is estimated based on
the actor’s knowledge. A scale of gradation extends from impossibility
(which, as was shown, does not necessarily mean absurdity) to possi
bility—and there, from extremely slight to very high probability; and
the distance from one degree to the next is sometimes farther, some
times closer. The issue here is always probability for the actor: sub
jective probability is always determined by the current state of the
actor’s subjective stock of knowledge. Yet generally the actor is not
distinctly conscious of a gradation-scale of probability values. One
exception is the case of rational action, which will have to be looked
at more closely below, since in that case the weighing of the various
24
T H E P R O V I N C E OF P R A C T I C E
are fused with the means for their attainment into proven, unques
tioned unities—promotes the routinization of projecting: the practic
ability of the project no longer needs to be estimated in the individual
case, since it is taken for granted. And finally, knowledge of recipes,
which applies entire “building blocks” of courses of conduct to solving
typical problems (attesting to the practicability of the corresponding
projects by tradition, as it were), should also be mentioned.
Beyond habitual knowledge, specific elements of knowledge are
project-relevant for the actor, especially his knowledge of the concrete
limits of his reach and capacity to operate. As was seen above, specific
elements of knowledge are arranged according to types and thus
deposited in the stock of knowledge. However it is a matter here of
case-by-case activation of such knowledge under the basic pragmatic
motive of everyday life: namely, everything in the world that is at
hand or at least on hand for my action. The person hoping to act, in
contrast with one who merely fantasizes, uses only such (envisioned)
means to achieve his goal (envisioned modo futuri exacti) as lie within
his actual or potential reach. In the analysis of reach it was shown
that besides an obviously spatial dimension, reach has an essentially
temporal and an important social dimension.20 In this analysis and in
the comments on the primary and secondary zone of operation,21 the
most necessary things have been said about the structure of act-rel
evant knowledge from the vantage point of reach and need not be
repeated here.
a. Doubt
Many of our everyday actions become habits. They are considerably
routinized not just in their process, but even in their project. The
meaning of such actions has its place in habitual knowledge. As we
have just seen above, there are all kinds of acts whose goals are as
sumed to be attainable, whose projects seem self-evidently imple-
mentable and whose individual steps follow one another quasi
automatically. But it must not be forgotten that this is not a matter
of mere behavior, but rather of genuine acts. Such acts are, however,
so polished and smooth that they seem to unreel almost without the
actor’s participation and conscious planning. Nevertheless, they do
not have the time structure of simple encounters; rather, actually pres-
28
T H E P R O V I N C E OF P R A C T I C E
b. Interests
Every project stems from a clearly determined interest, namely inter
est in a future that is formed thus and so and not otherwise. We know
that we can influence what will happen tomorrow only to a certain,
perhaps very slight, degree, and that much will happen indepen
dently of our action or inaction. But in the natural attitude of every
day life, precisely this “actionable” part of the future is of overriding
concern for us. The realm of necessity imposed by the given condi
tions of the world, naturally, always presents a fixed framework within
which we wish our future to be so and not otherwise on this or that
point. If, based on our knowledge, we can assume that in the future
certain events we wish for will happen by themselves, naturally we
need do nothing; on the contrary, we must be careful not to under
take anything that could endanger the occurrence of the event. If,
however, we assume that certain undesired events could happen, we
30
T H E P R O V I N C E OF P R A C T I C E
it must not be assumed that always and for everyone all interests are
ranked in a single, clearly defined, and fully integrated system. There
probably is scarcely a person in whose life all interests could be in
terconnected smoothly and who could completely eliminate all con
flicts of interest that occur in him. Certainly, we do make daily plans,
with whose help the habitual daily interests can be satisfied. Just as
certainly, these daily plans are to a certain degree derived from over
arching longer-term plans, indeed even lifetime plans. Nevertheless,
a person who seeks to regulate his future down to the last detail
according to a rigid plan-hierarchy is hard to imagine; even more so,
however, a person whose interests are in complete harmony. For most
of us, some interests stand side by side, unmediated and detached,
without being intertwined in greater interest-contexts. If at a given
time they clash, we must make a decision that cannot be guided by
an established system of interests. Certainly individual and cultural
differences exist, but these move between the extremes of complete
disconnectedness between interests and total integration—without ever
reaching the latter.
The biographical development of interests was discussed, as
noted above, in the analysis of subjective relevance-systems and es
pecially in the investigations of motivational relevance.25 Act-projects
were there considered from the vantage point of motivation and proj
ects—i.e., motives in the in-order-to context—were seen to stem from
attitudes—i.e., motives in the because-context. Attitudes, in their turn,
are sedimentations of past experiences, hence naturally also of ex
periences of acts. These findings do not mean exactly the same as the
above statement that projects stem from interests, but unmistakably
they are related in meaning. With the analysis of because-motivation
we tried essentially to understand attitude as a biographical sediment.
What has been said about interests should now cast a new light on
this. When we speak of interests, we do not mean just one’s own past
as it continues to affect action, but also the essential future-orienta
tion of this past. The project is by nature oriented to something fu
ture, but even its genesis—from interests—has a complicated time-
structure. Interest is, indeed, a sediment of the past. However it is
oriented by a future that is relevant for the actor.
4. Choice
not retreat one step”). In most everyday situations, however, the weight
of projected acts is relative: they are determined by comparing one
act-project that seriously comes in question with other projects that
also come in question. It is thus a matter of tracing the envisionings
of the future derived from various interest-contexts back to these
interest-contexts. If these latter stand in an overarching or subordi
nate relation to one another, this clarification already is enough to
decide on the relative weight of the competing envisionings of the
future. If that is not the case, the considering must be done step by
step. Only envisionings of the future that can be taken seriously are,
as was said, included in the comparison. Those that are somehow
merely imagined unpurposefully are left out of the picture. They
carry absolutely no weight, not even an imprecisely defined one. They
do not stem from interest-contexts, and nothing speaks for or against
them one way or another. More precisely, what speaks against them
is only that nothing speaks for them.
Here we were speaking about action and projecting in the nat
ural attitude of everyday life. With certain modifications—for the
resistances that action encounters differ according to the various
provinces of reality—something similar also holds true of other prov
inces of reality with finite meaning-structure. There, too, open pos
sibilities become problematic possibilities, except that the
transformation is not founded on the interest-contexts of everyday
life that are governed by the basic pragmatic motive, but on rele
vances governing dreams, wishful thinking, and artistic creation. Even
an author narrows down the open possibilities under which the future
of his characters stands to problematic possibilities. Naturally, he does
not do this under the pressure of his own interests; the practicability
of his characters’ projects is not restricted to the framework of prac
ticability that applies to him and his own everyday reality. The nar
rowing of possibilities takes place under different criteria: the aesthetic-
communicative criteria of a written or oral genre of art. In animal
fables, animals can speak, but they have something particular to say.
In classical drama the three unities impose narrow spatial and tem
poral limits on the project-possibilities of the actors, whereas the canon
of the naturalistic novel demands that the practicability of the novel-
characters’ projects must be located within the framework of their
everyday world.
The framework of open possibilities always comprises the ac
tor’s historically and biographically determinate world—which he takes
for granted without question. Open possibilities become problematic
for him when it turns out in a concrete situation—which calls for a
35
T H E P R O J E C T
b. Choosing
The actor must decide to which of the problematic possibilities that
come in question he should assign the greater weight for his future
under the circumstances and in the situation. He must decide for a
particular future for himself\ which future—if it should come about—
will have the characteristic of having been wanted by him. It need
hardly be said explicitly that the process of decision itself, the actual
choosing, is a process within the actor’s inner duration. Although the
choice takes place in the fleeting present, it is of course, like all ex
perience and all action, stamped by the past. However, in its meaning,
it is obviously and essentially future-oriented.
The past acts upon the process of choice through the experi
ences that are deposited in the actor’s stock of knowledge and have
shaped concrete motivation-contexts in his subjective stock of knowl
edge. In the flowing present of choosing, knowledge and relevance
occur in the form of estimates of practicability and interests in certain
36
T H E P R O V I N C E OF P R A C T I C E
future possibilities. Strictly speaking, the future is not, for its part,
operative, since it “exists” in the present only as something envi
sioned; figuratively speaking, it affects the anticipatory envisionings
of possible future occurrences. In this way past and future together
determine the values of the weights that are apprehended in the
actually present phases of the stream of consciousness, in which the
weighing takes place. Apprehended and not more; for the values of
the weights have already been set before the process of choosing
between projects begins.
The projecting of a future condition or of an occurrence as a
series of conditions takes place step by step. But once the project is
finished, the occurrence that has just now (or perhaps a while ago,
earlier, a long time ago) been envisioned as completed in the future
is held in the consciousness as a (for the time being) finished project.
While it remains in grasp, it can gradually be traced back to its interest
and checked for the chances of its practicability. Thus even the weigh
ing of a future envisioned as the project for an act takes place poly-
thetically. But once the weight of the project has been established, it
can be monothetically grasped, retained, or later called to memory.
So it can be used as one relative magnitude compared with the weight
of other projects, which are likewise polythetically constituted and
monothetically graspable. Since projects for an act cannot be sketched
simultaneously but must emerge in the consciousness one after the
other, only such a simple retentive grasp reaching back to valuations
that were done gradually makes possible the process of choice.
What has been said applies both to provisional and to more or
less final weighings. Their difference consists in something else. With
the first project that seriously comes into question there are, of course,
still no competing projects, no other weights as comparative magni
tudes. The provisional weighing of the first project comes about in a
clarification of the corresponding interest, of the degree of urgency
and the chances of practicability grasped in isolation. That is why the
weight thus established also bears from the first the marks of the
provisional. However, in all further weighings one can already refer
to a comparative magnitude—though one that is under the circum
stances determined only imprecisely.
Precisely speaking, the weighing thus proceeds as follows. On
the basis of a more or less distinct current interest in a fantasying act
of consciousness, an occurrence envisioned as future (“having lunch”)
occurs in the flux of consciousness. In the further sequence of actually
present phases of consciousness, the envisioned future is weighed in
the already described manner as project for an act. It is traced back
37
T HE P R O J E C T
native. The first project is no longer the way it was. The same future
is envisioned (“this afternoon”), the same possibility is regarded (“to
eat”), but in a fundamentally new perspective (“to eat or to finish the
job”). What is new about what is envisioned is not the knowledge that
in principle any other future whatever could be foreseen, but that a
certain other future could be seriously considered. Thus the actor’s
problem of deciding results in a problem of interpretation: how de
sirable is one future possibility compared with the other?
The actor now inspects29 this first project more carefully than
the first time. Now he also has every reason to do so, for he must now
measure the importance and urgency of his interest in a particular
future with the full consciousness of the fact that he is not himself
seriously interested in a different future. The provisional weighing
of the first project can now be confirmed or modified in comparison
with the weights of other projects seriously coming into question and
previously also considered. The project and the interest from which
the project arose are now grasped no longer in isolation, no longer
by themselves and in their connection with one another, but in the
broader context. Project still stands against project—but no longer
without mediation. Rather, the interests on which the competing proj
ects are based are now located in superimposed motivational contexts
(superimposed, namely, on individual interests). The projects them
selves can now be arranged in biographically anchored plan-hierar
chies that precede the partial plans somewhat bindingly.
Often the decision is already made without further ado. For it
may turn out that one of the projects under consideration is clearly
superior to the other (or respectively to all others that come in ques
tion, if there were several). The actor sees one of the projects as
doubtless more important according to a plan-hierarchy that must be
cogently applied in this situation and the interest in its realization as
more urgent under the spatially and temporally prevailing conditions.
Afterward the actor will perceive the just described case as if the
process of choice that he had just undergone had really been super
fluous. He will seem to have somehow forgotten or not immediately
recognized what the situation was with the weighing of the competing
projects. In any case, all doubt is removed after this first comparison.
He need only make his decision to begin carrying out the project.
In this case, too, we certainly have been dealing with a genuine
act of choice. Everything began with doubt in a situation of pressure
to act, then problematic possibilities emerged, and the continuation
consisted of a step-by-step weighing and considering of the projects.
Otherwise the decision came remarkably easily. The actor did not
39
T HE P R O J E C T
being made in the first round, the decision is made in the second or
third rounds, or later: there are procrastinators everywhere, and under
certain conditions anyone can become one.
But it can also happen that already in the first round the actor
determines that he cannot fit the competing projects into any plan-
hierarchy that has equal jurisdiction over all of them. Even were he
to think it over for hours, one project seems to fall under the juris
diction of one plan-hierarchy, the other under a different one. As we
have already seen in the examples about eating: the choice between
beef and pork poses no problem of incompatible standards. If one
had to choose between beef and sherbet, however, one would, in the
culinary culture with which we are familiar, be exceeding the bound
aries between two closer provinces of comparison. Customarily one
first selects between main courses and then between dessert offerings.
Nevertheless these two (historical and historically developed) cate
gories of experience unquestionably lie on the same plane. Prefer
ences (“Which taste do I like better?”) and calculations (“Which one
is more nutritious? Cheaper?” etc.) can be compared to one another
without particular difficulty. It is much rather a question of the com
parability of standards when one is placed before the choice between
a meal (let us stay with beef) and a pipe (let us say, filled with burley
tobacco). But even there, after all, a reference to overarching points
of view should be possible, e.g., to pleasure versus health. According
to what standards, however, should one choose between beef and a
girl’s smile? What are the overarching value-references? What is im
mediately urgent or possibly subject to postponement? Does one
choose a hundred tons of beef for a starving population, if one would
have to betray a man to his death for it?
It need hardly be stressed that in situations calling for decisions
of this kind it is not a question of more precise determination of
weights, a more univocal reference to established hierarchical plans.
It is rather a question of deciding about the very standards according
to which the comparison and decision will be made. This problem is,
of course, posed to the actor only when what he must decide for or
against seems important from the first. Even if he could not decide
between beef and a pipe for solid reasons, a normal person under
normal conditions will waste no further thoughts on the subject. He
decides blindly by flipping a coin. (With some imagination, of course,
conditions under which such a decision would be vital can always be
pulled from one’s hat.)
Things are different when from the first something important
is concerned, when a certain pressure to act exists yet time is available
41
T H E P R O J E C T
to make a decision and the actor was able to reach no decision in the
first round. He will try the second round no longer under the same
presupposition with which he entered the first. He must, however,
now turn to the standards themselves: he no longer lives “in” the
relevances, but rather tries reflexively to grasp the structure of his
subjective relevancy system itself. Perhaps he manages, after all, to
“discover” an overarching context for the two apparently incompati
ble hierarchies of plans called forth in the first round. But if he can
relate the individual plans that come in question neither to one an
other nor to something like a life-plan—and thus via this life-plan
then again to one another—he will set out to construct step by step
a system into which the previously incompatible hierarchies of plans
can be inserted. He must then rethink his interests, recalculating the
practicabilities of competing projects. Above all, he will have to assess
carefully the possible consequences of realizing these projects, both
for himself and for the people who are more or less dear to him, in
the short and the long run. If then he can, on the basis of such a
clarification, fit into a system the hierarchies of plans that occur in
the decision-situation and at first seemed incompatible, the weights
of the original projects can at last be re-established and compared.
The outcome is a founded decision.
The actor may, however, also determine that the interests to
which he has traced back the projects stand in an insurmountable
conflict and can be placed in no overarching motivational contexts;
the projects can be inserted into no system of plans, and still less into
a life-plan. Once again he will have to make a “blind” decision. But
if he tosses a coin or uses one of the many other possibilities wide
spread in the most varied societies and at all times to let fate or chance
guide the decision, he is now involved in a completely different man
ner than when he does the same thing for trivial reasons. If it is not
so important to him anyway whether he goes in one direction or
another, it simply is not worth the effort of seeking further for a
grounded decision. In the present case, on the contrary, the actor has
to see at long last that in the imposed situation he cannot himself,
according to his best knowledge and conscience, make a founded
decision. This case is apparently very far removed from habitual ac
tion: the actor has thought things over, carefully weighing various
possibilities, and now he awaits the outcome with full tension of con
sciousness. On the other hand, on one important point this case does
not resemble the everyday opposite of habitual action, namely, the
founded act of choice.31 The decision is not autonomous. For the
decisions in which everyday reason fails also mainly concern crises of
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T H E P R O V I N C E OF P R A C T I C E
c. Action
1. The Decision
Projects can be designed. This does not refer to the self-evident fact
that projects come about in conscious processes, but rather that the
act that is envisioned modo futuri exacti has the character of a project
and not, for example, of a physical performance, a speech, the solu
tion of a mathematical problem, etc. It is not hard to envision some
one who would like to design plans of action for the various situations
that could confront him, to keep them in store as a precautionary
measure. He focuses on the project of mentally practicing various
sorts of conduct in case of earthquake, flood, and conflagration. Or
think of the grandmother, experienced in life, who is ready with well-
considered advice to help her grandson who has gotten into diffi
culties. It holds true, even for such acts, which persist in thought and
project until further notice, that a last impulsion is necessary to set
the projected action in motion—i.e., in this case, the projecting. In
cases where the action has to overcome an external resistance, it be
comes all the more obvious that something like a volitive “fiat”—to
use William James’s term—is necessary to translate the project into
deed. Unless something is added, no progress is made beyond the
project. In common parlance, the missing link between the project
and the action proper is called a decision.
It was already mentioned earlier that action does not of itself
follow from the project.36 Now it will have to be shown briefly that
for all kinds of action a decision to take the first step is necessary, but
that this decision is also different in character for the various kinds
of action. Depending on whether it concerns habitual action, or sim
ple decisions for a familiar project, or the result of a hard choice
between carefully weighed projects, and depending on the impor
tance of the action for the actor, the last impulse to act will be “strong”
or “weak.”
To this point we have concerned ourselves mainly with describ
ing how an actor prepares to act, or, to put it more precisely, how a
prospective actor gears himself for a possible action. Certainly, with
out a project there is no act. But whereas a project is a necessary
ingredient of action, not all projects necessarily lead to action. How
ever seriously a person may feel when he visualizes a particular future
possibility (his death by lung cancer), however caref ully he deliberates
47
A C T I O N
cumstances (it is, moreover, clear that the two do not “vary”
independently of one another). First, there is the importance of the
act’s consequences for the actor’s life—of course, as the actor sees it
at the time of making the decision. Second, it makes a difference
whether the action is oriented habitually by an already-existent, in
grained project (so that no polythetic mental act of projecting takes
place, and project, decision, and the first steps of action merge to
gether), whether a project competes just with the weakly weighed
alternative of preferably not steering toward the possibility envisioned
in it and the decision comes easy, or whether the actor has to choose
step by step between projects requiring ever more precise weighing
and can break through to a decision only after long vacillation.
It is perhaps unnecessary to point out that all these consider
ations must always be related to the actor’s subjective, biographically
anchored relevance system, which characterizes his complex of atti
tudes, his character. Just as there are people who hesitate in the val
uation of weights, in the decision between various possibilities, there
also are “weak-willed” and “strong-willed” persons. Of course, it must
not be forgotten that these categories belong in some form to the
typification of the social world in the natural attitude and are stamped
in their concrete empirical form by the respective relative-natural
worldview.
However much a given situation seems to restrict the possibil
ities of choice, however immediate the decision for a particular alter
native may be, and however much or little the decision stands out
from project and action, in any case the actor remains conscious that
the decision is not imposed on him. Everyone knows the difference
between what he wanted or did and what happened against his will.
Afterward he may, naturally, pretend to have done something that
merely happened to him—and on the other hand, he can pretend
that something he did merely happened. We have already discussed
the difficulties of ascribing responsibility.37 What matters here is only
to point out the fundamental (and subjectively graspable) prominence
of decision in the act as a whole, with all the empirical nuances that
result from whether or not a language knows the word “decision” or
its equivalent and what system for ascribing responsibility a relative-
natural worldview contains (whether, for example, it already encom
passes the imagining of the project so that one can already “sin in
thought,” or whether it is oriented strictly by the consequences of the
deed, so that a vendetta is continued for generations; whether it de
fines the individual or a collectivity as the bearer of responsibility,
etc.).
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A C T I O N
purposes. The future envisioned modo futuri exacti has come about in
its essential features, of course (for the actor, too) with one exception,
namely the mode. The futurum exactum has been changed into the
praesens or, respectively, the imperfectum or perfectum. Now the act is in
the process of being accomplished . . . now it is accomplished . . .just
a moment ago, it was accomplished. The action has found its natural
end by reaching the goal. It becomes an act.
However, the reservations that were just made—“satisfactory
to him,” “adequate for all practical purposes,” “in its essential fea
tures”—are indispensable. For, no matter how well the actor may have
estimated in advance the chances and practicability of any given proj
ect, and no matter how little what is unusual and unexpected has
happened since the beginning of the act: the completed act can never
coincide perfectly with the projected one. The reasons for this have
already been enumerated often enough. But since perfection is rarely
necessary in the everyday life-world, it suffices in most cases of every
day action if the average type of performance can be made to coincide
with the average type of project. If that succeeds, then the act is
unproblematically successful. In the natural attitude of everyday life
there is not the slightest occasion for the hairsplitting reflection that
in principle no act can be identical with its project or be made to
coincide perfectly with it. What matters is that the act did not fail,
that I galloped across the finish line, finished reading the book, that
I am satiated.
Things are somewhat more complicated when the action is
ended not because the project has been accomplished but because it
must, for some reason or other, be interrupted or brought to a halt.
Interruptions can be called a temporary halt and cessation a perma
nent halt in the course of the act. Interruptions must be divided into
two kinds: those that are more or less clearly planned in the project
itself as a kind of empty place in the action proper, and those that
occur unexpectedly.
It is obvious that a halt in the course of the action proper may
have been foreseen from the first in the original plan for executing
an act of thought and, even more so, an act of effective operation.
This holds good especially for acts that cannot in any case be accom
plished in one sweep, i.e., those that are scheduled for longer spans
of time. A school program that is designed for four years of regular
matriculation cannot be finished any sooner by studying day and
night, on school days and holidays. Many acts thus foresee a sequence
of phases of action proper, which alternate with phases of inaction,
followed in turn by new phases of action. This case, involving the
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A C T I O N
sequence of phases of action and inaction, has close affinity with an
other, involving a sequence of phases of different acts. In this way, a
phase of act B begins before act A is finished.
Both kinds of prearranged interruptions of the action proper
(by determining rest-breaks and by intertwining acts) can become
habitual, either separately or conjointly. They then find their system
atic place in the more or less strongly routinized provinces of daily
plans and lifetime plan. The latter, in turn, are co-determined by the
social objectivations of acts as types of acts and by the institutionali
zation of courses of action. A good illustration of the systematic in
terlacing of act, non-act, and other act is provided by the most
important type of everyday action, namely socially organized work.
The degree of systematization, the rhythm, and the content are dif
ferent, but in the basic principle of interlocking, all societies resemble
one another: a wandering horde of hunters and gatherers in the Old
Stone Age, an advanced culture planting and harvesting grain, and
modern industrial societies with their work at an assembly line or in
an office.
But not all interruptions prearranged in the project are char
acterized by the fact that action is brought to a stop on schedule and
unconditionally at a given time or after certain phases have been
passed through. Many actions follow plans that foresee in advance
only the possibility of stopping the action after the first, second, third,
or a later step, depending on the circumstances (until further devel
opments or once and for all). Obviously we are dealing here with a
narrower formulation of the general maxim of action: “One thing
after the other.” The empty formula, a, b, c, d, etc., is often applied
with the addition of hypothetical relevancies (if . . . then . . .) as fol
lows: first a> then b, then also c; but if not by then also not c, . . . but
perhaps d or nothing at all. And that fits our case: if my a is followed
by by I will do c; if not, I leave c undone. The principle holds good
again, of course, for the (now hypothetically formulated) sequence of
phases of action and inaction, as well as for the interlocking of phases
of different acts. Most projects of acts provide more or less clearly for
certain intersections with alternative possibilities for continuing, in
cluding some consisting of an interruption or cessation. They thus
take the form of a more or less richly branched “decision-tree.” More
over, only possibilities that are relatively firmly calculated come in
question here. The empty anticipation (“Something or other that is
not anticipated can always happen”) is of no significance for the course
of the act.
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all. But what is the situation if the person neither continues “blindly”
to act nor gives up completely?
The possibilities of the further course that come under consid
eration here are all characterized by the fact that the person still holds
firmly to his original goal, but that the steps which he takes to achieve
this goal are no longer governed by the originally planned series of
steps. This results in an “accidental” change in the execution of the
act that is controlled by the actor and does not affect merely super
ficial details. It need hardly be stressed that here we are speaking
only of further developments in the course of the “same” act, not of
repetitions of the same type of act, since in such a case nothing es
sential really changes in the process itself. At most, a re-estimation of
practicability results for later actions of such a type. Here we are
interested, rather, in continued action, insofar as it is not “blind,” or
in other words a continuation or resumption of the action.
If, despite unfavorable circumstances, the person does not con
tinue to act “blindly,” but also no longer wants to interrupt the action
in question (or its concrete time-structure does not perhaps permit
an interruption), he will briefly (under some circumstances, with light
ning speed) “stop and reflect.” If even then he sees no other possi
bility, he will after all interrupt, cease, or continue acting somewhat
“blindly.” He may, however, discover a series of steps other than the
one arranged in the original project, and assume that it has better
chances of reaching the same goal. Further action is then oriented by
the newly projected sequence of steps. Thus, in the midst of the
action, components of the project are changed—to be sure, compo
nents that are subordinate to the goal. The project of the act, ac
cordingly, follows the original project up to a certain point, then it
follows the changed project. In relation to the forms of process, this
means that after the fact a simple, rectilinear course was changed into
an “if-then” course or respectively that an additional juncture was
inserted in the decision-tree after the fact. For the performance of
the action, this “after the fact” is, however, of decisive significance:
the “if” had not been foreseen in the original project and the action
was not oriented by it.
Besides continued action, we spoke above of continuations and
resumptions of interrupted action. By this, we meant to point out a
difference in the concrete conditions for performing action that is
important for everyday life. Many kinds of acts can be continued from
where they had been interrupted. This applies to daydreams and
mental calculations as well as to operations and work. A process of
addition can be continued, starting from the partial sum that had
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R A T I O N A L A C T I O N , R A T I O N A L A C T S
1. Rational Action
Unrestricted rationality of action presupposes so much that ordinary
mortals can hardly hope to achieve it. In provinces of the life-world
where the conditions of everyday life cannot be abrogated, a rational
person cannot even seek it. The question of whether or not a philo
sophical concept of unrestricted reason is suitable as the model for
human action can be disregarded. Nor do we want to consider how
useful models of rational action are in the social sciences, e.g., as
ideal-typical constructs for economic theory.
We are not concerned here with provinces of self-contained
meaning-structure (which are based on theoretical considerations)
but with everyday practice in the natural attitude. No one will be
surprised by the statement that there can be no unrestrictedly rational
action in this everyday reality. If the results of the foregoing analyses
(especially concerning the stratifications of the life-world, the origin
and the structure of subjective stocks of knowledge, and finally the
way projects are formed and the choice between projects) are kept in
mind, no further proof for the claim will need to be sought. But if
we have no contribution to make, either to the background questions
of ethics and philosophical anthropology, or to the foreground ques
tion of social-scientific methodology, and if we consider a proof that
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T H E P R O V I N C E OF P R A C T I C E
hierarchy of interests and plans relative to his present self, but already
now to orient it by his (presumed) future self. He would deliberate
both between his present different interests as if they were meaning
fully comparable, and between his present and successive phases of
his future interests, insofar as they are now foreseeable. Incidentally,
we will disregard completely that the person of whom we are requir
ing all this knowledge would, before all this, have to make calculations
on his chances for a “later” life. But these calculations of his life
expectancy would be based less on his knowledge of himself than on
knowledge of the world, especially of his fellowmen and their typical
life-spans.
Third, in order to act rationally, the person would have to
know not just himself but of course also the world around him. To
a degree, that is certainly always the case. To reach a further boundary
of rational action, we again need not demand that the actor know all
there is and ever was to know. It is quite sufficient to suppose that he
knows what knowledge he needs and will need for the various acts in
his world, that he then also wants to acquire this knowledge, and that
he actually can acquire it. Thus he would have the full scope of knowl
edge that is necessary for action in a concrete, historical, everyday
reality.
For the actor to be able to estimate the practicability of the
various projects that seriously come into question and to consider the
consequences of his action just as rationally, we must, however, sup
pose one more thing: that all this knowledge should have for him the
highest degree of clarity, distinctness, and freedom from contradic
tion. The actor’s stock of knowledge would, accordingly, have to be
fundamentally different from what it actually is, both in its subjective
structure and in its dependence on the social distribution of knowledge.
Perhaps we need not expressly mention, certainly not list as a
separate point, that the actor would have to know not only the world
that surrounds him now, but also that in which he will have to live in
the future. For it belongs to the knowledge of everyday reality that
in some respects it remains as it is, whereas in others it changes in
typical ways. It is, however, clear that estimates of practicability, es
pecially for projects with long time-spans, can be rationally grounded
only by carefully including this time-perspective. The same thing nat
urally holds good for deliberating about the sequences of acts.
The points addressed above do not yet apply to the rationality
of the choice between projects, and even less to the action proper.
They relate entirely to what would have to precede choice and action:
the clarity and distinctness of projects or their location in well-ordered
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R A T I O N A L A C T I O N , R A T I O N A L A C T S
actually have the power to predict the future. If we had tried this,
even for the purpose of the play of thought, it would presumably
have exceeded the bounds of even the most fantastic idea of human
action.) The supposition that would thus have to be made for every
occurrence of unexpected circumstances in the course of action is
that made for the situation of choice: relief from the pressure of time
and decision.
The actor’s nature, especially his temporality, as well as the
nature of the reality around him, especially its temporality, set un
crossable limits to his knowledge. The idea of the unrestricted ra
tionality of action thus remains what it is: an idea. But discussion of
the rationality or irrationality of action does not therefore become
meaningless. How close one comes to the boundaries drawn in every
life-world depends, as we have seen, both on the actor and his life
history, as well as on the kind of action and its natural and social
conditionality. The possibilities of practical reason are determinable
only if an act (whose universal structure was described) is measured
against what a concrete actor, a living person, can do in a concrete
historical life-world and how he can do it.
2. Rational Acts
Just like past experiences, acts, after they have been performed, can
also be called to memory immediately afterward, somewhat later, or
years and decades later. Common sense is not wrong: important and
rare acts, but even more so, unique acts, tend to be remembered more
than unimportant, often repeated, or even habitual ones. And more
over, as everyone knows, some things are remembered more prefer
ably than others . . . And some things one would like to forget but
cannot. . .
Still, acts are not called back to memory quite the way simple
experiences are. For something that merely happened to oneself is
not remembered, but rather events that one tried to direct. One re
members acts, but under normal circumstances of everyday life not
the action. Acts that have run their course do not rerun it once again
in memory even in a copylike fashion—not even abbreviated as to
details. One perhaps remembers them approximately as one lived
them: a house from childhood, the face of a deceased person, the
taste of the wine one drank ten minutes ago. On the contrary, acts
are generally not brought back into the memory in such a way that
one could—with a highly unusual exertion of consciousness—believe
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edge of the person who acted at that time. Then he had to look
forward, projecting, estimating chances of practicality, deliberating
about consequences, weighing projects; now he looks back. Precisely
what he did not know then, he now knows. The state of negative
knowledge at that time is, of course, no longer restorable as a present
state. But it is already difficult enough and requires a very unusual
exertion to call forth in crude, typical features the former state of
negative knowledge that was significant for the action at the time.
That by itself requires an interpretative act. “I really could not know
that at the time . . . ,” “If only I had known then what I know to
day . . .” The problem is highlighted in expressions such as these.
In everyday life, the memory of past acts is evoked mainly by
the practical requirements of the present or of the anticipated im
mediate future: the projecting of a similar act, narration among
friends, a report in professional contexts, a confession, a witness’s
statement. Whether they involve foresight or boasting, duty or gossip,
justification or accusation, the motivational contexts that enable sub
jective memories to become communicated memories are mostly also
already motivational contexts that determined subjective memory (of
acts) as self-communication. Certainly the impulsion may come from
“within” or from “outside.” And the original meaning of an act, the
motive for its re-presentation in memory and the meaning that the
communication of a remembered act has, can on the whole be re
garded, in various mixtures and ways, from two opposite sides: the
“objective” location of an act in social act-contexts (a location that is
of course also relevant for the actor, but only mediately so), and the
role of an act in the actor’s life history. From both vantage points,
however, the typically most important aspect of action is the com
pleted act.
For the completed act, in turn, typically the most important
aspect is success or failure. In case of success, a question will hardly
be raised concerning the rationality of the act, at least not by the actor
himself. (Under certain circumstances other persons, rather, feel com
pelled to do so, e.g., under the envious motto “beginner’s luck.”) For
acts that have failed, on the contrary, the question arises as if by itself:
“Did I attempt the impossible?” “Could I have done better?” “Could
I have foreseen that it would end this way?” Such questions, touching
more or less directly on the rationality of the act, are raised after the
act has been completed and one knows what it led to. Hence, one
could believe that the rationality of the act could then be judged
better or in any case differently. On closer inspection, it turns out
that this is not the case—or is so only to a very limited extent. One
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S O C I A L A C T I O N
now knows more and is relieved of the pressure to act, but only the
second circumstance is really of considerable significance. One can be
annoyed now at not having known more then, but it does not follow
from this that one now regards the action as unreasonable at that
time. Only when it also becomes clear from present knowledge that
one should already have known then, for example, that the plan was
impracticable can one be said to have acted irrationally. The same is
true of the foreseeing of the consequences. Now one knows what the
consequences of that act are; but only if our own negligence is de
termined to have been the cause for our not pre-calculating these
consequences will the act be called irrational. In regard to the clari
fication of one’s own interests, one perhaps “becomes wiser with age,”
but if at that time the present state of interest was, with some fore
sight, included in the choice of projects, one must not today elevate
the current state of interest to the exclusive standard of action at that
time. If one establishes that the former act was reasonable according
to soundest knowledge at that time, this fact cannot be shaken even
from the standpoint of current knowledge.
But the judgment of what could have been the “soundest
knowledge” at that time has shifted. Naturally, this shift is quite enough
to require a change of judgment about the rationality of an act in
retrospect. The basis for this change is, however, not a state of knowl
edge construed after the fact, a knowledge that was unattainable at
the earlier times.
In short, both future action and past acts are judged as to their
rationality not from the standpoint of omniscience (not even, to par
aphrase Pareto, from the respectively highest level of science), but
rather in regard to the knowledge that an actor could have had in a
concrete, historical life-world.
e. Social Action
1. Action in Society
kind. In other words: the person who acts is in society. But does it
also follow without qualification and necessarily from the actor’s so
ciability that the acts which a person undertakes are social? Let us
consider somewhat more closely premises from which one should be
inclined to draw such a conclusion.
There is no question about it: humans act. But it is questionable
whether only humans act. For according to serious data from many
persons at different times and in different places, plants, animals,
spirits, devils, angels, and gods also have acted. In our modern Olym
pus, “systems” act, and even of the unconscious we have heard that
“it” acts. But this need not concern us too much, since such acts are
recorded in a different attitude from the natural one. In myth and
epic, in fable and science, other rules apply than in the reality in
which one acts because one must, in the primary and completely or
dinary reality of everyday life. In this core province of the life-world,
a person acts based on the assumptions of the natural attitude and
notes the action of other people based on the same assumptions. The
concept stems from the province in which the most important of the
assumptions relative to the sociality of the life-world is valid first,
foremost, and last: namely, the assumption of the reciprocity of per
spectives (the interchangeability of standpoints and the congruence
of the relevance systems). Unless one wants to level off the meaning
of the concept of act completely, it is not even applicable to all human
experiences and still less so to all occurrences of whatever kind in the
world. If it is transferred to nonhumans, then it is always in an atti
tude that is relieved of the immediate everyday requirements. This
is not meant to deny that non-everyday theories of the most various
kinds have had a share in shaping the historical transformations of
sound common sense. But prior to every theory, in the natural atti
tude of everyday life, only humans act.
Second, it need hardly be explained at length that the actor is
“always already” within society. For everyone’s unquestioned ground
of life is that others existed before him, exist together with him, and
will exist after he is gone. The normal adult can remember no state
of prior solitude. He thinks of others, speaks with them and about
them, acts for or against others, even when they are not present at
all, indeed even when they have long been dead or still are not born.
But everyone is also alone in society insofar as he alone remembers
something, plans something for the future, speaks with himself. So
cialized man is a pregivenness of the experience of the world and of
oneself—not just a theoretical construction. Everyone can remember
moments or even longer time-spans of solitude. But a mighty, indeed
violent exertion of the fantasy is needed to envision a person who
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was alone from the first, but otherwise of the same nature as we.
Robinson Crusoe entertains us because he is like everyone, except
that he got into unusual circumstances. Kaspar Hauser repels us be
cause he is nobody, a nobody who got into ordinary circumstances.
We play with Robinson; Kaspar strikes us as unimaginably alien. [Kas
par Hauser (1812-33), a foundling in Nürnberg, Germany, who had
spent his childhood locked in a dark room, became a famous psycho
logical specimen of sensory deprivation.—trans.]
Well then, humans act, and the actor is socialized. From this
it still does not follow that acts are socialized. So bracketing the actor’s
sociality, we were finally able to describe the basic structures of action
as an event in the inner duration. But it need hardly be stressed that
there are various events in the inner duration of a person, however
socialized, that it would hardly be meaningful to claim are socialized.
Thus people certainly do classify a stomachache into a pattern of
body parts, pain thresholds, and suspected causes that have been al
ready socially constructed and learned at some time or other; they
learn self-control and pain description from and in the presence of
other people; they adopt problem-oriented solutions for diminishing
pain and treating sickness (herbs, medicines, operations, exorcism
rituals, etc.) from the social stock of knowledge. But the lived expe
rience of pains naturally comes “before” every social “reshaping” of
the lived experience and interpretation of encounters, and also can
be envisioned without it. We see how a child that still has not learned
a single word has pains; we see that animals suffer.
But it is different with acts. Let us stay with our example and
consider the acts that are motivated by pain. The diagnosis (“What
on earth did I eat? . . . Aha, unripe plums”), self-control (“Get a hold
of yourself”), the visit to the doctor, and the story later told to friends
about the pains endured are all acts. From the “solitary” interpretative
achievements to the acts of social operation, they were projected into
the future, and their course was oriented by the project. The sociality
of the actor simply cannot be mentally removed from all this. Of
course, various extra-societal achievements of consciousness must be
presupposed “before” action. Action itself, however, is based on the
sociality of the actor. The project, the choice between projects, and
the performance of the act—and not only later narratives about the
act—presuppose various, mainly linguistic or languagelike social ob
jectivations of subjective processes, objectivations in which the sub
jective processes take on form and stability. This has already been
discussed in the example of the social conditions of choice.41
It is therefore not surprising that not only individual acts, but
in a certain sense also action in general, must be learned and require
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the project. What “others” may mean here and especially how “others”
enter into the project still needs a brief elucidation.
It was said above that the “others” in everyday action are other
humans. The boundaries of the social world are also drawn very
differently in different societies, and we must not conclude from
what seems to us today to be a “sound” expression of common sense
to human understanding as such, at least not on this point.42 In non
everyday provinces of the life-world, quite different creatures than
humans can—today as always—be the “others.” Here, however, we
are interested only in what is decisive for the structure of social ac
tion—and that is the way in which other humans appear in the proj
ects of everyday acts. In the analysis of the stratifications of the social
world, it was described precisely how other persons are experi
enced.43 What applies to the mode of givenness and the meaning of
other persons in the thou-orientation and the they-orientation holds
good in principle as well for the mode of givenness and the meaning
of other persons in the project of an act. We can thus here recall
briefly the results of those analyses.
I can immediately encounter other persons within my reach,
in flesh and blood, in the greatest possible abundance of appear
ance—and I know, naturally, that this is normally also the case for
them. That I encounter them immediately does not mean, however,
that I can “at the same time” also think of them. In contrast, I can
only envision absent persons in presentiating memory or in mental
constructions that are more or less full or devoid of content. Ob
viously, I can act immediately only on persons whom I immediately
encounter, and who are in my reach. But of course I can form the
project for such action even in the absence of the other person con
cerned, insofar as I can assume that he is in my restorable reach. The
other person then enters my project based on my earlier encounters
and my knowledge, depending on my interests, as a uniquely named
or as a typical role-fitting person. To be sure, in this case the fun
damental though graduated uncertainty of the outcome of all action
at the time of the project is joined by the—also graduated—uncer
tainty concerning the existence of the addressee of my action. This
uncertainty is removed, naturally, when the other person toward whom
my act is directed appears already at the time of the project, not
exclusively as envisioned, but already in person.
The mode of givenness of the other or others in my project,
but especially in the course of the action, is, as will be shown, of great
significance for the forms of social action. The meaning that others
have for me in the project is, however, derivable not merely from its
mode of givenness. It is influenced essentially by my interest in them
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Stone Age, the inhabitants of a Greek polis in the Golden Age, and
the people of an urban, industrialized, bureaucratically organized
modern society equipped with electronic mass media.
In the following pages all four forms of social action will be
described, either precisely and at some length or only briefly, de
pending on their fundamental significance.
planned. As has been said: if B has indeed noticed A’s act, but from
indifference, arrogance, or other motives “does nothing”—e.g., pre
tends not to have noticed the act—he has of course nonetheless “an
swered.” For an action to be reciprocal it is by no means absolutely
required that B himself “answer” A’s operational act by an operational
act.
Let us consider the “genuine” cases of unilateral-immediate
action. A acts on B with the intention that his action remain unilateral.
Here two possibilities come in question. First, it is quite conceivable
even in a common surrounding world for A to direct his operation
at B and then to carry it out in such a way that B notices nothing or
else does not notice that the act came from A. Many examples could
be cited from war, love, and play; let us settle for the especially graphic
one of pocket picking. The example requires no further clarification.
It brings us, moreover, in the neighborhood of the above-mentioned
exceptions to the rule that when B is in A’s reach, A is also in B’s
reach.
As in the above-mentioned example, A directs his action at B
from the beginning with the intention that B should not “answer.” In
a contrasting example, however, A is not at all within B’s reach. That
is the case when B is unconscious or asleep. In addition, modern
technology has various ways to make reach unilateral. The psycho
logical laboratory is a relatively innocuous example. Under such ex
ceptional conditions, the chances are naturally the greatest that an
operation which aims at being unilateral will actually remain unilat
eral. The anesthetized person is killed; the patient, operated on; the
sleeping person, kissed; the experimental subject, manipulated. Of
course, even here the part of the original project that is based on
unilateralness can fail. The anesthetized person wakes up in time and
defends himself; the patient screams; the one kissed opens his or her
eyes; the experimental subject storms angrily out of the laboratory.
The projects can be adjusted to the new situation: the murder, the
operation, the kiss, the experiment, still manage to succeed—and that
is what the actor is, after all, interested in. The form of social action
has, however, been changed from unilateral to reciprocal.
Moreover, everyone is familiar with acts that actually are recip
rocal, but are based on a (unilateral or reciprocal) feigning of unilat
eralness. Although the dreamer has already awakened, he pretends
still to be sleeping so that the kiss will continue. The one kissing may
however also have noticed that the dreamer meanwhile has awakened,
but pretends not to have noticed the deception. Another example is
a monologue that is designed to be overheard. Some of these exam-
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pies are familiar to us from everyday life, others from artistic genres
such as comedy. All are based on the contrast between unilateralness
and reciprocity.
A person, of course, does not act alone, but rather together with or
against other persons.
In another context,47 it was already pointed out that in the
immediate encounter between people, the fulfillment or the failure
of the other person’s projects can be observed in the course of the
action. I can never establish with absolute certainty the goal toward
which a person is aiming, not even when I see a runner in the hundred
yard dash running toward the finish line. Even less can I detect from
the course of the act its place in a fellowman’s overall plans, unless he
gives me additional, accurate information concerning his aims (we
will here not even consider the difficulties concealed in this added
stipulation). But here I can apply my knowledge of typical combi
nations of motives, goals, acts, and courses of acts with the help of the
principle of the reciprocity of perspectives and motives. I attend the
step-by-step construction of his act; additional, immediate evidence is
at my disposal when I see how an act becomes embodied. Certainly,
what is perceived must be interpreted: an act is not simply perceivable
conduct. And it is always interpreted within the prevailing stock of
knowledge, and not measured by an “objective” apparatus valid for
all and applicable in the same manner by all. But in the living pres
ence of the other person I do not have to rely only on the chance that
a typification reaching into the future could be accurate, nor must I
be satisfied after the fact with a reconstruction based exclusively on
the results of the act.
Interpretation and action fuse together. In the We-relation I
check typifications relevant to my act by the immediacy of my fellow-
man; at the same time, in the reciprocity of action I arrange my
concrete operation step by step by his operation. In reciprocally im
mediate action the present irrupts into the futurum exactum and pre
cedes the perfectum.
does not merely assume that the other person has not changed up to
the time of his present action; he also assumes that by the time he
responds to the present action, he will not have changed (or will have
changed only typically) in the respects essential for the action. Of
course, this additional assumption can be almost completely trivial or
it can attain great significance—depending on which changes are typ
ically predictable and which ones escape all prediction, on which re
spects are essential for the particular action and which not, and
especially on what time-spans between act and “answer” are involved.
In accord with previously experienced and now rememberable
simultaneity of the (or an) Other in reciprocally immediate acts, the
actor in mediate social action also imagines the Other as if he were
simultaneous with him. This as-if simultaneity of the streams of con
sciousness may turn out afterward to be an illusion: the Other is not
only not present, but he presumably also is not thinking of the actor
at this very moment. That is hardly ever of relevance for the act,
unless it turns out, besides, that the idealizing “other things being
equal” assumption on which the as-if simultaneity of the idea is based
has been misapplied: namely, the assumption that somewhere and
somehow the Other is located in the same world and in the same
world-time as the actor. The further distant an act is from the Other’s
immediate presence, the more fictional in any case becomes the lived-
experiential simultaneity that binds the actor with the Other. This
state of affairs can be illustrated by the various transitional forms
between immediacy and mediacy. Depending on the state of com
munications technology, the symptoms whereby the Other is appre
hended can decrease while the synchronization of the streams of
consciousness can still, to a certain extent, be maintained: a conver
sation face to face but in the dark, a telephone conversation, smoke
signals, drum language, televideophone, letters.
The further the action departs from the maximum of symp
tom-fullness that characterizes a we-relation, the more important be
comes—if a reciprocal act is to take place successfully—the
correspondence between the anticipation (on the part of the actor) of
the Other’s interpretation of his present action and the actual inter
pretation of this action that the Other undertakes (via its results). In
other words: the more important an objectivation of the interpretative
schemata becomes for the typical results of an act. This objectivation
can encompass very different kinds of results of acts: markings, sign-
systems, exchange values, etc. More on this below.48 Whatever the
meaning of objective interpretative schemata may otherwise be for a
person and for the society in which he lives, in mediate social action
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he does not know at whom he should direct his answer. In most cases
he will then not answer at all. It is naturally conceivable that one
“answers” an insult in an anonymous letter by an anonymous letter
to an unknown party, but it is not very probable—and if one does so,
the “answer” does not reach the right addressee. An undirected “an
swer” of this kind, in any case, does not lead to reciprocal action.
Yet a further possibility of answer-prevention, important under
certain circumstances and in some societies, should be mentioned.
Not the giving of the “answer,” and not its appropriate direction, but
its effect, e.g., its “arrival,” becomes the object of precautions by the
actor. The actor removes himself temporarily or definitively from the
reach of the one at whom the original act has been directed, e.g., by
flight, or in the extreme case by suicide.
Finally, the actor can undertake various steps that are suited
to eliminate every motive for an answer on the part of the one at
whom the acts are directed, or at least to weaken it so that the prob
ability of an answer is decreased. He can try to have his own act seem
so insignificant that it is not worth the Other’s effort to do anything;
he can try to portray the conceivable answers as unjustified; etc. Or
he can try to counter the motive for answering by an even stronger
motive for not giving an answer (e.g., threatening punishment for
meeting during a state of emergency). Naturally, there are also cases
in which the addressee of the act is not interested in giving an answer
anyway (if the actor knew that, we would be dealing with the first of
the above-discussed possibilities). However, the actor does not know
this, and so he tries in vain to maintain unilateralness, and may, as is
known, under some circumstances achieve just the opposite.
highly anonymous and mediate social acts can be not only unilateral,
but also reciprocal. All this is possible and occurs in everyday reality.
To be sure, anonymization is unusual in societies based on immediacy
and reciprocity; and reciprocity in anonymously mediate acts typically
presupposes very complex technical and social arrangements and
functions (such as, e.g., buying a newspaper by dropping a coin in a
vending machine).
Yet it must not be forgotten49 that people are grasped in me
diate social acts only by remembering their former presence, by fan-
tasying anticipation (of real opportunities) of future meetings, and
with the help of more or less anonymous typifications (intersecting at
the envisioned point of individuation). The uniqueness of a fellow-
man is naturally not derived from these performances of conscious
ness themselves, but from performances of consciousness in original
encounters of reciprocally immediate acts. By contrast, in immediate
social acts, even people who were envisioned in the project only as
the locus of functions (as “role-bearers”) by their presence, fill the
typifications applied there with life.
Social relations originate in social action. Their continued ex
istence is based on reciprocal expectation of the regular recurrence50
of reciprocal acts (frequent or rare, depending on the kind of rela
tion)—indeed not just any, but of determinate reciprocal acts: deter
minate also in regard to their immediacy or mediacy, or respectively
to a sequence of mediacy and immediacy. The form of the social acts
at which such expectations point, therefore, comprises the core of
social relations. The social order is built on social relations; the
changeable share of various forms of social action in social relations
is consequently an important feature of historical social orders, what
ever the real causes for the change of the respective shares may be.
With these observations, however, we evidently come quite close
to the boundary of a phenomenological description of universal struc
tures of the life-world. Beyond this lies the province of sciences that
proceed empirically and “inductively” in their study of the historical
formations of human social orders. If we nevertheless venture to add
a few remarks on the relation between the form of social action, social
relations and the social order, we are aware of the danger that even
with the most fleeting reflections of such a kind, the investigative
framework already given could be exploded.
It is self-evident, and was moreover emphasized often enough,
that all societies presuppose immediate action. Less evident is the
significance of mediate action, which plays a very different role in
various societies. Certainly, even in societies in which almost all action
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1. Boundaries of Life
Everyone knows that he lives in a world that must have existed before
him, and no one doubts seriously that it will continue to exist after
him. Even if no one has instructed us concerning this, in the natural
attitude we take it for granted that the world does not depend on us,
but rather that we depend on the world. If we sometimes bring about
something or other in the world, we may for a moment, but only for
a moment, forget that we are constantly and irrevocably changing in
it. When we close our eyes, we have not removed from the world the
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reality of the objects that we had just seen and now no longer see.
When we open our eyes again, the objects are still there, and when
we walk on with our eyes closed we collide with them. Only seldom
can we change the already-given course of things; generally, we do
not even manage to speed them up or slow them down. Again and
again we must wait—and often we wait in vain. Much that we had
done vanishes away; other deeds, against our will, leave traces that we
stumble upon long after the deed has been forgotten.
Every human being, every normal person notices sooner or
later that he is not alone in the world. He encounters others who are
“like him” and yet other. In the encounter with others he simulta
neously comes upon the antithesis to not-being-alone, namely lone
liness—and his own self. He sees other people grow older and die;
he sees that other people are born and grow older. He knows that he
himself had once been born, he sees himself aging. Everyone discov
ers that he outlives other men, and the conclusion imposes itself upon
him that others will outlive him. Everyone knows that there was a
world of people before him and he expects that there will be one after
him.
We become accustomed to waking up again day after day, and
to falling asleep again at night. We become accustomed to certain
performances, to other people; we put order in everyday life, insofar
as nature and other people permit it; we adopt orders created long
ago, for precisely in the everyday realm we are not alone and not the
first. But what if old habits abandon us and new ones do not make
life more bearable? What if the orders of day are threatened at night;
what if the possibility of not waking up dejects us? And what if the
orders crumble apart by day? Is life a dream?
It is not necessary to go on further: everyone knows about the
“transcendency” of the world in which he lives; everyone knows about
the boundaries of his life in it. We live in a world concerning which
we know that we will die in it.
This knowledge of the boundaries of life in the world does not
stem from one experience of some “transcendency” or other, nor does
it stem, really, from experiences of a “transcendent” world. (How could
“world” as a whole be experienced? All we can know is that we ex
perience in the world whatever we experience. And how should such
a thing as “transcendence”—i.e., precisely what transcends experi
ence—be experienced? Experience can, at most, point to what cannot
be experienced. But a few things will have to be said on this topic
presently.) It can, furthermore, be established that knowledge of the
“transcendence” of the world is not acquired at a theoretical distance
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from the “world.” Rather, this knowledge, originating from daily life
and from its shocks, first provides the original occasion for theoretical
reflections. On the basis of this knowledge, to be sure, the attempt is
then made to reduce “transcendence” to a concept, to make it grasp-
able and accessible to accustomed experience, to tame it. Here we
would surely be dealing with a root of the various religious worldviews
and also of philosophy.
Finally, it should be noted that this knowledge of the “tran
scendence” of the world does not at all have to guide concrete projects
of a person who acts, like a kind of worldly wisdom or maxim, in
order to be, nevertheless, the constantly underlying ground and prag
matic motive of all his action. It does not have to become the theme
of experience, and yet it stands on the horizon, though not always in
the thematic field, of all his experiences. For knowledge of the man
ifold limitation of one’s situation in the world does not necessarily
belong to the stock of explicitly formulated knowledge—which then
is called upon and presentiated only in determinate, relevant expe
riences. But it does belong to the fundamental elements of every
subjective stock of knowledge and it accordingly stands “behind” all
concrete experiences.1
In the natural attitude the boundaries which a man comes
upon during his life in the world seem to him to be fixed, irremovable
givens. Irremovably fixed boundaries? But some are crossable for
short periods; and although we cannot cross others, it is possible to
look over them at the foreign land that lies beyond; and, finally, are
there not also boundaries which are firmly locked and surrounded by
impregnable walls?
Everyone repeatedly runs up against the spatial and temporal
limits of his experience, but in memory and project of action he
crosses them with the greatest, only seldom shaken, confidence. He
uses various means to do this. The most important ones are indica
tions and marks; they help him to interpret and to act in order to
bridge the spatial and temporal boundaries of his experience.2
Every man encounters those of his own kind. Simply for prac
tical reasons he must try to understand them. There, too, indications
and marks can help him. In a common surrounding world with other
people, and acting with, for, and against them, he will, however, more
than anything else have to try to communicate with them. It is obvious
that for this purpose a certain mutual understanding is a necessary
but not suf ficient condition. For communication, he must use deter
minate means which are not just already given to him by nature, but
rather were created by his own kind before his lifetime and must be
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one can certainly do today as well, and perhaps tomorrow also see,
sense, taste, feel, endure, and do.
In the case of the “little” transcendencies, what is not experi
enced but indicated in the present experience is either the same as
had already been experienced, or it belongs to the same type of ob
jects and events as were previously experienced, or it stems at least
from the same province of reality, namely, everyday life. More care
fully phrased: a person knows that what the present experience points
to he has already experienced before in itself, or that it is known to
him as a type (he has seen other examples of the type), or that it
could at least be accessible to him without any drastic modification of
his style of experiencing and tension of consciousness. “A man knows,”
means here simply that his consciousness could grasp one particular
characteristic of the indications among those enumerated, if he ad
verted to these indications and followed them to the subsequent ex
periences. It does not mean, however, that he apprehends this
knowledge at the time of the current experience itself. Nor does he
become expressly aware of this in the normal course of familiar ex
periences, as long as the “And so forth” and “I can always do it again”
idealizations at work in these experiences are not unexpectedly deac
tivated. Recognition or type-assignment takes place first of all in au
tomatic, conscious processes, then in indications that are pursued no
further.
As in all other things, a person can also be wrong concerning
the experienceability of what is not experienced. If he has ever in the
past experienced “in person” what the present experience refers to,
he will, habitually applying the above-mentioned idealizations, have
no doubt of its re-experienceability. If the non-experienced is known
to him only according to type, but the type is very definite and ex
amples of it are very familiar, he will be confident that he can re
experience it. The more indefinite the type or unfamiliar the exam
ples, to be sure, the less the confidence. But as long as no express
counterindication is present, he will at least suspect that the indication
relates to something from the same province of reality. All this will
depend on where the indication comes from: whether the experience
in its kernel refers to the non-experienced, or whether the indications
stem from the thematic field—and then whether from a highly de
terminate field made explicit in detail or only weakly defined from
former experiences, or whether even the experiential horizon points
only to something lying beyond. If we just spoke of “not having any
doubt,” “confidence,” etc., of course what was said before about
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“knowledge” applies here too. They are not normally in the grasp of
consciousness, but they can be apprehended in problematic cases.
The “little” transcendencies of everyday reality are typically
experienced as objects of experience that were once in reach but are
now out of reach. For this reason, and because we can cite the results
of the detailed investigations of reach and the province of manipu
lation,9 we will study being-out-of-reach as the fundamental lived ex
perience of the “little” transcendencies. “Reach” need not, in any case,
be understood only in the strictly spatial sense of the word.
Every moment in which a person moves, he changes the world
in his reach, sometimes only slightly, sometimes decisively. Apart from
the case of complete immobility, the province that is actually in a
person’s reach is subject to constant changes. These changes are mostly
gradual, but under certain circumstances they can also be abrupt.
Whatever was still in reach just a moment before may disappear from
reach in the next. Now if the subsequent experiences contain an in
dication of what was still in reach before, we can say that it transcends
the present experience.
Let us assume that I leave my room and set out for my friend’s
apartment. Halfway there, it suddenly dawns on me that I have for
gotten a book that I wanted to bring to him. I remember leaving it
on my desk in the room. The questions why I originally wanted to
bring the book, why I then left it there despite that decision, why
after having left it behind I remembered again that I wanted to bring
it, and why I remembered it precisely halfway there are certainly not
uninteresting questions, and they permit various more-or-less-coher-
ent answers. But what matters for us in this context touches only
upon the last of these questions. What in my flow of experience was
the direct cause for remembering?
Let us play through a few possibilities. Halfway to my friend’s
apartment I pass by a bookstore. In the showcase I see the book I
wanted to bring to my friend. The same book. One copy reminds me
of the other one, which is now out of my reach. The remembrance
concerns, of course, not just the object as such, but the project of the
act in which the object played a principal role and which had not
consciously been given up. Variants: not the same book, but a differ
ent book by the same author; a book with a similar title by a different
author; just any book. Or, since leaving my room, I have been mentally
occupied with the content of the book. In my thoughts, I have been
playing through an argument against the book’s author that I want
to try out on my friend. Precisely halfway there, I trip slightly; my
briefcase strikes my leg and feels strangely empty. It was supposed to
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contain the book. Here, it was not even a concrete experience that
led me to think of a concrete object. Here a kind of lived experience
of lack (too little “content” in the briefcase) pointed to an empty space,
the gap in my plan of action.
The different variants have one thing in common: a present
experience points back to an earlier one—and, since a plan of action
is involved, forward to a future. The object of experience is out of
reach, but it was in reach; according to the project it should have
stayed in reach, and it can be brought back into reach. Of course, the
everyday idealizations are applied automatically: “And so forth” (the
book is still lying on the table); “Other things being equal” (no one
has stolen it in the meantime); and “I can always do it again” (just as
I came here, I can go back, and then come back again); or, another
“Other things being equal” (if it is all right for me to arrive at my
friend’s house one hour late). And of course, on the basis of my store
of knowledge I judge the chances of restorability: did I leave the book
on my desk or did I leave it in the coffee shop where everyone knows
me, in the subway, in a sinking ship?
In any case, I have run into a “little” transcendence. Much as
I would wish it, the book is not in my briefcase. But it is a crossable
boundary: I can put it back in the briefcase if I return home. If I left
it in the coffee shop, it is in principle recoverable, but that is not
certain. Here, “technical” difficulties on a larger scale begin: who
knows whether it will be turned in to the subway’s lost-and-found
office! And finally I come up against the boundary not of my own
life, but of the book’s “life.” Paper will not keep for long in water.
a. Fellowmen
The world in my reach overlaps to a considerable extent, as was ex
plained above,10 with the Other’s world; however, it can never be
completely identified with it. The same applies to our manipulatory
sphere (Handhabung). However close we may be to one another, the
Other’s world necessarily transcends mine. But we generally disre
gard this. Based on the various idealizations of daily life and on the
principle of interchangeability of standpoints, we take it for granted
that objects in my reach (with few exceptions) are also objects in his
reach and that his experience of these objects (with few exceptions)
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is like my experience of the same objects. But that is the rub: the few
exceptions! He sees what is happening behind my back; and I know
this because I see what is happening behind his back. In short, we are
here dealing with a social dimension of “little” transcendencies that
forms a transition to the “medium” ones. In my experience of Others
I come upon a limit to my own experiences and at the same time I
come to the limit of my experience of Others.
The “little” transcendencies of everyday life are characterized
by the fact that people reach limits of experience and action over
which they can under normal circumstances cross without further
notice. Everyday reality also has a part in the “medium” transcenden
cies, and, like all transcendencies, these too are characterized by the
fact that a person comes to a limit of his experience. But in contrast
with the “little” transcendencies, he cannot cross this boundary. On
the other hand, these “medium” boundaries are distinguished from
the “great” transcendencies, because one can not only look over across
them but also recognize the landscape on the other side in clear out
lines. In its main features, this landscape resembles the one he is
familiar with in his homeland.
In all transcendencies, the current experience points to some
thing else located beyond the boundary of this experience. In the
“little” transcendencies, this other thing is something that is not pres
ent at the moment, but could be present sooner or later and thus is
directly accessible to experience. In the “medium” transcendencies,
however, the present experience points to another thing, which in
principle can never be directly experienced. In this regard it is thus
irrelevant whether the other thing indicated in the present experi
ence is itself present or not: it can never be experienced except
mediately.
The reason for this is that the other thing is like myself: an
Other person. If I see a stone within my reach, I simply see it, and
that is the end of the matter. If I see an Other person in my reach,
I necessarily discover that, inversely, I am also in his reach: he sees
me. But obviously I can see only that he sees me, not how he sees me.
To be sure, I can also try to find out how he sees me, reading this
from various indications. If successful, I will not only learn that he
sees me, but also know with more or less reliability how he sees me;
naturally I can never experience this directly, otherwise I would in
deed be the Other person.
Whatever else he may be, in my reach the Other person is a
body that I can perceive like other objects in my surrounding world.
I experience the Other immediately, in his corporeality. The expe-
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familiar, and in their lives the same historical events (economic crises,
wars, epidemics, clothing fashions, and music, etc.) have played a role
as in mine. But not all contemporaries speak the same language, nor
are all of the same age.
It is clear that the world of contemporaries who speak a dif
ferent language from mine, who went to completely different schools
or to no schools at all, who heard different fairy tales or read different
books, whose life was shaped by different local events (an epidemic
brought under control, a “minor” limited war), whose parents belong
to a different social stratum from mine, etc., is more and more remote
from my world. Nevertheless, we are contemporaries; the same his
torical events have intruded upon our lives (for example, we expe
rienced a world war on opposite sides). And although the past and
the present of these contemporaries is accessible to me only mediately
and by means of more or less anonymous typifications, I could share
their future (e.g., by emigrating). They could become my fellowmen;
I could immerse myself in their world, which is now essentially alien
to me.
Things are somewhat different with the world of older and
younger people. I share with both only a few provinces of complete
familiarity in the fullness of immediate experiences. There are people
whom I knew as a child, just as they knew my great-grandfather when
they themselves were children. Our older contemporaries still re
member well people in whose world there were no airplanes and no
radio. Even though we are still alive together and though a great deal
is, if not shared in common, at least accessible in similar and simul
taneous (or almost simultaneous) immediate experiences, the world
of older people contains provinces that are in principle excluded from
my immediate experience. What is for me a horizon of more or less
empty ideas, which can be filled only through the words of the elderly,
photos, yellowed letters, old newspapers, etc.—i.e., through com
municative documents of various kinds—is for them the immediately
experienced past. As such it remains unreachable by me.
Older people and I do encounter the same situations, but they
have already mastered such situations numerous times, whereas I am
overtaken by many a situation “for the first time.” The elderly know
from their own experience how such situations tend to develop. I can
incorporate a situation into my stock of knowledge only through an
other person’s report, or by relying on general maxims of action.
What for me are more or less anonymous elements of knowledge,
are living experience for an older person. This living experience
inevitably exceeds mine, just as inevitably I gather my own “life ex-
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if it is not covered with clouds. The weeds in the garden, which I did
not get to hoe yesterday, will be pulled tomorrow. My neighbors, too,
will not have aged more rapidly or slowly than myself (why the fas
cination with the Rip van Winkle story?). Moreover, the “And so forth”
idealization applies to a certain degree also to me, since I know that
after my turning away from the world I will somehow remain attached
to it by means of my body. My feet will always still be where they are
now, namely, under my ankles; I will not have grown a new tooth;
and if I should fall out of bed, I will certainly wake up. Even the “I
can always do it again” idealization will come back into force again
without notice, as soon as I awaken. Should I actually fall out of bed,
I will be able to get up again, as long as I did not break my neck—
that is just the old “Other things being equal” stipulation—and as
long as I first wake up.
For I cannot get back up while asleep (what is the source of
fascination with sleepwalking?). The “I can always do it again” ideal
ization holds good without exception and in contrast with “And so
forth” for the time-span between falling asleep and waking up. In
sleep, the abilities of the wide-awake state are suspended without
question. After all, everyone “knows” that in sleep he can see nothing
and taste nothing, neither eat nor carry on a conversation nor be with
a woman; that he cannot even think (what is the probable source of
fascination with shamans and witches, of whom it is said that in sleep
they do not sleep at all but rather can do things that they are not
capable of when awake?).
I know, of course, that while asleep I “can” dream. Memories
of dreams have survived into my wide-awake consciousness. But this
“ability” is an ability in the sense of “I can always do it again.” When
I am awake I can undertake to eat a slice of bread and carry out the
project under most circumstances (“other things being equal”). I can
also undertake mentally to picture eating a piece of bread in every
detail, and this project, too, I can carry out. I can indeed undertake
to dream of eating a piece of bread, but I know I cannot count on
realizing this project. I cannot even undertake with any hope of suc
cess not to dream some particular thing. In short, while sleep lasts,
I have lost my ability to act, but not my ability to dream. For dreaming
is simply not action; dreaming happens to me. In the dream, however,
I can “act.” From my memories of dreams I know that in the dream
I can walk, run, eat a piece of bread, carry on conversations, be with
women, and think. But I cannot plan all this in advance and then
carry it out in the dream; after the fact, I can remember having been
“able” to do it.
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the danger and returns again to the normalcy of daily life, the old
things that were once important and urgent resume their place. One
can again forget the moments when one was in the other state, beside
oneself so to speak, just as one can forget a toothache after it is gone.
If one nevertheless does remember it, one can also explain it with
everyday reason. Otherwise, however, it is clear that memories of this
kind, in which the relevance-systems of everyday life have been deeply
shaken, are taken, in various religions, as the point of departure for
revision of these systems and the development of an “unnatural”
attitude.
Examples of a more or less self-guided turning away from the
everyday and toward a different state—and thus generally also to a
different reality—extend from relatively brief subjective experiences
to socially elaborated acts. Whereas the Malayans’ running amok can
still be taken as a transitional form from the “blind” and “imposed”
ecstasies to the self-guided ones, the battle-frenzy of the Assassins
(with or without hashish) was socially approved and institutionalized.
It is also a long way from the occasional orgasm to the dogmatically
supported cultivation of sexual orgies. Similarly, it is a leap from the
taking of hallucinatory drugs out of addictive dependence to the
achievement of a union with God after hard, ascetic discipline. De
spite different theoretical ballast, both rock-and-roll and the dancing
dervishes are social institutions. Other examples: “exhilaration” (with
or without pantheistic interpretation) when mountain-climbing; the
planned, final turning away from everyday life in suicide (from “acts
of desperation” to Bushido).
i. Crises and Death Death has been regarded as the essential experi
ence of transcendence proper. But if one reflects more carefully on
this view, one becomes aware that some confusion threatens here.
One’s own death cannot really be a life-worldly experience correspond
ing to the experience of other transcendencies. The changes of his
own sphere of reach remind a man peremptorily of the spatial and
temporal limits of his experience and at the same time allow him to
experience how some of these limits are crossed with the greatest
ease. One turns around, one moves to another location, and one can
even remember past events in one’s—utterly irreversible—inner du
ration. Even one’s own experience of the Other person is an expe
rience both of boundary and of a boundary-crossing—although an
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b. Boundary Crossings
1. Appresentation
We have been discussing the manifold limitation of human experience
in the life-world. How boundaries are experienced and lived has been
described in considerable detail. Something has also been said con
cerning the possibilities of encounters and lived experiences, which
open up when one turns away or distances oneself from everyday
reality. But the boundary-crossings themselves have not been studied
sufficiently. Up to this point, little more has been said on this subject
than that the barriers of space and time are crossed in memory and
project; that in understanding and communication bridges are thrown
across to the Other person’s alienness, that the dissimilarity of real
ities outside everyday life is made more evident by the interpretation
of the memories and indications that are brought back from there to
the “normal” wide-awake state; and that death is “overcome,” if at all,
by the interpretation of indications of indications. In the introduction
to these reflections, it was, moreover, suggested that in crossing the
limits of his experience a person uses certain means that we call in
dications, marks, signs, and symbols.25 Now it is time for these means
to be subjected to a more precise examination. Do they really help in
crossing the boundaries themselves? Or do they help, so to speak, in
“overcoming” the boundaries, without these boundaries really being
crossed, by sending back news from the beyond? Or do they do both?
The answer, summarized in two sentences and prefaced to an
exact description of the relevant performances of consciousness that
participate in the process, is this: First, indications, marks, signs, and
symbols all convey news from beyond the boundaries of immediate
experience by co-presentiating in the experience everything that is
thematically, interpretatively, and motivationally relevant to the ac
tually present experience but in some way or other transcends the
kernel of the experience. Second, signs, even though essentially “news-
bearers,” also help us, in reciprocal communication with other people,
to cross the boundaries to them; symbols, although essentially em
bodiments of a different reality in the everyday world, can, in com
bination with certain (namely, ritualized) acts, be of assistance in
crossing the boundaries to other realities, including the last boundary.
An indication points to something other than itself, something
disguised, hidden, or absent, and makes it accessible in the reference
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and both within one and the same perceptual modality as well as
(“synaesthetically”) between them, a displacement of meaning from
a to b and from b to a takes place. On the next higher level of ap-
presentative pairing, only a is given, and by analogical transference
of meaning it evokes the idea of b. On the level of appresentative
pairing at which indications, marks, signs, and symbols are consti
tuted, a is again given, and again it evokes b; however, a is not ap
prehended as itself but rather as the “vehicle” of b, and b is thematized
in experience. In this appresentative relation we are dealing with
something we will, for the time being, call “meaning,” and we notate
B instead of b. (“For the time being,” because this relation is probably
the basis of all meaning, but we will speak of meaning in the strict
sense only when this relation is intersubjectively ascertained as a sign.)
In respect to B, there are two possibilities: either B is in principle
experienceable in the same manner as a and is “absent” only at the
time of the experience in which a is present, or B is fundamentally
“absent” and can never be experienced in self-givenness like a.
Appresentative relations, of course, are but rarely separate,
individual relations. They are inserted with other appresentative re
lations into larger experiential contexts, where they typically must be
authenticated. This holds true especially of the relation between ve
hicle and meaning. As a rule, the meaning is inserted into overlapping
contexts of meaning that are assigned (so to speak, all together) to
determinate experiential contexts. Especially in the intersubjective
use of the various forms of communication, relations of meaning are
inserted into the currently existing contexts of meaning. Depending
on how loosely or strictly systematic these contexts are, changes in an
appresentative relation—of course, all the more so, new creations—
condition more or less decisive changes in all other relations that
stand in the same context. Accordingly, systems of appresentative re
lations, at any rate, have biographical character; and systems of so
cialized meaning-relations, moreover, also have a historical character.
Meaning-relations are therefore above all subject to socially and his
torically variable regulations of their structure, their subjective ap
plication, and their intersubjective use. Even prior to all social
regulations, however, meaning-relations rest on two simple general
principles, the first of which essentially concerns the appresenting
member of the relation and the second the appresented member.
The principle of the (limited) arbitrariness of the vehicle of meaning
signifies that the presence of an appresentative relation, a — B, does
not exclude that under certain (situational, biographical, or social)
circumstances a new appresentative relation, c — By can be founded.
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Depending on the causes, viz. the motives, of the new foundation and
the constraints of the context into which these two relations are in
serted, the old a — B can continue to coexist with the new c — B
(synonymy in a general, not just a linguistic, sense). But it can also be
replaced by the new relation and be eliminated from the meaning-
context (a modified traffic sign for right-of-way regulations, the par
ticular case of phonetic change). This principle is limited by “preju
dice,” namely the already-established uses of the vehicle, which can
be physical, namely, restrictions in the production and perception of
vehicles, and social, e.g., “theories” of the meaning-relation itself, for
some kinds of possible vehicles, and the like.
The principle of the (limited) variability of meaning means that
the presence of an appresentative relation, a — B , does not exclude
that a new appresentative relation, a — C, can be created under cer
tain (situational, biographical, social) circumstances. Depending upon
these, the old meaning can be preserved (homonymy, in the general
sense) or vanish (change of meaning, in the general sense).
It must, therefore, be stated in general that appresentative re
lations are not established once and for all. Certainly, once they have
been established in an experience or a series of experiences, some
appresentative relations are confirmed again and again in later cor
roborating experiences and hardly change: a — B is preserved as a
typical patterned relation. This can occur in “natural” indications,
self-posited marks, and socialized signs. Other appresentative rela
tions are not confirmed in experiences subsequent to the original
establishment; they turn out to be “false indications.” These are dis
solved and replaced by new, “correct” indications. And finally there
are appresentative relations that have been established only in and
for particular occasions. The person is fully aware of their arbitrari
ness, and if nothing further is added, these relations are dissolved
again after the use planned in the original establishment.
2. Indications
Indications, marks, and signs (in an indicative sense) have already
been discussed in another context. There, our interest focused on the
communication of subjective knowledge.33 We have seen that under
certain conditions (agreement of the problematic situations, etc.) other
people’s observable problem-solving attempts and solutions can be
interpreted as indications of subjective processes of knowledge ac
quisition. Already acquired knowledge, however, can be passed on,
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3. Marks
Marks could, without oversimplification, be regarded as intentionally
posited indications. Whereas the appresentative relation of an indi
cation is grounded in perceptual experiences, the appresentative re
lation of a mark is indeed also associated with perception, but above
all with the tangible result of an act. The motive for setting marks has
already been discussed: a person seeks to ensure that he will still know
later what he knows now. Or, to translate it into the terms that were
used in the investigation of reach: the mark is supposed to point out
within a later restored reach what was conceived to be relevant in the
present reach.
If I want to mark where I have buried a rifle, I will try to mark
the arrangement of the mountain chains, streams, stones, trees sur
rounding the burial place. If this arrangement is striking enough, we
are dealing with a pure act of thought, and the arrangement will
serve me later as an indication for the burial place. But, as the ex
ample shows, the boundary to the mark is flexible. I need only move
a few stones, and already this operative act has marked certain com
ponents of the world in my reach. Moreover, the principle of the
arbitrariness of the vehicle holds true almost without limit. Whether
I move, notch, arrange, etc., stones, trees, or whatever else, has only
practical, not fundamental significance. Whether I tie a knot in my
handkerchief, or hang a ten-pound weight around my neck to remind
myself that I am supposed to buy bread, depends on the availability
of handkerchiefs, my neck, the degree of my forgetfulness, and the
degree of urgency with which I need the bread. What matters is that
all these vehicles are no longer experienced as trees, stones, knots,
weights (although they are perceived as such) but as indications of
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4. Signs
Among the various forms of appresentative relations with
meaning-character it was not very difficult to bring out clearly the
structural characteristics of indications and marks. In the framework
of the general nature of appresentative relations (present a —» absent
b), unilateral and consolidated meaning relations (aB) develop. In
their particularity, indications are constituted based on the observa
tion of typical combinations of events and objects, viz. the apprehen
sion of typical sequences of the occurrence of certain a ’s and b’s. This
produces a —» b, and finally aB. Marks, in contrast, are constituted
not by mere observation of already-present combinations, but by in
tentionally positing a more or less arbitrary a for a subjectively given
b. In the constitution of the indication, the b follows the a in the same
sequence as in the later experience of this appresentative relation. In
the constitution of the mark, however, a follows b. In the apprehen-
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5. Symbols
Symbols have already been discussed in various passages of our in
vestigations.40 It must have become clear, at least in general outline,
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what symbols are and what they achieve for life-world experience;
they throw a bridge from one province of reality to the other and
play an important role in “overcoming” the “great” transcendencies.
Now, after describing the other appresentative relations, we will cap
ture somewhat more precisely the structure and function of symbolic
relations.
In symbolic as in all other appresentative relations, to repeat
it once again, something immediately given refers to something ab
sent, which is however co-presentiated in experience by means of this
reference. Disregarding their special form (the expression and em
bodiment of conscious processes), in indications and marks what is
absent is only “accidentally” not present or, so to speak, cannot be
apprehended immediately at the moment, as it were, for technical
reasons. With the special form, things are different, since other con
sciousness can never be apprehended immediately in self-givenness,
but is experienced at all only in expression and embodiment—or in
signs. In their fundamental indicational and marklike constitution,
signs can indicate all conceivable objects and events in the surround
ing world. But as a result of their intersubjective constitution, signs
indicate the objects and events by means of an intersubjective, con
sciousness-related “intermediary world” of meanings, a stabilized con
text of typical experiences (one’s own or Others’). Moreover, like
indications and embodiment, but likewise in intersubjective prior typ
ification, signs of course also refer to one’s conscious processes as
such, e.g., to intentions to act, frames of mind, etc. Like the special
form of indications, signs too are appresentative relations in which
the appresented member is not just “accidentally” not present, but
rather fundamentally cannot be apprehended immediately even later
on.
Now, in this general form, this holds true also for symbols: in
the symbolic relation too the vehicle of meaning points to something
that in principle cannot be apprehended in the same manner as the
vehicle—namely, immediately. What distinguishes symbols from em
bodiment and sign is something different.
Whereas objects now out of reach transcend my present ex
perience only temporarily, since later on they can perhaps be brought
back in reach, the Other person transcends his fellowman in princi
ple. Nevertheless, it is a matter here of an entirely everyday tran
scendence. The everyday is populated with people; people become
accustomed to one another, act routinely together, communicate. We
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of everyday life.
The symbolic meanings attached to particular vehicles of
meaning are thus memories of experiences outside the everyday sphere
that have been brought back from other states to the normal everyday
state. Now, in the description of the “great” transcendencies, we have
seen that besides the turning from the everyday to other states, dis
tance can also be gained from the everyday even when wide-awake.
Full of fear and hope amid the grave crises of life and more or less
routinized in the theoretical orientation, one seeks explanations for
the forces at work in nature and society, which engage fatefully in
daily life, and asks questions about the meaning of the whole and its
parts. As long as the natural attitude is not given up through critical
shocks or through a routine transition into the theoretical attitude,
such a quest and such questions are bracketed out. At a distance from
the natural attitude, such questions can be asked. The answers found
are, however, not indications of other realities: rather, the everyday
itself has become alien and extraordinary. For this reason we can also
call “symbolic” the meanings that arise from such a distance (e.g., in
the various developmental stages of the theoretical attitude: myth,
religion, philosophy, and science). Of course, even these ideas (about
everyday reality from a distance) are attached to vehicles of meaning.
As in memories of other realities, it is not “pure” conscious processes
that are at issue here; what was symbolic representation and embod
iment there, is here symbolic representation and notation.
According to the principle of its (limited) arbitrariness, the
vehicle of meaning can be (almost) anything conceivable. Vehicles of
meaning range from objects of the surrounding world, e.g., from a
distance: sun, moon, stars; or closer: e.g., mountains, rivers, ravines;
or quite close: e.g., springs, trees, stones; or objects produced by men:
e.g., tools, weapons, graves, houses, crowns, flags. They run the ga
mut from natural events, such as lightning, thunder, rain, high and
low tide, drought, seasons, plague, epilepsy; to animals, such as owls,
snakes, lions, turtles, bears, beavers, spiders, kingfishers, bulls, sheep,
coyotes, foxes, ravens; to body parts, eye, head, fist, phallus, vagina,
breast; to body movements, knee-bend, kiss, hand-kiss, slap, nose-rub
bing, two outstretched fingers, outstretched index finger, dance, song,
copulation, farting, hand-clapping; to historical events: crossing the
Rubicon, the suicide of the Maccabeans, the Olympic games; to social
occasions: coronation, execution, marriage, burial.
It is clear that many of these vehicles of meaning are no longer
simple objects or plain events, but consist of meaningful components,
e.g., acts of the most various kind. But furthermore, vehicles of mean-
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5. The Notebooks
6. Index of Abbreviations
161
Editor's Preliminary
Remarks
Thomas Luckmann
Schutz's Project Outline
for Structures o f the Life-W orld
Based on His "File Cards"*
Chapter 1
*The abbreviations (b), (y), (r), and (w) refer to blue, yellow, red and white file cards.
See on this the editor’s preliminary remark. Missing file cards— always noted in the
following text— were replaced by resorting to an (unpublished) prior plan of Schutz’s
for the arrangement of The Structure of the Life-World,, which generally coincides with
the “file cards.”
165
166
A P P E N D I X
Chapter 2
The Stratifications of
The Life-World (b)
Outline items of this card reconstructed on the basis of Schutzs unpublished prelim
inary draft on the arrangement of the book.
(2) Flying stretches and resting places
(3) Articulation (breaking-off of the musical theme as example)
(4) Time-dimension of biography
(5) Objective time
(6) History
(7) What I have in retrospective (anticipatory) view, is
determined by relevance, situation, and problem
1001, (a) 1011, 3098, 4100, 4101, 4102, 4105, 5004, 5005
Chapter 3
D. Relevance
(a) The three kinds of relevance
(1) Motivational relevance: its insightful ness
Connection of the stock of knowledge and definition of
situation in the sense of motive-relevance
(2) Thematic relevance: that which is worth inquiring into;
Connection with advertence, attention, passive synthesis,
problem of “First things first”
(3) Interpretational relevance: clarification of association,
habitual acquisition, overlapping, concealment, wakening,
pairing
(b) Connection of the three kinds of relevance
(1) The context of meaning in which each of them stands
(2) The context of meaning between them; how this is
established by the consciousness
(3) Doubt and the genuine situation of doubt
(4) Carneades’ problem as an illustration
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A P P E N D I X
Chapter 4
(13)
Why the completed action is necessarily different from the
project
1041, 1042, 1043, 1064, 1065, 1066, 1067, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 (w)
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
[The following survey was taken over from the survey of contents begun by
Schutz. The survey of the additional notebooks was made by the editor of
the manuscripts (Thomas Luckmann).]
First Notebook
1.
The life-world as the unexamined ground of the relative-natural
worldview 1001
That which is taken for granted: its dubiousness and
questionableness 1002
The relative-natural worldview 1003
Spatial, temporal, social strata of the life-world 1006
Subjective correlate: the stock of knowledge and its structure 1016
Interest 1016
Situation—ontological structure of the world
— (auto)biographical definition 1017
Plan-determined interest 1018
Motivational relevance 1020
Thematic relevance 1023
Interpretational relevance 1024
Pairing 1028
Carneades’ problem 1029
Relevance and typification 1030
Accessibility of the stock of knowledge 1030
Aporias of the knowable 1031
Empty places 1031
Living within the relevances 1032
Social conditionedness and relevance 1033
Social conditionedness of the relevance systems 1035
Typification 1037
181
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AP P ENDI X
2.
Choosing among projects of action 1041
Open and problematic possibilities 1041
Science of rational action: transformation of the first into
the second 1041
Stock of experience, typology, relevance * 1043
3.
Tiresias problem 1043
4.
Commonsense and scientific interpretation of human action 1044
Typology 1044
Definition of the Situation 1048
Repeated action
(Suppression of the ‘primes’) 1049
The intersubjective character of the life-world and of our
knowledge thereof 1052
Social origin of knowledge 1057
Articulation of the social world 1057a
Social distribution of knowledge 1058
Self-typification 1060
Socialization of the type-formation of human action 1061
Typification and relevance 1063
Courses-of-action and personal types 1064
Theory of action 1065
Second Notebook
4.
Common sense and scientific interpretation of human
action continued
Theory of action continued 2001
Resumption of Choosing, Chap. 2
Doubt 2005
Choosing among projects of action 2006
Husserl, problematic and open possibilities 2007
The choice itself 2011
Bergson’s theory of the act of choice 2015
Critique of Bergson’s theory 2018
Leibniz’s theory of volition 2021
183
APPENDI X
5.
Concept and theory formulation 2060
Social science— natural science 2060
Social reality 2063
Arguments against behaviorism 2066
Life-world a priori intersubjectively meaningf ul 2067
Understanding 2067
Fundamental difference between thought objects of the natural
and the social sciences 2070
The unity of science 2072
6.
Thematic areas from the essay for Van Breda’s Husserl
Commemorative Volume 2073
Third Notebook
6. continued
Sign and symbol 3001
The so-called natural sign 3001
Interchangeability of sign and signified 3002
184
APPENDI X
Fourth Notebook
7. continued
Controversy with Morris 4001
The transcendence of nature and society 4009
The imposition of the transcendent natural and social worlds 4011
Intersubjective character of the lived experience of these
transcendences as belonging to the “condition humaine” 4012
The “givenness” of the natural and social order for everyday
thinking 4013
Symbol 4014
Provisional definition 4014
Reference to Jasper’s conception of symbol 4015
On the genesis of symbolic appresentation 4017
Universal systems of symbols genetically explained 4019
185
AP P ENDI X
Fifth Notebook
7. continued
The world of working as paramount (main) reality 5001
Interest in the world of working and its relevance structure 5002
What relevance means in this context 5003
Fundamental anxiety as supreme motive of the relevance system 5004
The epochë of the natural attitude 5006
The many realities and their constitution 5007
Shock experiences 5010
Examples of finite provinces of meaning: characterization of their
nature 5011
Fantasy worlds 5015
The world of dreams 5024
The world as object of scientific contemplation 5031
The nature of scientific contemplation 5032
The scientist as “disinterested observer” 5034
Characteristics of theoretical thinking 5036
Epochë of the theoretical attitude 5037
The system of relevances within the theoretical attitude 5038
The scientific method 5041
Distinction between theoretical cogitations and the intentional
cogitata of such a theorizing 5043
The theorizing self is solitary; how, then, is social science possible? 5046
Dialectics of communication: How can theoretical thinking be
communicated, and how is theorizing in intersubjectivity
possible? 5049
Contents of the
Notebooks and Dictionary
First Notebook
1. Bar Harbor Ms. 1957; (Theory of Relevance)
Third Notebook
VI. Sign & Symbol
For further elaboration:
Equality
190
A F F E N O I X
Dictionary
mark merkmal
stratification Schichtung
taken for granted als gegeben hingenommen
beyond question froglos gegeben
indication Anzeichen
sign Zeichen
First Notebook
from Seelisberg, Switzerland
August 1 2 - 1 6 , 1958
Contains: pp. 1 0 0 1 - 1 0 6 7
Its unquestionedness
which can be put in question, if it becomes questionable—above
all in the sense of being worth questioning.
It becomes problematic,
a theoretical, practical-emotional problem
Everything problematic originates on the ground of unquestioned
ness— problem-solving consists in transferring what has become
questionable to a new unquestionedness.—
Antithesis to Dewey’s theory of inquiry [1003]
B. Social articulation:
(c) World within your actual reach that can be brought into mine by
changing locations.
With respect to power to act:
(You can move from there, 1 from here;
If I were there, I could do what you can.)
Is this statement reversible?
What are the conditions for the restoration of such an articulation?
[1009]
On the other hand: Although theoretically from your position I
194
A P P E N D I X
could see what you see (could reach, perform, etc.) I cannot be
cause I am myopic (too short, too weak) etc.
Degree of familiarity of this zone: based on the typology of the actual re
storable world previously experienced by me.
The range of variation of my possible experience from your actual
experience (is) attributed to the difference of our respective biographical
situations.
(d) world within your former and
(a) restorable
(ß) nonrestorable reach
(e) world within your attainable reach by reference to actuality, or
to restorable potentiality
(a) of a third party
(ß) of everyone
(f) world within potential reachableness for everyone willing, able,
and fit. [1010]
Basic differences of the world and thus of the situation
(a) as imposed upon me
(b) and as within my actual or potential control (mastery)
(a) unmodifiable
(b) transformable
Relativity of this division of respective knowledge; yet limitation by the
metaphysical fact: e.g. my finitude; Fink’s discussion-remark on my death
and that of the Other, my answer thereto. [1011]
A ll. Time structure in objective time has the following subjective correlates
Actuality: refers to interpretable horizons and stock of experience.
Restorability to retentions and recollection
Reachableness: to protentions and anticipations
Special problems: the world existed before my birth— both the physical and
the social world.
Historicity:
of the inanimate
of the animate world
Sedimentation of prior events—as signs or indications [1012]
A ll I. Social world
surrounding world fellowman
contemporary world consociate
prior world predecessor
subsequent world successor
surrounding world: face to lace; commonness (of) time and space:
the bodies of both within reciprocal reach; but never
theless: merely overlapping of the manipulatory
spheres
195
A P P E N D I X
socialization of knowledge:
instruments socially derived which leads to new expressive
recipes socially approved and interpretative schemes taken
user’s instructions socially distributed for granted and accepted [1015]
maxims
structure of the stock of knowledge
knowledge about, how knowledge of acquaintance
knowledge of acquaintance, what degrees knowledge of familiarity
of clarity certainty, uncontradictedness
mere belief
Subjective correlates of the structurization of the stock of knowledge: (of the forms
of knowledge)
Interests of the perceiving, thinking individual, acting in the world
— from his “standpoint” within
r the physical w()r|d
and social
the world of nature
the world of culture
historicity
(Leibniz: progress to ever-new apperceptions)
197
AP P ENDI X
Plan and plan-system can also be imposed. There is also an in-order-to and
because-relation in the realization of a plan. Exclusions and incompatibili
ties: in short, laws of pragmatic [1019] consequence, just as there are laws of
axiological consequence. Presumably the laws of pragmatic consequence
are based on the components of the situation contributed by the ontologi
cal world structure, those of axiological consequence [on] components
contributed by the biographical and social components. For, besides the
ontological and biographical components of the situation, there is, as still
has to be elaborated upon, the social determinant of the individual
situation.
On the ontological structure of the world: here there are spheres oj incompat
ibility. These [are] important for describing, e.g., the problematic and open
possibilities, the end-means choice, the practicability of the planned project,
the alternatives “open to choice,” etc.
But are there also spheres of incompatibility in the biographical
(perhaps the “feasibilities” = “I can and yet I cannot” are of such a kind)
and social (here certainly) components of the situation? This [must] be
investigated. T1020]
Tiresias-problem [1044]
(Common Sense)
ad types
Husserl Experience and Judgment: Section 18-21, 82-85
Schutz Language: Social Research Vol. 17, 384-90
Common Sense 14, 5 -7
Husserl: What is experienced in the actual perception of an object is
apperceptively transferred to any other similar object, which (?) is per
ceived merely as to its type. Actual experience will or will not confirm my
anticipation of the typical conformity with other objects. If confirmed,
the content of the anticipated type is enlarged; at the same time the type is
split up into subtypes; on the other hand, the concrete real object shows
its individual characteristics, which nevertheless have a form of typicality.
(This is a translation of the summary in Common Sense p. 5)
Now I can take the typically perceived object as an exemplar of the general
type and [1045] thus be led to the concept of the type, but I must by no
means take the concrete dog as an exemplar of the general concept (dog).
Questions:
What do can and must mean in this context?
What regulates the scope of this capacity?
Of what kind is the freedom of the “must not”?
And what meaning of “must” is negated here?
Further question:
Does eidetic reduction lead through a series of negated types?
What is the guideline
for running through
variations in the fantasy?
The successive reduction of typicality?
From where do the— really present or merely fancied—changes or
mutabilities stem?
From what store of experience?
From typical practicabilities of mutability?
From analogization of finished changes?
And in what direction, to discover what eidos, do I perform the
fantasied variation in the red wooden 110461cube? To prepare out the
eidos “cube,” “color,” “wood,” “material object of the outer world,” “geomet
ric object”? But is this direction not already predesignated by motivational
and thematic relevance? Is the fact of relevance not already pre
experienced in the life-world? Does a pragmatic motive of perception—
clarified by Scheler— here play a part (with cognition and work)? Did not
Dewey or Whitehead see something essential in this regard?
207
AP P ENDI X
occurred, and the one in which it reoccurs.) [1050] The first action A'
began in a situation S' and led to the result R'. The repeated action A"
began in a situation S" and will presumably produce a result R". Now,
according to what was said above, S' and S" are necessarily different, from
the very fact that my stock of knowledge K' at the time of the definition
of S' deviates from the stock of knowledge K" at the time of defining S" by
the fact that the experience of A' as having led to R' was not yet present
in K'—only the empty anticipation that this would possibly be the case was
there—but now a new element K" has thereby been added to the defini
tion of S".
By the idealizations of the “and so forth” and “I can always do it
again” (itself very much in need of clarification) I turn my interest away
from the uniqueness of the experiences A', S', R', K* and A", S", R", K",
and am interested only in the A, S, R, K (without the ‘primes’) typified
by this term, i.e. in their typicality. [1051] The construction of the type
thus consists (figuratively speaking) in the suppression of the 'primes' as
relevant characteristics of the experiences. [1052]
(a) the “way of life” recognized as good and right by the in-group
(Sumner),
(b) the origin of recipe knowledge and thus of traditional action (Weber),
[1056a]
(c) (origin) of what is “taken-for-granted”— “of course” statements in Mid
dletown (R. S. Lynd) (and)
(d) the relatively natural worldview (Scheler).
In all these cases, it is a question of typical knowledge of highly socialized
structure that supersedes objects of thought of the private knowledge of
myself and my fellowmen. This knowledge is a part of my socio-cultural
heritage, it has its history. This leads to the problem of genetic socializa
tion. [1057]
B. Social origin of knowledge (genetic socialization)
(a) Socially derived knowledge; friends, parents, teachers of teachers.
(a) How my surrounding world (environment) is to be defined, and
indeed the typical contents and aspects of the world, as it is
grasped in the relative natural attitude as the unquestioned but
ever questionable quintessence of things taken for granted until
further notice;
(ß) How types and typical constructs have to be formed in accor
dance with the systems of relevance from the anonymous,
unified point of view of the in-group; this includes
(aa) the general way of life
(bb) how to come to terms [with] the environment
(cc) tested recipes for the use o f typical means for bringing
about typical purposes in typical situations.
Significance of the vernacular in this context.
(b) Socially approved knowledge. [1057a]
(Common Sense 12)
On the articulation of the social world
Only in reference to me do my relations with others obtain the specific
meaning that I designate by We.
Only in reference to Us, whose center I am, are others “you” (Ihr); only
in reference to “you” (Euch) [familiar form.—trans.], who refer
back to me, yet others are “you” (Sie) [polite form.—trans.].
This complements the division of consociates, predecessors,
successors.
Characteristics of the surrounding-world relationship.
(Face-to-face) physical presence: The Other and I within mutual
reach;
Participation in a mutual inner time: an internally onrolling
course of mutual life; growing old together (analyzed by Ortega);
polythetic structure mediated by events of a physical kind in the
outer world and the outer time-form; the surrounding-world “you”
211
APPENDI X
Situations!
also Kierkegaard’s studies and Dostoevsky’s types. [1062]
The “someone” of “talk,” of authenticity;
on [Nikolai] Berdyaev’s loneliness,
on Buber’s I and thou.
On the “role”: Parsons (also critique of his “expectation”). [1063]
Theory of action
Brief description: definition of action
action and act
the project, its temporal structure
fantasy-nature of the project
The project is based on the stock of knowledge at the time of projecting.
Therefore, the idealization of “And so forth” and “I can always do it
again” is involved.
Why the finished act can never match the project of future action—
repression of the “prime” connection with typification. Again Tiresias.
In-order-to and because-motives briefly explained from the time-
structure of the project. (In-order-to and because-motives as constituents of
214
APPENDI X
theories of interest, e.g. Bergson and Leibniz: Note 2 page 168, Choosing
essay.) Project and fantasy (daydream). Problem of practicability,
Double meaning of practicability; both refer back to “situation” and
involved horizons of comparison.
But the “I could” [1066] refers to ontological world-structure com
ponents of the situation as framework of open possibilities of an objective
kind,
the “I can” to biographical (characterological, Husserl believes)
components of the same, the subjective powers.
Differentiation of the “I could”— I can— you can; reference to this
problem’s connection with the principle of the reciprocity of perspectives,
which undergoes modifications in such a way; further reference to conca
tenation with the typical situation, which is defined by the consociate in the
social action so that a number of elements of the situation are common—
for that is what consociate means— while for the outside observer in the
social world—let alone in the social sciences— this is not the case.
Meaning of the “world within reach” for the practica- [1067] bility
of the project: The means must either be within reach or be able to be
brought within reach; this [is] the real meaning of the “principle of scar
city” in economics. (Here belongs also the problem of technology and
technical progress; it is a matter of extending the boundaries of reach
more and more. And namely in every dimension: spatially, temporally,
socially (one world).
Projecting is thus fantasying within the framework of open possibili
ties of practicability, as they can be known to be given based on the stock
of knowledge at the time of projecting. It is a thinking modo potentially
whereas for instance the mere fantasying of the daydream is not bound by
practicability but is a thinking modo optativo.
Second Notebook
from Seelisberg
August 1 7 -1 8 , 1958
Contains: pp. 2 0 0 1 -2 0 7 3
215
216
APPENDI X
Doubt
Insofar as systems of interest arise: all interests in a biographically deter
mined and biographically defined situation are bound together into a
system, but are not thereby fully integrated. Interests can overlap and even
enter into conflict with one another (“roles” can therefore also do this).
This results in doubt as to which elements of the world accepted as given
are in fact relevant for my concrete purpose, the problem to be mastered.
Is it the p-being of S or its q-being?
What was previously undoubted and unquestioned has now become
questionable (indeed it is essentially always questionable).
A genuine situation of doubt arises. [2006]
All choosing between projects of action originates from such a gen
uine situation of doubt.
Dewey’s description in Choosing p. 169, quoting Human Nature and
Conduct III. Modern Library ed. p. 190
But what makes “habits” and “impulses” conflict? What creates
opposing impulses?
217
APPENDI X
I can choose only between projects that stand open to choice. What is
the origin of such alternatives?
But action and project are always in the genuine situation of doubt
of the problematic possibility, even if several projects are not open to
choice and only one project is involved: I always have the possibility to
carry out the project versus the counterpossibility of dropping it. [2007]
Husserl, Experience and Judgment: problematic and open possibilities
His point of departure: modalization of prepredicative? judgments?
(certitude, possibility, probability)
The object of experience (is) originarily pregiven to passive reception; it
imposes itself on our self, it affects us. The self turns toward the object,
and this turning-toward is the lowest form of spontaneity. (This was fre
quently described as the receptivity of the self or under the title of
attention)
Attention, as advertence to the intentional object, is only the begin
ning of an activity of cogitations in the broadest sense; the beginning phase
of these activities, namely attention, carries with it an intentional horizon
of later phases of activity that are either fulfilled or not, and this was antic
ipated in an empty fashion, indeed in an ongoing synthetic process, until
the activity comes to an end or is broken off, perhaps in the form: “And so
forth . . .”
Example: perception of an outer object wakens the subject’s interest
in comparing it with other images of the same object to make [the] unseen
back side accessible, etc., which one, I do not know. [2008]
Any of these phases carries with it its explicable horizons of proten-
tional expectations, [for there are] three possibilities:
(1) The process is held up for some reason or other, e.g. the field of per
ception blocked off, the originary interest eliminated by another,
stronger one.
(2) Interest in the object continues, but our expectations are not fulfilled
but disappointed by [the] advance of perception in later phases.
(a) completely; explosion; destruction of the anticipation,
dented (?), speckled red sphere. “Not that way, b u t. . .”
creates a new meaning of the object, which supersedes
[the] first anticipated one;
(b) first anticipation not completely obsolete, but has been
made doubtful by the ongoing process: man or model?
Carneades: solution of this conflict between now genuinely
problematic possibilities and counterpossibilities, each of
which has a specific weight and “desires” to be heard “by
me.” (“Weighing out” (Ab-w'dgen) of the weights = “pon
dering” (erwägen).
Something speaks for the one possibility and something
for the counterpossibility.
218
APPENDI X
(On the other hand, open possibilities that nothing speaks for are all of
equal weight: the unseen back side must have a color, which one, I do not
know.) [2009]
Every anticipation has an indeterminate character, and this general indeter
minacy extends a frame of free variability: Precisely this constitutes [the]
essence of open possibility.
Problematic [possibilities] are motivated by situation; they are possi
bilities in a unified field, disjunctively; only one of these conflicting
possibilities may be conscious, the others [may be] unconscious.
Open possibilities: Nothing speaks for one more than for the other.
An indeterminate general intention shows the modality of empirical cer
tainty until revoked.
The world taken for granted without question is the general frame
of open possibilities, none [of] them having a specific weight and none [of]
them, as long as believed beyond question, contesting the others. All are
considered empirically certain until further notice, i.e. until a counterproof.
From these things and facts that are taken for granted the individual
chooses according to his biographically determined situation elements
[2010] by which the same [are] transformed into problematic possibilities,
which from now on stand open to choice. Each of these possibilities now
has its particular weight, raises the claim to be examined, and shows the
conflicting tendencies of which Dewey speaks.
(That is how it stands in Choosing 173, but is it also correct? Are
there not such conflicting possibilities already in the ontological
structure?) [2011]
The choice itself:
A. Choosing among objects within reach
True alternatives between A and B. I incline first to A, then to B, then
back to A, finally I decide to take A. The basic assumption is this: that A
and B are within equal reach and attainable with the same effort (costs).
The alternative of the objects open to choice is created by my biographical
situation, by the quintessence of my previous experiences. For these pre
vious experiences have created my system of interests and this has created
the problematic possibilities that stand in conflict.
The modern social sciences assume such alternatives to be the nor
mal ones underlying human choice, that is, that man finds himself at any
time placed among a number of well-defined problematic possibilities, and
that he is determined to choose one of them by acts of preference. (What
preference is remains unclarified; in Scheler’s view, preference is an act sui
generis.) It is practically a methodological postulate of modern social science
[that] [2012] the conduct of man has to be explained as if occurring in the
form of choosing among problematic possibilities.
Examples: The concept of “defining the situation” in sociology, by which
the social environment is transformed into a unified held of problematic
(possibilities) within which choice and decision— especially rational choice
and decision— become possible; secondly, the marginal-use principle can be
219
APPENDI X
passed the scrutiny of reason lead finally to an act of volition, has been
carefully analyzed by Leibniz. [2021]
process of the actor’s choice and decision even if some of its [2031] phases
were communicated to him. He has to reconstruct from the accomplished
overt act the underlying in-order-to or because-motives of the actor. Never
theless, to a certain extent at least, man is capable of understanding his
fellowman.
How is this possible?
(This idea, dealt with in greater detail elsewhere, must be analyzed pre
cisely. It is connected with the conformity of the relevance system of the
two parties and is a key to the objective and subjective interpretation of
meaning.
Important distinction: role of the partner in the social relationship
versus that of mere observers; the “common situation” and its elements,
determined (selected) by separate but corresponding objectives (plans,
hence relevance).
All this must be elaborated, through the surrounding world and the
world of contemporaries, predecessors, and posterity in various forms.)
[2032]
(Choosing p. 183)
Interpretation of action in the social life-world by the social sciences
Nature of the idealizations and generalizations made by the social scientists.
On the one hand, the social scientist is not permitted to take the social
world for granted as “given.” His “general plan” consists in putting this
world into question and inquiring into its structure.
On the other hand, qua scientist (not as a man among fellowmen,
which he certainly also is) it is not his biographically determined situation
that ascertains what is relevant for his scientific work //important [Schutz’s
marginal comment—trans.]/1 as is the case for the actor in the social life-
world with regard to his actions.
The question therefore is: Can the social scientist refer to the same
reality of the social world that appears to the actor? If so, does he do this
within his scientific practice? And if that is the case, how is this possible?
[2033]
(Common Sense)
Social action (relations of acts)
Any form of social action is founded upon constructs relating to the under
standing of the other person and the action pattern in general.
Example: Question and answer within the surrounding world relationship
(with fellowman):
In projecting my question, I anticipate that the Other will under
stand my action (for instance, my uttering an interrogative sentence) as
a question and that this understanding will induce him to act in such a way
that I may understand his behavior as an adequate response. (“Where is
the ink?” The Other points at a table.)
226
A P P E N D I X
for the very reason that the purpose of the observer and his systems of
relevances must be different from theirs. [2042a] There is thus a mere
chance, although a chance sufficient for many practical purposes, that the
observer in daily life can grasp the subjective meaning that Weber associ
ates with the actor’s acts. This chance increases with the degree of
anonymity and standardization of the observed behavior.
The scientific observer has to develop specific methods for the
building of his constructs in order to assure their applicability for the
interpretation of the subjective meaning of the observed acts. More on this
topic later. [2043]
ity—the more standardized the pattern is, the less the underlying elements
are analyzable for commonsense thought in terms of rational insight.
[2048]
(Common Sense 26ff.)
The construction of objects of thought by the social sciences
(1) The postulate of subjective interpretation for the purpose of grasping
social reality.
(2) Objective phenomena (e.g., price movements) can always be ascribed to
subjective action and they must be so for certain purposes.
(3) Constructs of the social sciences never refer to unique individual actions
that [take place] in a unique, unrepeatable situation, but to models of sec
tors of the social world within which merely those typical events occur that
are relevant to the scientific problem under scrutiny. In constructing these
models the scientist uses special methodological techniques, one of whose
results is that all irrelevant elements of the social world— irrelevant,
namely, from the point of view of the problem formulated— are appre
hended [2049] as mere “data,” which are taken for granted as given—
likewise by the particular methodological techniques such as the “clausula
rebus sic stantibus” or “all other things being equal.”—This does not con
tradict the possibility of constructing a model of the social world consisting
of typical human interactions and analyzing within it typical courses of
action as to the meaning they have for the typical personalities of actors
who presumably originated them. [No (4) in original.—trans.]
(5) The social scientist as disinterested observer. He is not involved in the
observed situation, which is to him not of practical but merely of cognitive
interest. He does not act within it but is free of hope and fear as to the
outcome of the observed act. He is “detached” like a biologist observing the
occurrences in his laboratory. [2050]
(6) Difference between the scientific attitude and scientific activity within
the social world.
(7) The biographical situation of the scientist and the systems of relevances
that originate from it are replaced by the scientific situation with its rele
vances. In daily life the individual considers himself as the center of the
social world that he groups around himself in layers of greater or lesser
degrees of anonymity and intimacy. By the basic decision of adopting a sci
entific attitude— making science into his life-plan— [the] scientist detaches
himself from his biographical situation. What is taken for granted in daily
life may now become questionable for the scientist, and vice versa what is
of highest relevance on one level is irrelevant on the other, etc. The center
of orientation has been radically shifted and so has the hierarchy of plans
and projects. The [2051] scientist, with the decision to carry out a plan for
scientific work (governed by the disinterested quest for truth and in accor
dance with rules of scientific procedure, called the scientific method), has
entered a field of preorganized knowledge called the corpus of his science.
232
APPENDI X
He has to accept what his fellow scientists have achieved as solid knowledge
or “show cause” why he cannot do so. Only within this frame of established
knowledge may he pose his scientific problems and make his scientific deci
sions. This frame constitutes
the scientific situation
in which he is and which supersedes the biographical situation in which he
experiences himself as a human being within the life-world.
It is henceforth
the scientific problem
that, once formulated, determines alone what is [2052] or is not themati
cally and motivationally relevant to its solution, and thus what has to be
investigated (is worth inquiring into) and what can be taken for granted as
a “datum”; furthermore, it determines the level of scientific research in
the broadest sense, that is, the abstractions, generalizations, formalizations,
idealizations, in short, the constructs required and admissible for solving
the problem (indeed even the conditions under which it can be considered
solved).
In other words, the problem is the “locus” of all possible constructs
relevant to its solution. Each construct carries along its (mathematical)
reference index referring to the problem for whose solution the construct
was undertaken.
Danger of shifting the problem without revising the relevant con
struct. [2053]
Differences between constructs of the life-world by common sense and by scientific
thinking
Commonsense thinking Scientific thinking
Constructs, formulated from a The social scientist has no “Here”
“Here” within the life-world that within the social world, or, more
determines the presupposed reci precisely, he considers his position
procity of perspectives, take a stock within it and the system of rele
of socially derived and socially vances attached thereto as irrelevant
approved knowledge for granted. for his scientific undertaking. His
The social distribution of knowl stock of knowledge at hand is the
edge determines the particular corpus of knowledge of his science,
structure of the typifying construct, which he takes for granted— i.e.,
for instance, the assumed degree in this context, as scientifically
of anonymity of personal roles, the ascertained— unless he makes
standardization of course-of-action explicit why he cannot do so.
patterns, and the supposed con To this corpus of scientific knowl
stancy of motives. Yet this social edge belong also the rules of
distribution of knowledge itself procedure that have stood the test,
depends upon the heterogeneous namely, the methods of his science,
composition of the stock of knowl including the methods for the right
edge at hand, a fact that as such construction of types. [2053-54]
is an element of commonsense ex This stock of knowledge is of
perience. [2053-54] quite another structure than that
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APPENDI X
Thus, adopting the scientific attitude, the social scientist observes human,
life-world, reciprocal courses of action or their results, insofar as they are
accessible to his observation and open to his interpretation. These interac
tion patterns, however, he has to interpret in terms of their subjective
meaning structure lest he abandon any hope of grasping “social reality,”
the life-world.
In order to comply with this postulate, the scientific observer pro
ceeds in a way similar to that of the observer of the life-world, although
guided by an entirely different system of relevances. [2056]
234
APPENDI X
(2) They identify special methods of one particular social science with the
method of the social sciences in general. (History has to deal with singular
assertory propositions, but not other social sciences; experiments are
hardly possible in cultural anthropology, but they can be used in social
psychology.)
(3) A set of rules for scientific procedure is equally valid for all empirical
sciences, as for instance the principles of controlled inference and verifica
tion by fellow-scientists and the theoretical ideals of unity, simplicity,
universality, and precision. [2061]
Reason for this unsatisfactory controversy:
The development of the modern social sciences occurred during a period
in which the science of logic was mostly concerned with the logic of the
natural sciences. [The latter enjoyed] a kind of monopolistic imperialism.
Without help and in revolt against this, the social scientists forged their
own tools— without philosophical foundations and breaking off at the level
that seemed necessary for mastering their problems. Therefore, inadequate
formulations, without correct grounding, and many obfuscating misunder
standings. It is important to distinguish between what social scientists say
and what they mean.
Agreement with Nagel and Hempel on the following points:
(a) All empirical knowledge involves discoveries through processes of con
trolled inference.
(b) Must be stateable in propositional form.
(c) Must be verifiable by anyone who is prepared to make the effort to
do so through observation— though not necessarily sensory observation.
(d) “Theory” means in all empirical sciences the explicit formulation of
determinate relations between a set of variables in terms of which a
fairly extensive class of empirically ascertainable regularities can be
explained.
(e) Neither the fact that these regularities [2062] have in the social sciences
a rather narrowly restricted universality, nor that they permit predic
tion only to a rather limited extent, constitutes a basic difference
between the social and the natural sciences, since certain branches of
the natural sciences show the same features.
Instead of an analysis, the following simple propositions shall be defined as
my standpoint. [2063]
Social reality
(1) The primary goal of the social sciences is to obtain organized knowl
edge of social reality.
Social reality (def.) = the sum total of objects and occurrences
within the socio-cultural (life-)world as experienced by the commonsense
237
APPENDI X
thinking of men living their daily lives among their fellowmen, connected
with them in manifold relations of interaction.
We are born into this world of cultural objects and social
institutions,
we have to find our bearings in it,
we have to come to terms with it.
From the outset, we who act in it experience the world we live in as
a world of both nature and culture,
not as private, but
intersubjective, i.e. common to all of us,
either actually or potentially
accessible to everyone.
This involves intercommunication and language. [2064]
The social reality simply taken for granted by the logical
empiricists.
(2) Naturalism and logical positivism simply take for granted the social
reality that is the proper object of the social sciences. Intersubjectivity,
interaction, intercommunication are simply presupposed as the unclarified
foundation of these theories. They assume, as it were, that the social scien
tist has already solved his fundamental problem, before scientific inquiry
starts.
To be sure, Dewey: all inquiry starts and ends within the social cultural
matrix.
To be sure, Nagel: Science and its self-correcting process is a social
enterprise. [2065]
The postulate to describe and explain human behavior in terms of
controllable sensory observations stops short before the description and
explanation of the process by which scientist B controls and verifies the
observed findings of scientist A and the conclusions drawn by him.
B must know: what A has observed
what the goal of his inquiry is,
why he thought the observed fact worthy of being
observed, i.e. relevant to the problem, etc.
This knowledge is commonly called “understanding.”
The explanation of how such an understanding can occur is gener
ally left to the social scientist. But whatever the explanation may be, one
thing is sure, namely that such an intersubjective understanding between
scientist B and scientist A occurs neither by scientist B’s observations of
scientist A’s overt behavior, nor by introspection performed by B, nor by
identification of B with A.
Reference to Felix Kaufmann’s proof that protocol propositions about the
physical world are of an entirely dif ferent kind than protocol propositions
about the psycho-physical world.
(= Methodologie der Sozialwissensschajten p. 126)1 [2066]
238
APPENDI X
To be distinguished:
(1) “Understanding” as the experiential form of everyday knowledge.
(2) as an epistemological problem.
(3) as a method peculiar to the social sciences.
ad (1): above
ad (2): the “scandal of philosophy,” but the possibility of understanding the
practice of everyday life in the world is taken for granted and constantly
solved in everyday actions by everyone.— Born of mothers, the experience
of the existence of other human beings and of the meaning of their acts
is certainly the first and most original empirical observation. [2069]
The life-world as unquestioned but questionable background of the begin
ning and end of scientific inquiry.
On this topic, such different philosophers as
W. James
Bergson
Dewey
Husserl
Whitehead
agree.
Dewey: in the social matrix, unclarified situations [emerge] that have to be
transformed by the process of inquiry into warranted assertability.
Whitehead: The aim of science [is] to produce a theory that agrees with
experience by explaining the thought-objects constructed by common sense
through the mental constructs or thought-objects of science. [2070]
Fundamental difference between the thought objects (constructs) of natural science and
of social science
The natural scientist alone defines his observational field and (in accor
dance with the procedural rules of his science) determines the facts, data,
and events within this field that are relevant for his problem or scientific
purpose at hand. Neither are those facts and events preselected, nor is the
observational field preinterpreted. The world of nature, as explored by
the natural scientist, has no “meaning” to the molecules, atoms, and elec
trons therein.
The observational field of the social scientist, i.e. the social reality of
everyday life, however, has a specific meaning and relevance structure for
the human beings living, acting, and thinking therein. By a series of com-
monsense constructs they have preselected and preinterpreted this world
which they experience as the reality of their daily lives. It is these thought-
objects of theirs that determine their behavior by motivating it.
The thought-objects constructed by the social scientist [2071] in
order to grasp this social reality have to be founded upon the thought-
objects constructed by the commonsense thinking of the men living in it.
Thus, the constructs of the social scientists are, so to speak, constructs
240
APPENDI X
Contains: pp. 3 0 0 1 -3 0 9 9
(Symbol 137)
[3001] Whitehead2 in Symbolism and Process and Reality sees the origin of sym
bolic reference in perception, namely in the integration of percept in the
mode of causal efficacy in our commonsense perception. Cassirer distin
guishes signs (or signals), which are operators and part of the physical
world of being, from symbols, which are designators and part of the
human world of meaning. The former, even when understood and used as
signals, have nevertheless a sort of physical and substantial being, whereas
symbols have only functional value. Signs or signals are related to the thing
to which they refer in a fixed and unique way, whereas the human symbol
is not rigid and inflexible but mobile.
The So-called Natural Sign [3002]
(139) .. . .
Interchangeability oj sign and signified
S. K. Langer: Sign and object would be interchangeable, if the latter were
not different from the standpoint of the interpreting subject who uses the
sign. Thunder may just as well be a sign that there has been lightning as
lightning that there will be thunder. In themselves the sign and the thing
signified are correlated. It is only where one of the two is perceptible and
the other (harder or impossible to perceive) is interesting that we actually
have a case of sign-function (signification) for one of the two terms.
(It is important to see, how in the Cassirer/Langer Theory the sign-
function depends on interest, i.e. on relevance.)
Similarly John Wild: We take that member of a pair as a sign for the other
which is better known to us than its signatum and, therefore, as a sign,
241
242
APPENDI X
dissimilar to it. The footprint of the animal is better known to us than the
animal. But when neither the one nor the other is known, the sign may
really signify the signatum. Signs are discovered, not made. [3003]
(140) . . .
Yet in spite of these authors, everyday experience refuses to admit that fire
is a sign for smoke, pain a sign for moaning, the physical object a sign for
the concept.
Aristotle, De Interpretatione 16a 3ff.
“Spoken words are the symbols (symbola) of mental experience, and written
words are the symbols of spoken words. Just as all men do not have the
same writings so
all men do not have the same speech sounds, but the mental experi
ences (pathemata tes psychés) which these directly symbolize (semeion) are the
same for all as also are those things of which our experiences are the
images (homoiomata) .”3
We have the rather complicated relationship:
Physical event (sound or penstroke) denoting the thing named,
connoting the conception referred to. Therefore most certainly irreversible
relations. The same holds good for all symbolic references of a higher
order. [3004]
(140f.)
“Convention” and social structure of signs
Aristotle, De Interpretatione 16a 19f.:
A name is a sound that is signihcant by convention.4 (kata synthekën) This
limitation is necessary, according to Aristotle, because nothing is by nature
a name; it becomes a name only when it becomes a symbol. Inarticulate
sounds, such as those a brute produces, are indeed significant, but never
theless not a name (onoma). For Aristotle, therefore, language and artificial
signs in general are matters of conventions.
But the concept of convention presupposes the existence of society
and also the possibility of some form of communication with the help of
which the “convention” can be established. This leads to a series of impor
tant questions. [3005]
Questions associated with this:
(1) Does the statement of convention hold good also for all kinds of signs,
including nonlinguistic ones?
(2) Or for all nonnatural signs?
(3) Or even for natural ones?
(4) Or still more generally: If it is true, as it is widely believed, that every
sign and symbol-relation involves at least three terms, of which one is the
subject or the interpreter of the sign, is this interpreter tacitly assumed
to have already established communication with his fellowmen so that the
sign or symbol-relation is from the outset a public one?
243
APPENDI X
(5) Or are there sign- and symbol-relations even within the private psycho
logical or spiritual life of the lonely individual?
(6) If so, how can these signs be shared with others, be com-municated to
them? And to what extent?
(7) Are my fantasies, my dreams, and the systems of symbols that emerge
in them also capable of socialization? [3006]
(8) Do artistic creation, religious experience, philosophizing presuppose
intersubjectivity?
(9) If, on the other hand, there are public and private symbols, does a
particular socio-cultural environment influence the structure of either or
both of them, and to what extent?
(10) Is it not possible that what is a sign or a symbol for one individual or
one group has no significative or symbolic meaning for another individual
or group?
(11) Moreover, can intersubjectivity as such, society and community as such,
be experienced otherwise than by mediation of symbols?
(12) Then, is it the symbol that creates society and community, or is the
symbol a creation of society imposed upon the individual?
(13) Or is this interrelationship between society and the system of symbols
a process of such kind that symbols, or at least some of them, originate
in society and, once established, influence in turn the structure of society
itself? [3007]
(142)
Symbol and the experience of transcendence
The place of man in a cosmos that transcends his existence, but within
which he has to find his way, his bearings. Sign and symbol are among the
means by which man tries to come to terms with his manifold experiences
of transcendency. We will have to show how the perceptible world actually
given to the individual at any moment of his biographical existence
(a) brings along its open horizons of space and time that transcend his
actual Here and Now.
(b) How a common communicative environment originates in the compre
hension of the fellowmen and how the Other’s existence and that of
society transcends in still another sense the individual’s actual
experiences.
It will have to be shown that a specific form of what Husserl called
appresentations— called marks, i.e. marking signs, indications, signs—
corresponds to each of these particular transcendences. [3008]
All [these transcendences] have in common the fact that they are
experienced within the reality of everyday life. But this is not the only
reality in which man lives.
There are other transcendences, beyond those mentioned so far.
244
APPENDI X
(151) . . .
The principles governing the structural changes of appresentational relations.
A. The principle of the relative irrelevance of the vehicle
An appresented object X, which was originally paired with the
appresenting object A, can enter a new pairing with object B, which hence
forth appresents X. The new vehicle B, if apprehended (remembered,
fantasied) in co-presence will waken in the mind of the experiencing sub
ject the same appresented object X that formerly was paired with the
vehicle A.
(a) longhand, typescript, print does not change the meaning of scientific
paper.
(b) possibility of vehicle substitution is one (of the many) prerequisites for
translating a term into other languages (two, deux, duo, zwei, etc.)
247
APPENDI X
(c) In the pairing of X with a new vehicle, two cases are possible:
(a) either the original vehicle A is preserved and retains its appre-
sentational functions along with the new B. Then A & B become
synonyms in the broadest (not merely linguistic) sense. Example:
vessel-ship, 10-ten, MDCCCCLIX-1959
(ß) or the appresented object becomes completely detached from the
originally appresenting A, [3018] in which case the original
appresenting relation (A) - (X) is obfuscated or entirely forgot
ten. If this happens the originally appresenting A loses its
wakening power.
B. The principle of variability of the appresentational Meaning
Same situation as in (A) (c) (a), but the appresentative meaning
changes with the substitution of B for A:
Napoleon: [victor of] Jena— [vanquished of] Waterloo; equilateral
equiangular triangle; A >B, B<A; Paris— Chartres [/Chartres— Paris]
C. The principle offigurative transference
The opposite of irrelevancy of the vehicle: an appresenting object A
was originally paired with the appresented object X, and now enters a new
pairing with an appresented object Y, eventually also with a third object
Z. Two cases are possible:
(a) either the original appresentational relation (A-X) is preserved and coex
ists with the new one (A-Y). Then a single appresenting object A may
appresent two or several objects (X,Y, . . .). This is possibly the origin of
the trope and of the figurative use of expression; it may lead to equivo
cal use of A; on the other hand, it makes higher-level constructions of
appresentational relations possible. [3019]
(b) or the appresentational reference (A-X) is obfuscated or forgotten and
merely the new one (A-Y) is preserved: change of meaning [3020]
(Symbol 154f.)
The world within my actual and potential reach and the manipulatory sphere
regarded from the standpoint of the isolated individual.
(1) In my natural attitude I take the world for granted as my reality.
(2) I have to understand it to the extent necessary to come to terms with it,
to act within it and upon it, and to carry out my projects at hand.
(3) In this sense the world is given to my interpretation (for me to
interpret).
(4) This interpretation is based upon the stock of my previous experiences,
which in the form of my “knowledge at hand” f unctions as a scheme of
reference.
248
APPENDI X
(5) To this knowledge at hand belongs also my knowledge that the world I
live in is not a mere aggregate of colored spots, incoherent noises, centers
of warm and cold, but a world of well-circumscribed objects with definite
qualities, objects among which I move and which I move, [3022] which
resist me and upon which I may act.
(6) From the outset these objects are experienced in their typicality, as
mountains and stones, trees and animals, and, more specifically, as birds,
fishes, and snakes.
quoted: Experience and Judgment, Paragr. 18-22
Common Sense, pp. 5 f.
Language, Language Disturbances 340-390
(7) This world as experienced through my natural attitude is the scene and
also the object of my actions. I have to dominate it and change it in order
to carry out my purposes. Movements— kinaesthetic, locomotive,
operative—gear, so to speak, into the world, modifying or changing its
objects and their mutual interrelationships; on the other hand, these
objects offer resistance to my acts, which I can either overcome or to which
I have to yield. In this sense it can be said that a pragmatic motive governs
my natural attitude in daily life.
(8) In this attitude I experience the world as organized in time and space
around myself as the center. The place my body occupies at a certain
moment within this world, my actual “Here” is the starting point from
which I take my bearing in space. [3023] It is, so to speak, the center 0 of
the system of coordinates that determines certain dimensions of orientation
in the surrounding field and the distances and perspectives of the objects
therein: they are above or underneath, before or behind, right or left,
nearer or farther.
And, in a similar way, my actual “Now” is the origin of all time
perspectives under which I organize the events within the world, such as
the categories of before and after, past and future, simultaneity and succes
sion, sooner or later.
(9) The sector of the world of perceived and perceptible objects at whose
center I am shall be called the world within my actual reach. It includes,
thus, objects within the scope of my view and the range of my hearing.
Inside the field within my reach there is a region of things that I can
manipulate.
(10) (Already in the essay itself, it was pointed out that this depiction is
highly sketchy and very imprecise but sufficient for the essay’s purposes.
The problem involved is much more complicated. Just think that we are
living in a time when ICBMs [intercontinental ballistic missiles] extend the
range of the manipulative sphere far across the world. [3024] It is said
there that the expansion of the manipulatory sphere is perhaps one of the
main characteristics of the state of our world situation today.)
Now, all this is insufficient as long as no precise analysis is under-
249
APPENDI X
From the world within my actual or potential reach are selected as primar
ily important those facts, objects, and events that actually are or will
become possible ends and means, possible obstacles or conditions for the
realization of my projects, or which are or can become dangerous or enjoy
able or otherwise relevant to me.
(It must be examined precisely whether, as it seems, the relevance
mentioned in the text refers to motivational relevance or also to other
categories of relevance.)
(21) Certain objects and events are known to me as being interrelated in a
more or less typical way, but my [3031] knowledge of their particular kind
of interrelatedness is rather vague and lacks transparency. If I know that
event B usually appears simultaneously with event A or precedes or follows
it, then I take this as a manifestation of a typical and plausible relationship
existing between A and B, although I know nothing of the nature of this
relationship. Until further notice I simply expect or take it for granted that
any future recurrence of A will be connected in typically the same way
with a preceding, concomitant, or subsequent recurrence of B. I then
apprehend A not as an object, fact, or event standing for itself, but stand
ing for something else, namely the past, present, or future appearance
of B. This form of appresentation is frequently called a sign. We prefer to
reserve the term ‘sign’ for another form of appresentation and to call the
present one an ‘indication.’ [3032]
“Indication” in Husserl I Log. Untersg. §§1-4, esp. p. 27, Färber p. 222
(22) Husserl’s definition of indication: An object, fact, or event (A), actually
perceptible to me, may be experienced as related to another past, present,
or future fact or event (B) actually not perceptible to me, in such a way
that my conviction of the existence of the former (A) is experienced by me
as an opaque motive for my conviction for, assumption of, or belief in the
past, present, or future existence of the latter (B). This motivation consti
tutes for me a pairing between the indicating element (A) and the
indicated one (B). The indicating member of the pair is not only a “wit
ness” for the indicated one, it does not only point to it, but it suggests
the assumption that the other member exists, has existed, or will exist.
Again the existing member is not experienced as “itself,” i.e. merely in the
apperceptual scheme, [3033] but as “wakening” appresentationally the
indicated one.
(23) It is especially important that the particular nature of the motivational
[connection] remain opaque. If there is clear and sufficient insight into
the nature of the connection between the two elements, we have to deal
not with the referential relation of indication but with the inferential one
of proof.
(Therefore (known) footprints of the tiger are not an indication of
his existence, but the halo around the moon, smoke for lire, the
geological formation for oil, discoloration of the skin for Addison’s
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A P P E N D I X
[disease], the position of the needle on the dial of the car for an
empty tank, etc.)
Most so-called natural signs fall under this category.
(24) The knowledge of indications helps the individual to transcend the
world within his actual reach,9
by relating [an] element within it to elements outside it. The rela
tion of indication again does not yet presuppose intersubjectivity. [3034]
(159) . . . . . .
The Intersubjective World and its Appresentational Relations: Signs
The world of everyday life is from the outset an intersubjective one.
(25) Marks [marking signs] and indications are appresentational forms that
do not necessarily presuppose the existence of fellowmen and communica
tion, but can be explained by the pragmatic motive governing the
individual in his endeavor to come to terms with the world within his
reach. To be sure, marks [marking signs] and indications can occur in the
intersubjective context and indeed frequently do.
(26) So far the life-world within my reach and its dimensions have been
analyzed without any reference to intersubjectivity, i.e. simply as I find
them in the natural intuition of my everyday life.
Yet the life-world is by no means my private world. Intersubjective
from the outset, I share it with my fellowmen; it is also experienced and
interpreted by others, [it is] a world that is common to all of us.
(27) The unique biographical situation in which I find myself within the
world at all times is only to [3035] a very small extent of my own making. I
find myself always within an historically given world which as the natural
world and the social world (cultural world) has existed before my birth and
will continue to exist after my death.
(Death: see note 8, p. 331 below)
(28) This means that this world is not only mine but also my fellowmen’s
environment. Moreover, these fellowmen are elements of my situation, as I
am of theirs: acting upon others and acted upon by them, I know of this
mutual relationship, and this knowledge also implies that they, the others,
experience this common [world] in a way substantially similar to mine.
They, too, find themselves in a unique biographical situation within the
world that is, like mine, structured in zones of actual and potential reach
and [-] grouped around their actual Here and Now at the center [-] in the
same dimensions and directions of space and time: an historically given
world of nature, society, culture, etc. [3036]
(29) Without going into the phenomenological problem of the constitution
of intersubjectivity, it is sufficient for this purpose of analyzing the every
day experience of the life-world to state:
— that man takes for granted the bodily existence of fellowmen; — likewise,
that they have consciousness;
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APPENDI X
(161)
Our knowledge of the other mind is itself based on appresentational references
(31) Despite the difficult problematic of our knowledge of other minds and
the highly controversial theories that are offered for its solution by the
various philosophical schools, it can be stated that behaviorists and existen
tialists, logical positivists and phenomenologists agree, if we disregard the
phenomenon of telepathy, that knowledge of the content of another’s mind
occurs only through the intermediary of events occurring in the other’s
body or produced by the other’s body.
(32) According to Husserl (Med. Cart. V. § 50ff, Ideen II § 43-50 Schutz
Diskussion Ideas II. pp. 404ff.) this is a remarkable case of appresentation.
According to him, the other is from the outset given to me as both a mate
rial object with its position in space and time and a subject with its
psychological life. His body, like all material objects, is given to my original
perception or, as Husserl says, in originary presence. His psychological
life, however, is not given to me [3039] in originary presence but only in
co-presence. (Nota bene what Ortega says about co-presence.) It is not pre
sented, but appresented. By the continuous visual perception of the other’s
body and its movements, a system of appresentations, of well-ordered indi
cations of his psychological life and his experiences is constituted, and
here, says Husserl, is the origin of the various forms of systems of signs or
expressions, and finally of language. The physical object, “the other’s
body,” events occurring on this body, and his bodily movements are appre
hended as expressing the other’s “spiritual I,” toward whose motivational
meaning-context I am directed. So-called “empathy” in the other person is
nothing but that form of appresentational apprehension which grasps this
meaning.
All sorts of things can be said about this:
(a) Fink’s remark on the unverifiability of this form of appresentation must
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A P P E N D I X
[be] regarded critically. For can it not be verified through the continua
tion of “consistent [3040] conduct”?
(b) The double (triple?) meaning [of] “expression” must be analyzed. What
is expressed for me, the interpreter, is far from being expressed on
the other’s part, or rather: He had no intention whatever of expressing
it. (The graphologist turns the page.)
(c) Here Husserl’s transcendental approach still makes itself felt: Why,
with the natural attitude, should not speech, and hence the other per
son who speaks, revealing and communicating himself, not belong from
the outset to the social life-world?
(d) Sex, and perhaps also age, are aspects, as Merleau-Ponty and Ortega
have remarked, of the other person’s living organism.
(All this must [be] reflected on precisely; it is questionable whether this is
the place to discuss these problems.) [3041]
(33) The same situation, according to Husserl, holds true of cultural objects.
A book [is] an object of the outer world, a material thing. Here it lies
before me, to my right, on my desk in a red binding. But when reading it I
am not directed toward the book as an object of the outer world, but
toward the meaning of what is written therein: I “live in this meaning,” by
comprehending it.
The same holds good of a tool, a house, a theater, a church, a
machine, etc. The spiritual meaning of all these objects is appresentation-
ally apperceived as being founded upon the actually appearing object,
which is not apprehended as such but as the vehicle and expression of a
meaning.
(34) Furthermore, if we listen to somebody speak, we do not experience
the meaning of what he says as something connected with the words in an
external way. We take his words as expressing their meaning-content: we
live in their meaning by comprehending what the Other means and the
thought he expresses. (Husserl: Vom Ursprung der Geometrie, Husserliana vol.
I10) [3042]
(35) To be sure, each person has only his own experiences given in origi
nary presence. But by the intermediary of events in the outer world,
occurring on or brought about by the other’s body, especially by linguistic
expressions in the broadest sense, I may comprehend the other by appre-
sentation; by mutual understanding and consent, a communicative
common environment is thus established, within which the subjects recip
rocally motivate one another in their mental activities.
(36) These analyses of Husserl’s are modeled after one specific form of
intersubjectivity, namely the “face-to-face relationship.” He further presup
poses as self-evident that the appresentational comprehension of events
in the other’s mind leads immediately to communication. All these assump
tions, however, require further elaboration.
First of all, what are the tacitly presupposed idealizations upon which the
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A P P E N D I X
world within my actual reach, then we also find dimensions in the social
world comparable to the world within my potential reach.
This is [probably an attempt] to answer, perhaps partially, the ques
tion raised in the note to (38).
(a) The world of my contemporaries, with whom I am not biographically
involved (badly formulated) in a face-to-face relation but with whom
I have in common a sector of time that makes it possible for me to act
upon them as they may act upon me, within a common environment of
mutual motivations.
(In a primitive society in which the souls of the deceased are supposed
to participate in the social life of the group, the dead are deemed to
be contemporaries.)
(b) The world of my predecessors, upon whom I cannot act but whose
past actions and their outcomes are open to my interpretation and may
influence my own actions.
(c) The world of my successors, of whom no experience is possible, but
toward whom I may orient my actions in more or less empty anticipa
tions. [3050]
(43) It is characteristic of all social dimensions other than the face-to-face
relation that I cannot grasp my fellowmen as unique individuals but only
their typical behavior, their typical motives and attitudes in increasing
anonymity.
(The theme of the transcendence of the others’ experience and its
overcoming by signs is continued (55) ff.) [3051]
Comprehension, Manifestation, Signs, Communication
(44) Always disregarding telepathy, every understanding of another’s
thought (another’s soul) requires an object, fact, or event in the outer
world, which, however, is not apprehended as such, but as a so-called
“expression” of the cogitations of a fellowman. (Compare analysis of the
equivocation contained in the concept “expression” in (32) (b).)
Cogitations discussed: they include in the Cartesian sense feelings, volitions,
emotions.
Signs: Those objects, facts, or events in the outer world whose apprehen
sion appresents to an interpreter another’s cogitations shall be called
“signs.” [3052]
(166(a))
(45) More Details on the Comprehension (Understanding) of Signs of Another's Mind
The objects, facts, events mentioned in (44), which are interpreted as signs
of another’s mind, must be referred directly or indirectly to the existence
of the Other’s body.
(A) In the simplest case, that of a face-to-face relationship, events occurring
on another’s body (such as blushing, smiling), including bodily movements
(wincing, beckoning), activities performed by it (speaking, walking, manip-
258
APPENDI X
(p. 168)
(48) Communication in the strict sense:
its particular presuppositions
(i) Signs used in communication are always signs addressed to an individual
or anonymous interpreter by the sign-setter. They originate within the
manipulatory sphere of the communicator, and the interpreter apprehends
them as objects, facts, or events within his reach.
The conditions for understanding (comprehending) of the other’s
mind by signs (45) (B) (i-iii) apply to this situation. Consequently, it is
necessary neither that the world within the interpreter’s reach overlap spa
tially with the manipulatory sphere of the communicator (telephone,
260
APPENDI X
television), nor that the production of the sign occur simultaneously with
its interpretation (Egyptian papyrus, monuments), nor finally that the same
object, fact, or event chosen by the communicator as carrier and vehicle of
communication be perceived (apprehended) by the interpreter (principle
of the relative irrelevance of the vehicle.) [3058]
In more complicated cases of communication, any number of
human individuals or mechanical devices can be inserted into the commu
nicatory process between the original communicator and the interpreter.
(Example: I read in a German newspaper statements made by the
President of the U.S.A. at a press conference; I attend a perfor
mance of Hamlet, read Cervantes’s Don Quixote, etc.)
The decisive point is the insight into the facts that under all condi
tions communication requires, on the one hand, events or objects in the
outer world produced by the communicator, and, on the other, events or
objects in the outer world perceptible (apprehensible) by the interpreter.
In other words, communication can occur only within the reality of the
outer world. And this is one of the main reasons why this world has the
character of privileged or “paramount” reality— even the voices that the
schizophrenic believes he hears are hallucinated by him as voices, and
hence as events within the outside world. [3059]
(49) (ii) The signs used in the communication process are always pre
interpreted by the communicator in terms of their expected interpretation by
the addressee. To be understood the communicator has, before producing
the sign, to anticipate the apperceptual, appresentational, and referential
scheme under which the interpreter will presumably subsume it.
The communicator has, therefore, as it were, to perform a
rehearsal of the expected interpretation and to establish such a context
between his cogitations and the communicative sign that the interpreter,
guided by the appresentational scheme he will apply to the sign, will find
the sign-producer’s cogitations as elements of the related referential
scheme. This context is, however, as was shown above (p. 146, (4)) nothing
else but the contextual or interpretational scheme itself.
In other words: communication presupposes that the interpreta
tional scheme which the communicator relates and that which the
addressee will relate to the communicative sign in question substantially
coincide. [3060]
(50) (iii) The restriction made at the end of (49): “substantially '* is of particu
lar importance. Strictly speaking, a full identity of the interpretational
scheme that the communicator applies and adopts in anticipation, and the
interpretation scheme that the interpreter in fact uses is impossible, at least
in the commonsense world of everyday life, for the following reason: The
interpretational scheme is determined by the biographical situation and the
systems of relevance originating therein. If there were no other differences
between the biographical situation of the communicator and that of the
261
APPENDI X
interpreter, then at least this one: that one person’s “Here” is the other’s
“There.” This circumstance alone presupposes an insurmountable limit for
a fully successful communication in the ideal sense. But, of course, commu
nication can be, and is, highly useful for a whole series of important
purposes. It can achieve an optimum of success through the use of highly
formalized and standardized languages, such as, e.g. in scientific
terminology.
These considerations, seemingly of a highly theoretical nature, also
have important practical consequences. Success- [3061] ful communication
is possible only between persons, social groups, nations, etc. who share a
substantially similar system of relevances. The greater the differences
between their systems of relevance, the less chance there is for successful
communication, and complete disparity of the systems of relevance makes
the establishment of a “universe of discourse” entirely impossible.
(51) (iv) The communicative process, therefore, requires a set of common
abstractions or standardizations. The idealization of the congruency of
the systems of relevance (see 36 (b)) leads to the superseding of the
thought-objects that arise in the private experience of the individual by
typified constructs of public objects of thought.
Typification is indeed that form of abstraction which leads to the
more or less standardized, yet also more or less vague, conceptualization
and therefore to the necessary ambiguity of terms in the ordinary vernacu
lar. [3062]
This is because our experience itself, even in what Husserl called
the prepredicative sphere, is organized from the outset under certain
types. Therefore, the child learning how to speak is at a very early age
capable of recognizing animals as dogs, fishes, birds, or objects of his sur
roundings as stones, rooms, mountains, tables, chairs, although the
dictionary definitions of all these types are extremely difficult.
The vernacular (vocabulary and syntax) as a treasure trove of
socially accepted typifications of the language group in question. [3063]
(p. 170)
(52) Linguisticy pictorial, expressive, and mimetic presentation
Language as system of signs combinable under syntactical rules; its function
as vehicle of discursive (propositional) thinking; its power not only to name
things but also to express relations among them; not only to formulate
propositions, but also relations among propositions.
Essential for language that the language process and language communica
tion necessarily is a process occurring in time; the polythetic structure of
language communication; language as a temporal object; the meaning of
communication, however, is monothetic.
Hence the capacity of language [to] synchronize the stream of conscious
ness [of the] speaker in inner duration and the stream of consciousness [of
the] listener in inner duration both with the flux of the speech event in
outer time and also between themselves in the truest sense. (?)
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APPENDI X
This holds true also for the quasi-simultaneity of writer and reader. [3064]
(53) Pictorial presentation
Susanne Langer:12 [Visual presentations are:]
not discursive
not composed of elements having independent meaning;
[have] no vocabulary;
no sign not definable by other signs;
their main function: conceptualization of the flux of
sensory perceptions;
the appresentational relationship of a pictorial presentation is founded on
the proportion of its parts, whose position and relative dimension corre
sponds to our idea of the depicted object.
That is the reason we recognize “the same” house in a photograph,
painting, pencil-sketch, architectural drawing, builder’s diagram.
Husserl (Log. Unt. VI sec. 14, Ideas I, sec. I ll, Färber 410-14) sees charac
teristics of pictorial figurative representation— in contradistinction to all
other signs— in the similarity relation between picture and depicted object;
whereas all other signs (except perhaps onomatopoeic ones) have nothing
in common with what they designate— therefore the assertion of the arbi
trariness of the language sign. Nonethe- [3065] less, even in pictorial
presentation there exists an appresentational relation, although sometimes
in a complicated way of interconnected levels. //Husserl’s view hardly ten
able! [Schutz’s marginal note—trans.]//
Dürer’s “Knight, Death, and Devil”:
(1) (in an apperceptual way) the print as such, the page in the portfolio:
(2) (still apperceptual) black lines on white paper, small colorless figures.
(3) These figures (appresented) as depicted “realities” as they appear in the
image— the knight [of] “flesh and blood,” of whose quasi-being we are
aware— and are the neutrality modification of being. (Ideas I, sec. Ill)
(Schutz, not Husserl)
(4) Appresentations under (3), founded appresentations of a higher order;
the symbolic appresentation of man’s position in the world between
death and devil. [3066]
(54) Communication through expressive and mimetic presentation
Expressive: gestures of greeting (see now Ortega y Gasset’s excellent descrip
tion) (cf. E. Benz: Ostkirche (?))13
Gesture of prayer
movement of respect
expression of approval or disapproval
display of honor
(on this section, study precisely:
(a) Marcel Mauss: sociology of bodily movement;
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APPENDI X
(p. 172)
(55) Overcoming Transcendence by the Sign
The Main Thesis: Overcoming the experience of transcendence through
the appresentational relation.
(cf. “The Transcendence of the Other,” above under (38) (39) (41)
(42) (43).)
It has now been shown (in the analysis of the various forms of sign
and communication) that the appresentational relations have the function
of overcoming transcendent experience, namely the experiences of the
Other and his world.
Through the use of signs, the communicative process permits me to
be aware at least to a certain degree of another’s cogitations and, under
particular conditions, even to experience his inner duration (stream of
consciousness) in perfect simultaneity with mine— this despite the fact that,
as we have seen, fully successful communication is impossible. There still
remains a zone of the Other’s private life that is inaccessible to me and
transcends my possible experiences. [3068]
(p. 173)
(56) How Everyday Practice Solves This Difficulty
Communication is possible for nearly all useful purposes, because
the communicative process is based on a set of typifications, abstractions,
standardizations, such as are stored up, e.g. in the ordinary vernacular.
The task here, however, is to clarify some basic features simply
“taken for granted” by the commonsense thinking of everyday life, upon
which the possibility of communication is founded. They are, in a certain
sense, an amplification of the general thesis of the reciprocity of perspec
tives, analyzed in (36) (37). [3069]
(57) What does it mean to accept something as simply given? “taken for granted”?
= to accept until further notice our knowledge of certain states of af fairs
as unquestionably plausible.
Of course, at any time what hitherto seemed to be unquestionable
can always be put in question.
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APPENDI X
(58) What does commonsense thinking take for granted until a contrary proofl
Things simply taken for granted seem to be:
(a) The world of physical and social (cultural) objects, into which we were
born. This world is, in fact, the unquestioned but always questionable
matrix within which all our inquiries start and end. (Dewey, Logic I, esp.
pp. 19-20 and Part III passim.)1**
The process of inquiry consists in the regulated and controlled
transformation of indeterminate situations encountered or emerging
within this matrix into reliable assertability.
//the process of inquiry: the task of transforming in a controlled
or direct manner indeterminate situations encountered or emerging
within this matrix into “warranted assertibility.” [Schutz’s marginal com
ment—trans.]// [3070]
(b) In my everyday thinking I take for granted not merely that my fellow-
man exists, and indeed not just as a bodily existence, but as gifted with
a consciousness that displays essentially the same basic structures as
my own.
(c) Moreover, I take for granted that to a certain extent I can by appresen-
tational relations analogically attain knowledge of my fellowman’s
conscious experiences (cogitations), for example, the motives of his
action, as he can of mine.
(d) I take for granted that certain objects, facts, and events within our
common social environment have for him the same appresentational
significances as for me, which significances transform mere things in
the outer world into so-called cultural objects.
(e) Until counterevidence is offered, I take for granted that the various
apperceptual, appresentational schemes of reference and interpretation
accepted and proved as typically relevant by my social environment
are equally relevant for my unique biographical situation as they [also]
are for my fellowman within [3071] everyday thinking in the life-world.
This means:
(1) With respect to the apperceptual scheme, that normally our apperception
of objects, facts, or events of the outer world is guided by the system of
typical relevances prevailing within our social environment and that a par
ticular motive has to originate in the personal biographical situation of
each of us in order to evoke our interest in the uniqueness, in the atypical
ity, of a particular object, fact, or event, or in its particular aspect.
(2) With respect to the appresentational scheme that we both, my fellowman
and I, take for granted the typical way in our socio-cultural environment,
by which objects, facts, and events in the outer world are apprehended not
as “these themselves” but appresentationally as indications of “something
else,” that is, in the manner of “wakening” or “evoking” appresentational
references. [3072]
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APPENDI X
(3) With respect to the interpretational scheme that in case of the existence
of communication the other (whether he be the communicator or
the interpreter) will apply the same appresentational (?) scheme to the
appresentational references involved in the communication as I myself. I
take it for granted, e.g. that in case of a communication through the
medium of the ordinary colloquial language others who use this idiom
mean by the linguistic expressions substantially the same thing that I
understand these expressions to mean, and vice versa.
(Here a great deal must be added:
(1) Study on Heidegger’s “co-being” and “co-existence”
(2) Sartre’s “situation”;
(3) Husserl’s “communicational environment”;
(4) Ortega’s concept of habit;
(5) Durkheim’s “collective conscience.”) [3073]
(p. 174)
(59) The world within reach and the everyday life-world
If the terms “world of everyday life” or “everyday reality” do not merely
designate the world of nature as experienced by me but also the socio
cultural world in which I live, then it becomes clear that this world does
not coincide with the world of the outer objects, facts, and events.
(1) To be sure, the former includes the latter, namely insofar as these
objects, facts, and events are either within the zone of my actual reach or
within the several zones of my potential reach (among them also that
within the actual and potential reach of my fellowman).
(2) In addition, however, the world of daily life includes all appresenta
tional functional functions of such objects, facts, and events which
transform natural things into cultural objects, human bodies into fellow
men, their bodily movements into actions or significant gestures, waves of
sound into speech, etc. [3074]
(p. 175)
The world of daily life is therefore permeated with appresentational refer
ences that are simply taken for granted and among which I carry on my
practical activities— my working activities, we have referred to them
before—in terms of everyday commonsense thinking.
All these appresentational references belong, according to origin,
goal, and direction, to the finite province of meaning called the “reality of
everyday life.” //I s this understated? // Nevertheless, our thesis stands that
all appresentational references are means of coming to terms with the
experience of transcendency.
This has been shown with respect to the appresentational indica
tions studied so far, namely marks, indications, and signs. They all help to
come to terms with transcendencies, but all these transcendencies them-
266
APPENDI X
selves belong to that sphere which we have now characterized as the reality
of everyday life. As transcendencies
— of my actual Here and Now
— of the Other
—of the Other’s life-wo rid, etc.
— they still belonged to the reality of my everyday life-world, as it is
grasped by my commonsense thinking, and were co-constitutive for [3075]
the situation in which I find myself placed in this life-world.
(60) But there are experiences that transcend the finite province of mean
ing of the world of everyday life and refer to other provinces of meaning,
to other realities, or, to use William James’s term, to other subuniverses,
such as the world of scientific theory, of art, religion, myth, politics, but
also of phantasms and dreams. And there is again a specific kind of appre-
sentational references, called symbols, with whose help man tries to
apprehend these transcendent phenomena in a way analogous to the
apprehension of the perceptible world. The study of the essence of these
symbols, however, requires an analysis of the problem of multiple realities.
[3076]
(p. 202)
(61) Professor Charles Morris's critique16 of my concept of the tendency of
experience, the transcendence of experience.
(a) For the most part, the term “transcendency” is linked with experience
(transcendent experience), but at times this is not so (when e.g., there is
mention of the “inaccessible zone of the Other’s private life, which tran
scends my possible experience”). It seems to me that an unnoticed
passage back and forth between the experience of transcendency and the
transcendence of experience obscures the argument at a number of crucial
points.
(b) Connected with this is the question of the relation of transcendence to
marks, indications, signs, and symbols (i.e. to appresentational
relations). Does the experience of transcendence come first and exist
independently of appresentational relations, or is the experience of
transcendence simply the experience of these appresentative relations? I
cannot see that this latter possibility is excluded by the analysis offered
in the pre- [3077] sent paper. But unless it is, [then] the main thesis
of the paper (namely that appresentational references are means of
coming to terms with transcendent experiences of various kinds)
[stands] on insecure ground. And if in the thesis “transcendent experi
ences” are taken to mean “transcendence of experiences,” then it is
difficult to see the sense in which the approach is a phenomenological
one. [3078]
(pp. 202f.)
(62) My answer to Prof Morris
The imperfection of the depiction of the relationship criticized by Prof.
Morris between transcendence and experience must be admitted; likewise
267
APPENDI X
that this problem is fundamental for the entire argumentation. But more is
involved than linguistic imprecision or an equivocal use of the term “tran
scendent experience.”
(It is worth investigating whether the term “transcendent experience” used
in the English version might not best be translated into German as “Tran
szendenzerlebnis,” which consciously sums up the two states of fact
separated by Morris. Indeed, Morris’s problem comes up in the first place
precisely because he understands “experience” in the empirist sense of the
term and not as lived experience. In that case, of course it is possible to
transfer the experience of the transcendent to the experience of appresen-
tational references— for which no particular phenomenological apparatus
would be needed. But if one speaks [3079] of the transcendence of experi
ence and conceives experience in the empirical sense, then the entire term
is absurd.)
(a) To answer the question posed by Prof. Morris, a long analysis of the
problem of constitution would be needed. This would show that there
are various levels of experience (lived experiences). Each of them may
be selected as the basic system of reference, whereupon the other sys
tems then seem transcendent in respect to it. Thus, for example, the
world within my potential (restorable and attainable) reach transcends
the world within my actual reach, once I have selected the latter as
the basic system of reference; likewise, the intersubjective socio-cultural
world transcends that of physical things; and the various “subuniverses”
of science, art, religion, etc. transcend the paramount reality of the
world of everyday life. In brief, transcendencies of this kind are experi
enced (lived) on each level, and man has to come to terms with them
with the help of appresentational references. [3080]
// Certainly badly formulated [Schutz’s marginal comment—
trans.] // What was said above applies, however, only to the lived experi
ence of transcendence. But this is only half the story. It is one of the
basic findings of phenomenological analysis that there are no isolated
and “ready-made” experiences (lived experiences). Each actual experi
ence carries with it its inner and outer horizons, which are more or less
empty; each experience is from the outset “thematic” within a marginal
field. For instance, the actual perception of an object of the outer world
in its particular perspective and adumbration refers, first, to a horizon
of potential aspects of the “same” object in possible, different perspec
tives and adumbrations and, secondly, to other objects constituting the
environment of the perceived thing. Some of these experiences are not
actualized, but merely anticipated as possible actualizations. In this
sense it could be said that any experience (e.g., a sensory one) [3081]
transcends itself, if not otherwise, then by its reference to open
horizons.
In this respect, phenomenological analysis meets with certain
(although unclarified) basic tenets of Gestalt psychology, with William
James’s concept of “fringes,” with Whitehead’s theory of the principle
268
APPENDI X
tional noemic contents, which in turn carry along further horizons of the
same typical style of experience? The noematic content is experienced,
so and not otherwise, in the way it gives itself to me as I find it, but I find
it precisely with its references to what has not yet been or is no longer
experienced, whereby it remains fully undecided whether this is expe-
rienceable or not.
If this is right, then the not-yet or no-longer experienced, whether
it be in principle experienceable or not, is transcendent in respect to the
actual [3085] content of experience, insofar as it goes beyond it, but the
latter, on the other hand, pertains in a typically pre-experienced way to the
actual content of experience: namely that I always experience the content
of experience as transcending itself, when I experience it so and not other
wise than it gives itself. And that I can speak of this empty transcendence
as self-transcending in the same sense as I say that the empty experience of
horizon belongs to the intentional content of the noema as it gives itself to
me in a way of typical pre-experiencedness, making precisely any experi
ence of any content whatsoever into an experience of transcendence—and
that means here not just into an experience of the transcendence of the
content insofar as this must exceed every actually given content by its more
[3086] [or] less empty horizon, but experience of the necessarily transcen
dent character of every experience in general, namely of the necessary
incompleteness and imperfection of every isolated empirical act of experi
ence. In this sense the transcendence of experiencing, as well as the
experiencing of transcendence, corresponds to the Leibnizian definition of
mind as the capacity to progress to ever-new experiences. Spontaneity is, in
general, possible only because not just the content of experience is experi
enced as a self-transcending one by the fact that it is experienced just as it
is, with all its inherent references beyond its actual givenness, but also by
the fact that the act of experiencing, conceived as isolated, [3087] itself
refers forward and backward to other, perhaps performable, perhaps not
performable experiential acts, grounding them all in the unity of con
sciousness whether in Kantian transcendental apperception, or in James’s
“through-and-through-connectedness of the stream of consciousness.”
knowledge. For, what status, and hence what prestige the individual gener
ations have in the social order, will depend on the structure of the
historico-cultural actuality of the respective social order (from ancestral
worship, in which the ancestors perhaps are still members of the social
group, via gerousia [veneration for old age], to the American system of idol
izing youth, and the “Century of the Child”).
Similar considerations, which need not be developed further
here, can, of course, be made in respect to the generation that is younger
than I am. Here, the fact of the transcendency of the Other’s (the younger
person’s) life-world, which arises from the discrepancy between his unex
plicated intentionalities of horizon and mine, as to appresentations relative
to the [4004] same typical situation, but more or less typically filled, which
are now “wakened,” would give occasion to an explanation of the basic
paradox of all education: We can present recipes and other solutions
always just to the extent that typical prior experiences have been stored in
advance in our stock of knowledge and are appresentationally evocable,
i.e., are more or less filled, whereas the pupil must still anticipate in an
empty fashion precisely these problems and developments (solutions) which
we have already experienced. In a word, we can provide him only with
knowledge of what has typically been confirmed or not confirmed in our
life—whereas he has to live not our life but his. The “same” or “typically
analogous” situation is, however, still radically understood, depending on
whether (in the older person) previous experiences are “wakened” appre
sentationally or only (in the younger one) empty intentionalities of horizon
implied or perhaps explicable. One of the younger person’s problems will
always be: (1) Which of these intentionalities of horizon are questionable?
But mainly, (2) which are worth questioning? This would result in [4005] a
philosophy of educability and education, which as far as I know has not
yet been undertaken in this sense. The main goal of the education of the
younger person is to learn to typify “correctly,” to learn techniques of
appresentational “wakening,” methods of diagnosing the questionable, but
especially to determine supervening motivational, thematic, and interpreta-
tional systems of relevance for the purpose of:
(a) Determining the value of questioning and the conditions under which
the concrete problem is to be regarded as sufficiently solved for the
present purpose;— in “adult education,” an important distinction is that
not just definition of the situation, but its empty and explicated hori
zons, are shared by the teachers and pupils, who belong to the same
generation, in terms of the socially approved and derived schemes of
relevance, including the derived typifications and methodological rules
governing the posing and solving of problems. [No (b) follows—tram.]
But all this is a digression that is perhaps worth expanding [4006]
In summary, with respect to the first alternative to the second question
raised by Morris— whether the experience of transcendence comes “first”
and exists independently of the appresentational relations— it must be said:
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APPENDI X
(1) The question is meaningfully answerable only insofar as the lived expe
rience of transcendence grounds all appresentations.
(2) The original lived experience of transcendence—can be cleared up only
ontologically, [no] longer phenomenologically.
(3) This original lived experience of transcendence is my aging in its fini-
tude, i.e. the constant enrichment of intentionalities of horizon with the
frontier of their complete break-off—death.
(4) This primary experience (transcendence of the world beyond my life’s
end— transcendence of the world, which, while as such transcending my
life, still belongs to my life-world) has immanent correlates in the life-
world. The most important of the same are:
(a) falling asleep, awakening;
(b) “turning away”;
(c) the Other (as outliving me and outlived by me) and his world, including
the problem of the generations.
In all these correlates, the phenomena of appresentative awakening are
detectable in their typical style. [4007]
On the Second Alternative to Prof. Morris's Second Question:
Relation of transcendence to marks, indications, sign, and symbol. Is the
experience of transcendence simply the experience of these appresenta-
tional relations?
In my answer to Prof. Morris, I answered this question emphatically
with “no”— perhaps too emphatically, in any case not clearly enough. I
did, however, admit that experiences of the transcendental can be “mas
tered” (one can come to terms with them) only with the help of
appresentational references. But what is this supposed to mean?
‘To come to terms with’ could mean, first, articulation into the stock
of experience, therefore (at least analogical) understanding; achievement
of knowledge, what transcends, how it essentially transcends, where the
empty place is.
Further: how the unknowable can be analogously—appresentation-
ally interpreted through the knowable and thus, although withdrawn from
our power, be understood as an ontological determination of all powers
and as an open framework of the same constitutive intentionalities; in this
sense: determination of its validity-for-me.
Appresentation, however, here goes its particular ways in that every
transcendence has its particular typical style of “coming-to-terms” by analo
gous appresentation. [4008] But the point of departure for analogous
appresentation is always the life-world correlate emerging by passive “wak
ening,” by the lived experience of transcendence. See above examples (a)
to (c) for such correlates (e.g. Sleep— analogy with death, “wakened”
by experiencing the transcendence of death; vice versa: sleep [as] starting
member— appresenting member— of the pairing once established is
grasped through death— as appresented member— taken as the limit of
sleep, namely as sleep without reference to the horizon of awakening, as
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AP P ENDI X
life, food; sky: not just the place where celestial bodies appear and
disappear, but the place from which the rain comes, without which the
earth would not be fertile.
On the other hand, the head [is] the carrier of the main sense
organs; the organ of breathing and speech [is] on the upper part of the
human body; the digestive and sexual organs [are on the] lower part.
Therefore symbolic dimensions of up and down:
China: head-sfry- roof; fertilization by rain; male, positive, yang
foot-earth-Hoor; fertilized by rain, female, negative, yin.
Correlates of higher and lower in Chinese [exist in] medicine,
music, dance, social hierarchy, etiquette—and can all be brought into
symbolic interrelation.
Similarly: before (things that are visible and seen, and which one
can face up to) and behind (invisible, therefore poten
tially dangerous things).
Right-left symbolism
(b) Movements of sun-moon-stars, rising and setting fix the direction for
orientation; first 2, then 4 world regions; these have symbolic meaning
as a result of their relation to day/night, light/dark, waking/sleep,
visible/invisible, coming-to-be/passing-away.
Man’s life-cycle—childhood, age, etc. [has its] analogy in the
seasons and the cycle of plant and animal life and its meaning for hunt
ing, fishing, [4020] cattle-raising and again independently of the
movement [of] heavenly bodies.
Sub- and super-ordination in the social world. Consequently:
cosmos, individual, social community form a unity, equally subject to
universal forces that govern all events.
(c) Man has to understand these forces and, because he cannot dominate
them, he must conjure and appease them. He cannot do this alone, but
only in community with others; it is a matter for the group and its
organization.
Symbolic forms, in which the forces of both nature and society
are symbolized, e.g. mana, orenda, manitu, yin-yang, gods and their hierar
chies; even the following can be symbols:
Expressive, purposive, mimetic movements (Snell); linguistic or
pictorial presentations; amulets, magic articles, magical or religious rites,
ceremonies, etc. Mythical symbols have, according to Malinowski, the par
ticular f unction of justif ying and vouching for the truth and validity of the
order established by the other symbolic systems. [4021]
(Symb 182)
(74) (d) Snell (Origin of Language) cites as proof that on this level the sacred
and the profane are closely interwoven: p. 150f. “Everything that is active
is originally conceived as a deity. Many things carry the name of a deity
which will later on be designated by an abstract term. Not only what is
active in nature, such as the sun, the cloud, the lightning, the earth, the
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APPENDI X
tree, the river, is to the primeval mind a divine being, but also everything
that acts within man, within the individual (such as love, fighting spirit,
prudence), or within the community (such as peace, law, fortune or war,
injustice and all forms of disaster). . . . but the question whether the sun
was experienced first as a “thing” and thereafter interpreted in the mythi
cal way, or whether first the noun denoting the thing or the name of the
deity existed, is as wrongly put as the question whether the river or the
river god existed first. The acting phenomena of nature are just divine. . . .
It is meaningless to ask whether Eros was first a god or the emotion of
love, since the emotion of love is apprehended as an intervention of the
deity.”20
Voegelin quote from The New Science of Politics p. 2721 [4022]
(S. 186/MR 533).
(76) Multiple Realities;
William James's subuniverses; finite provinces of meaning
In Principles y Vol. II, Ch. 21, William James analyzes our sense of reality.
Reality, he states, means simply relation to our emotional and active life.
The origin of all reality is subjective: Everything that arouses our interest is
real. To call an object real means that this object stands in a certain relation
to us. “In short, the word real is a fringe.” Our first impulse is to affirm
the immediate reality of everything thought, as long as it remains uncon
tradicted. But there are several, probably an infinite number of various
orders of reality, each with its own particular style of existence. James calls
them subuniverses and names as examples the sensory world or the world
of physical things (as the paramount reality); the world of science; the
world of ideal relations; the world of idols; the various supernatural worlds
of mythology and religion; the various worlds of individual opinions: the
world of the insane. [4023]
William James's subuniverses, continued
“Each world whilst it is attended to is real after its own fashion; only the
reality lapses with the attention.”22 “All propositions, whether attributive or
existential, are believed through the very fact of being conceived, unless
they clash with other propositions believed at the same time, by affirming
that their terms are the same as the terms of these other propositions.”23
[4024]
(77) W. James, Finite Provinces of Meaning, continued
Many other examples could be cited.
The play-world of the little girl, as long as it is undisturbed, is her reality.
She is “really” the mother and her doll her child.
Only from the point of view of the outer world is the knight in
Dürer’s print a pictorial presentation in the neutrality modification. In the
world of the work of art, i.e. in this case, of pictorial imagination, knight,
death, and devil have “real” existence as entities within the meaning prov
ince of artistic fantasy.
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AP P ENDI X
While the play lasts, Hamlet is to us really Hamlet and not Lawrence
Olivier, “playing” or “portraying” Hamlet. [4025]
(p. 187)
(78) Interpretation of James's concept of subuniverses as finite provinces of meaning
Need to detach W. James’s ingenious theory from its psychological setting.
Instead of speaking of subuniverses we speak of finite provinces
of meaning, upon which we bestow the accent of reality. This change in
terminology is supposed to emphasize that reality is constituted by the
meaning of our experiences and not by the ontological structure of the
objects. Each finite province of meaning has its own particular style of
cognition (of lived experience?): The paramount world of the real outer
objects and events into which we can gear operatively by our actions (and
which we thus change), the world of imagination and fantasies, such as the
play-world of the child, the world of the insane, but also the world of the
work of art, the world of dreams, the world of theoretical-scientific contem
plation— each of them has its own inherent cognitive style. It is this
particular cognitive style, peculiar to a set of our experiences, which consti
tutes them into a finite province of meaning. All experiences within each
of these worlds are, with respect to their cognitive style, compatible with
one another (although not [4026] compatible with the meaning of everyday
life). Moreover, each of these finite provinces of meaning is, among other
things, characterized by a specific tension of consciousness (from full
awakeness in the reality of the everyday life-world to sleep in the world of
dreams) by a specific time-perspective, by a specific mode of experiencing
one’s own self, and, finally, by a specific form of experiencing the Other
(sociability, sociality).
(Here add A. Gurwitsch.)
According to his presentation of my theory, every finite province of mean
ing is characterized by
1. a specific tension of consciousness, including the attention à la vie
founded on it
2. a specific epochë
3. a dominant form of spontaneity
4. a specific form of self-experience
5. a specific form of sociality
6. a specific time-perspective [4027]
reality, while here it is the totality called the reality of our everyday
of the life-world. It must be pre life. (Here reference is made to the
cisely thought through, how— if at analyses undertaken in (59)). We
all— this change could influence have seen (in 59) that the reality of
Gurwitsch’s critique. our everyday world, which our
commonsense thinking simply takes
for granted, includes not only phys
ical objects, facts, and events
perceived as such within our actual
or potential reach in the merely
apperceptual scheme, but also
appresentational references of a
lower order by which the physical
objects of nature are transformed
into socio-cultural objects. [4028]
But since these appresentations of a lower order also contain objects, facts,
and events of the outer world as their appresenting members, we believe
that our definition is compatible with that of James.
We also agree with Santayana “that the spirit can never possess,
much less communicate, ideas without a material means and a material
occasion. The tongue must move; the audible conventional word must
come to the lips and reach a ready ear; the hands, with tools or plans in
them must intervene to carry the project out.” [4029]
(Symbol 188)
(80) What makes the world of everyday life the paramount reality
(a) We constantly participate (live) in it, even during our dreams, by means
of our bodies, which are themselves things in the outer world; (refer
ence: Gurwitsch pp. 3 3 Iff. Merleau-Ponty: Phen. Perc. Part I, I-IV
(b) The objects of the outer world delimit our free possibilities of action
and [do so] by offering resistances which must be overcome, if they can
be overcome (Reference: Scheler: Erkenntnis und Arbeit, Maine de Biron)
(c) The world of everyday life is the realm into which we gear by our bod
ily activities and (which we) can change thereby;
(d) (this is just one corollary to the preceding points)
Within this realm, and only within this realm, we can communicate with
our fellowmen and thus establish a common comprehensive [communica
tive] environment in the sense of Husserl (Ideas II. Paragraph 50, 51).
[4030]
(81) Socialization of other finite provinces of meaning
The statement that communication with others can take place only within
the paramount reality of everyday life does not mean that other finite
provinces of meaning are incapable of socialization. To be sure, some finite
provinces of meaning, such as that of dreams and (to a certain degree) of
daydreams, cannot be shared with others. But there are others, such as the
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AP P ENDI X
even more, this reality seems to us to be the natural one, and we are [not]
ready to abandon our attitude toward it, unless a specific shock experience
compels us to break through the limits of this finite province of meaning
and to shift the accent of reality to another one.
Such shock experiences, however, befall us frequently in the midst
of our daily life; they themselves pertain to its reality.
Examples: The curtain in the theater;
Contemplation of a framed image;
Falling asleep;
The Kierkegaardian leap into the religious sphere;
[the assumption] of a theoretical attitude.
[4035]
On the other hand it must be emphasized that the consistency and compat
ibility of experiences with respect to their peculiar cognitive style subsists
merely within the borders of the particular finite province of meaning to
which these experiences belong and upon which the accent of reality was
bestowed. By no means must that which is compatible within the finite
province of meaning P be also compatible within the finite province of
meaning. On the contrary, seen from P, which is supposed to be real, Q
and all the experiences belonging to it appear merely fictitious, inconsis
tent, and incompatible, and vice versa.
Here is a further realm of application for Bergson’s theory of the
multiple orders. [4036]
(Symbol 190/191)
(85) Examples of the fictitious character of the everyday life-world, regarded with the
help of systems of symbols pertaining to other finite provinces of meaning, supposed
to be real.
Example (1): Science
Reference to Whitehead’s statement on ideally isolated systems (see § 72)
Ph. Frank quotation from “Foundations of Physics.”
Herman Weyl quotations.
These statements show clearly that scientific theory represents a finite
province of meaning that uses symbols which appresent realities within this
field and—quite rightly, of course— works with them according to the prin
ciple that their validity and utility is completely independent of any
reference to the commonsense thinking of everyday life and its realities.
[4037]
(Symbol 192)
(86) Example 2: Poetry
T. S. Eliot on Dante: Selected Essays (1917-32, N.Y. 1932 pp. 199-241, 200,
201, 204.24
“Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood. . . . Words have
associations, and the group of words in association have associations, which
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A P P E N D I X
Further, Goethe to W. Humboldt on the Märchen May 27, 1796: “It was
rather difficult to be at the same time significant (bedeutend) but without
interpretation (deutungslos) ”25
The two terms show the poet’s insight into the fact that within
the finite province of meaning of the work of art the interrelationship of
the symbols as such is the essence of the poetic content and that it is
unnecessary and even harmful to look for the referential scheme that the
appresenting elements would symbolize, if they were indeed objects of the
world of daily life. But their connection with these objects has been cut off;
the use of the appresenting elements is just a means of communication;
whereas poetry communicates by using ordinary colloquial language, the
ideas symbolized by this language are real entities within the finite province
of poetical meaning. They have [turned], to use an expression of Jaspers’s,
[4039] into “ciphers” for transcendent experiences to be understood by
those who have the existential key to them. And in this sense—and only in
this sense—says Jaspers (III/p. 25) “The symbol establishes communion
without communication.”26
(Jaspers should be worked through precisely, particularly Vol. Ill, Chap. 4)
[4040]
(Symbol 193)
(87) Dependence of appresentational references on the social environment
This is a main problem of any genuine sociology of knowledge that does
not misunderstand its task.
(25) ff. We must start again from the experience of the reality of
everyday life, which is itself permeated with appresentational references. In
our discussion of the concepts of “marks” [“markings”] and “indications,”
we assumed for the sake of clearer presentation that a supposedly isolated
individual has to map out the world within his reach. In truth, man finds
himself from the outset in surroundings already mapped out for him by
others, i.e. premarked, preindicated, presignified, and even presymbolized.
Thus, his biographical situation in everyday life is always a historical one
because it was co-constituted by the socio-cultural process that had contrib
uted to the actual configuration of its environment, f4041 ]
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A P P E N D I X
(Symbol 195)
(91) What is worthwhile and what is necessary to communicate
depends, on the other hand, on the typical problems of a practical and
theoretical nature that have to be solved. These will be different depending
on whether they involve men or women,
young or old persons,
hunters or fishermen,
in general they will be different for the various social roles assumed by the
members of the language community.
Each kind of activity has its particular relevance aspects for the
performer and requires a set of particular technical terms. This is based on
the social distribution of knowledge. Each of us has precise and distinct knowl
edge only about that particular field in which he is an expert. Among
experts, a certain technical knowledge is taken for granted, but exactly this
technical knowledge is inaccessible to the layman. Certain things can be
supposed as well-known and self-explanatory, whereas others need an
explanation, depending upon whether I talk to a person of my own [4046]
sex, age, or occupation, or to somebody [not] sharing a common social
situation with me, or whether I talk to a member of my family, a neighbor,
or to a stranger, a partner or a nonparticipant in a particular venture,
etc. W. James already observed that a language does not merely consist in
the content of an ideal dictionary and an ideally complete and arranged
grammar. The dictionary gives only the “kernels” of the meanings of
words, which are surrounded by “fringes” of every kind: some originating
in the speaker’s personal use of this word; others originating in the context
of the speech in which the term is used; still others depending upon the
addressee of my speech or the situation in which the speech occurs, or the
purpose of the communication, and, finally, upon the problem to be
solved. [4047]
(Symbol 196)
(92) General application oj these statements to appresentational rejerences of
every kind
What has been stated about language holds good in general for appresen
tational references. In communication or in social intercourse each
appresentational reference, if socially approved, constitutes merely a kernel
surrounded by fringes of the kind described. [4048]
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AP P ENDI X
(94) Summary: to what extent are the relevance systems socially determined?
(1) The unquestioned matrix within which any inquiry starts is socially
determined.
(2) The elements of knowledge which have to be considered as socially
approved and which therefore might be taken for granted, but also those
elements which might become problematic, are traced out by the social
situation.
(3) What procedures of a practical, political, religious, poetic, scientific
kind, i.e. what signs and symbols, are appropriate for dealing with the
problems involved?
(4) The typical conditions under which a problem can be considered ade
quately solved, and the conditions under which further inquiry is broken
off and the results can be incorporated in the stock of knowledge at hand.
This point is of [4051] particular importance for the symbolic references to
myths and to rituals. If the successful connecting of a problem at hand
with a socially approved symbol is considered as its typical solution, then
the appresentational reference thus established continues to function as an
appresenting element of other and higher symbolizations which might be
founded on the problem are deemed typically solved. [4052]
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AP P ENDI X
(Symbol 197)
(95) The Symbolic appresentation of the social world
Point of departure: what has been said under (42), (43):
The social environment of the face-to-face relationship is the center of the
social world. Only in the we-relationship of the surrounding world do the
partners, by their mutual biographical involvement, experience one
another as unique individuals. In all the other dimensions of the social
world— that of contemporaries, predecessors, and successors— a fellowman
is not experienced in his individual uniqueness but in a series of typifica
tions— typical behavior-patterns, typical motives, and typical attitudes, and
in various degrees of anonymity. In social situations of everyday life all
these dimensions are frequently intertwined.
Examples of typifications of the contemporary world that occur in a histori
cal situation, i.e. one co-determined by the world of predecessors, namely
under certain circumstances with respect to the still unfilled empty horizon
of posterity. Nonetheless, in commonsense thinking [4053] we are familiar
with most typifications which (all these) [occur] in the social life-world,
indeed [they are even] taken for granted. How is that possible?
(96) In commonsense thinking we experience the social world on two levels of
appresentational references:
(I) We experience individual fellowmen and their cogitations as realities
within the world of everyday life. They are within our actual or potential
reach, and through communication we share with them a common compre
hensive environment, or at least we could potentially share such a world
with them. Although we can apprehend these individual fellowmen and
their mental experiences only analogously through the above-described
(38ff.) system of appresentational references, and in this sense the world of
the other transcends mine; but this is an “immanent transcendence” [4054]
still within the reality plane of the life-world. Consequently, both members
belong to the pair of the corresponding appresentational relation through
which we apprehend this transcendence, and belong to the same finite
province of meaning, the paramount reality.
(II) Social collectivities and institutionalized social relations are, on the con
trary, not real entities within the province of meaning of the everyday life-
world but constructs of commonsense thinking that belong to a different
subuniverse, perhaps that which W. James called the subuniverse of ideal
relations. For this reason, we can apprehend them only symbolically; but
the symbols appresenting these entities themselves pertain to the para
mount reality of the life-world and motivate our actions within it. [4055]
(Symbol 198)
(97) Symbolic experience of social collectivities
We are all in the same situation as Anatole France’s Crainquebille: the state
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APPENDI X
(102) The manifestations of human spontaneity in the outer world and some of its
modifications
What does the term “action” mean, and how does man with the natural
attitude experience his own actions within and upon the world and toward
it? Obviously, actions are manifestations of spontaneous life. But neither
are all manifestations of spontaneous life actions, nor does the actor expe
rience all his actions as bringing about changes in the outside world. [4069]
( 105) Are there, in the sense of this definition, any subjective experiences of my
spontaneous life that are not meaningful?
The answer is yes. There are physiological reflexes, such as the knee-jerk,
the contraction of the pupils, blinking, blushing; moreover, certain positive
reactions provoked by what Leibniz called accumulations of [in]discernible
and confused small perceptions; furthermore, my body stance, my gait, my
facial expression, my moods, those manifestations of my spontaneous life
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AP P ENDI X
(107) Wide-Awakeness
denotes a plane of consciousness of highest tension originating in an atti
tude of full attention to life and its requirements. Only in performances
and working acts is the self fully interested in life and, hence, wide-awake.
It lives within its acts and its attention is exclusively directed to implement
ing the project. This attention is an active, not a passive one. In passive
attention, I experience, e.g., the “surf” of [injdiscernible small perceptions
that are essentially actual experiences and not meaningful manifestations
of spontaneity. Meaningful spontaneity may— to vary Leibniz—be defined
as the effort to arrive at ever-new perceptions. In its lowest form it leads to
the delimitation of certain perceptions transforming them into appercep
tions; in its highest form it leads to performances or to a working that
gears into the outer world and modifies it.
The concept of wide-awakeness is the starting point for a legitimate
pragmatic interpretation [4078] of our cognitive life.
(Reread:
Scheler Cognition-work,
G. E. Moore, Critique of pragmatism
W. James in Phil. Studien)
The state of full awakeness of the working self traces out that segment of
the world which is pragmatically relevant, and these relevances30 in turn
determine the form and content of our stream of consciousness; the form,
because they regulate the tension of our memory and therewith the scope
of our past experiences recollected and of our future experiences antici
pated; the content, because all these experiences undergo modifications by
the preconceived project and its being carried into effect.
This leads to analysis of the time dimension in which the working
self experiences its own acts. [4079]
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AP P ENDI X
(M R 538)
(108) Time perspectives of the acting self
Distinction between action and act: life in the action-in-progress, directed
toward the state to be brought about versus reflection on the experience of
action— to stop and think— in which however I can grasp not acting (modo
praesenti), but only act on past initial phases of action that is still going on
(modo praeterito). (Here add an answer to Schaff’s critique of my theory.
(p. 539,— Und paragraph.) “That does not mean that only completed acts
are meaningful, but not ongoing action. We have to remember that on the
basis of our definition, action is always based on a preconceived project and
that it is this preconceived project that makes meaningful both our action
and the act.”) [4080]
(M R 539)
( 109) Time-structure of the projected action in general
Dewey: Projecting (conceiving) is a rehearsal of my future action, that is,
the future act modo futuri exacti [in the Future Perfect Tense]. This anticipa
tion is empty; it may or may not be fulfilled by the act once it is performed.
The act once performed is free of empty anticipations. Nothing is unde
cided or unsettled. To be sure, I may remember the open anticipations
involved in projecting the act and even the protentions accompanying my
living in the ongoing phases of the process of my acting. But now, in
retrospection, I remember them as past anticipations, which have or have
not come true. Only the performed act, therefore, and never the action in
progress can be a success or a failure. [4081]
tion to the spatial or cosmic time and our working actions partake of both
time-dimensions. In other words, we experience (live) our working action
in simultaneity as a series of events in outer and inner time, whereby the
two dimensions are united in a single flux which shall be called the “vivid
present.” The vivid present originates, therefore, at the intersection of
inner duration and cosmic time. [4083]
(M R 540)
(111) The self-experience of the self in the vivid present
The I, living in the vivid present in its ongoing working acts, directed
toward the objects and objectives to be brought about by its working, the
self experiences itself as the originator of this ongoing action and, thus, as
an undivided total self. It experiences its bodily movements from within
and lives in the correlated essentially actual lived experiences, which are inaccessible to
all recollections and reflections: its world is a world of open anticipations. The
working self, and it alone, experiences all this modo praesenti, and experienc
ing itself as the author of these working acts, it realizes itself as a unity.
// Is this also right? Is the “and it alone” not an overstatement? [Schutz’s
marginal comment—trans.] //
But if the self in a reflexive attitude turns back to its past working
acts and looks at them modo praeterito, this unity goes to pieces. The self
[4084] that performed the past acts is no longer the undivided total self,
but rather a partial self, the performer of this particular act, that refers to
a system of correlated acts to which it belongs. This partial self is merely
the taker of a role, or, to use a rather equivocal term that W. James and
G. H. Mead introduced into the literature: it is not an “I” but a “Me.”
(Perhaps a digression on G. H. Mead in the sense of an expanded
footnote 10, p. 541.)
For our purposes it is enough to refer to the fact that the inner experience
of our bodily movements, the essentially actual experiences, and the open
anticipations escape from reflective advertence, to clarify adequately that
the past self can never be more than a partial aspect of the total self that
experiences itself in its ongoing working. [4085]
(M R 541)
(112) Performance and working
Main structural distinction: In the case of a mere performance, such as the
attempt to solve a mathematical problem “in one’s head,” I can, if my antic
ipations are not fulfilled and I am not dissatisfied with the result, simply
cancel the whole process of mental operations and start again from the
beginning. Nothing has changed in the outside world, and no vestige of
the annulled process remains. Mere mental acts are, in this sense, revoca
ble. Working, on the contrary, is irrevocable. Its result has changed the
outside world. At best, I may restore the initial situation by a countermove,
but I cannot make undone what I have done. This is why from the moral
and legal point of view I am responsible for my deeds but not for my
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AP P ENDI X
thoughts. But that is also the reason [4086] why I have the freedom of
choice between several possibilities merely with respect to the mentally pro
jected work, but not with respect to the past, i.e. only before the work has
been carried through in the outer world or, at least, while it is being car
ried through in vivid present and therefore can still be modified. For the
past, there is no choice. If I have realized my work completely or at least in
part, then I have chosen what I did once and for all, and now I have to
bear the consequences. I cannot choose what I wish I had done. [4087]
(M R 542)
(113) The social structure of the life-world
Implications of the intersubjective structure of the life-world
(a) not my private [world], but common “to all of us”;
(b) there exist fellowmen with whom I can enter into manifold social rela
tionships: I act upon them, as they act upon me;
(c) especially important: intermeshing of the in-order-to and
because-motivations;
(d) all communication is founded upon working relation.
I have to set in motion events or produce objects in the outer world that
the Other is supposed to interpret as signs of what I mean to convey.
Gestures, speech, writing point back to bodily movements.
The behavioristic interpretation goes wrong by identifying the vehicle with
the meaning. [4088]
(114) The pure tuning-in relationship and synchronization of duration
Two types of relation between communicator and the interpreter:
(1) The finished result of the Other’s communicative action is given to me
for interpretation. Example: road sign or tool.
(2) I participate interpretatively in the ongoing process of the Other’s com
municative action. Example: speech, letter; ad (2) polythetic performance
of the meaning-positing acts; simultaneous with the polythetic performance
of working— perception of the phases of the latter in full simultaneity,
synchronously with polythetic performance of interpreting.
Two durations synchronized through mediation of the simultaneous
process of working in the outside world.
In other words: communication takes place in the vivid present
(speech) (see 110) or quasi-present (I read a letter).
(To be noted and analyzed, how— from the speaker’s point of
view— the meaning of the communication is monothetically precon
ceived while the monothetically interpreted meaning is revealed to
the interpreter only after performance of the polythetic acts of
interpretation and only as their result.) [4089]
Whereas the setting of meaning presupposes working, interpreta
tion of meaning is a mere performance (105).
Based on the speech act that unreels in outer time, the listener does
300
APPENDI X
(M R 543)
(115) Dimensions of the social world and their time perspectives
(a) common time—common space;
The Other’s body as an expressional field given to me for interpre
tation—although what I interpret as expression must by no means have
been meant as an expressive announcement.
// It can therefore be mere conduct (versus action), perhaps even
just a reflex devoid of meaning. [Schutz’s marginal comment—
trans. ] //
Cassirer on expression, reproduction, concept
Snell on purpose, expression, imitation
Marty on giving and receiving information
Here the Other’s bodily appearance with all manifestations of his spontane
ity is an element of the one’s surrounding world, and vice versa; further,
both participate in the Other’s extra-worldly operational acts.
Finally, the partner can be grasped as an undivided self in his bod
ily presence, whereas I can look at my own self only modo praeterito and
therefore can grasp only the Me as a partial aspect of my self (myself in
this or that role). Definition of the thou as that self which can be grasped
in its totality modo praesenti. [4091]
Derived social relations:
(i) The gradations of the contemporary world;
(ii) Predecessors;
(iii) Successors;
They are all characterized by the fact that in none of these derived social
forms is the Other accessible to the partner as a unity (in his totality): He
appears merely as a partial self, as the originator of these or those actions
in which I do not participate in a vivid present.
Therefore to each type of derived social relationship belongs a
particular type of time-perspective that is derived from the vivid present.
E.g. the quasi-present in which I interpret the outcome of the Other’s
communicative acts without myself having participated in the ongoing per
formance of this action: the written letter, the printed book.
The time-dimension that links me with “contemporaries” (fellow
men); The historical time, in which I experience the actual present as the
outcome of past events, etc., etc. [4092]
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AP P ENDI X
IMPORTANT!
All of these time perspectives can be referred to a vivid present: my
own actual or former one or the actual or former vivid present of my
fellowman, with whom, in turn, I am connected in an originary or derived
vivid present; all this in the most varied modes of potentiality or quasi
actuality, each type having its own forms of temporal augmentation and
diminution and its appurtenant style of “omissions” (“skippings”) in a direct
move or a “knight’s move.”
There are furthermore the different forms of overlapping and
interpenetration of these different time-perspectives, their being put into
and out of operation by a shift from one to the other or by a transforma
tion of one into the other; finally, different types of synthesizing,
combining, isolating, and disentangling them. Manifold as these different
time-perspectives and their mutual relations are, they all originate in an
intersection of durée and cosmic time. [4093]
(M R 545)
(116) The social standard time
In and by our natural attitude in the social life-world, the time-perspectives
characterized at the end of (115) are apprehended as one single suppos
edly homogeneous dimension of time not only embracing all the individual
time perspectives of each of us during his wide-awake life but common
to all of us. We shall call it the civic or Standard Time. It too originates at
the intersection between cosmic time and inner time, though as to the
latter, merely a peculiar aspect of inner time enters into the constitution of
standard time: namely that aspect in which the wide awake adult experi
ences his working acts as events in his stream of consciousness. Because
standard time partakes of cosmic time, it can be measured with the help of
our clocks and calendars.
But because [4094] it also coincides with our sense of time in which,
we, if—and only if—we are wide-awake, experience our working acts,
standard time also governs the system of our plans, under which we sub
sume our projects, such as plans for life, for work, and for leisure.
Because, finally, it is common to all of us, the standard time makes an
intersubjective coordination of the different individual plan systems
possible.
As a consequence, to the natural attitude the civic or standard time
is the universal temporal structure of the intersubjective world of our
everyday life in the same sense as the earth is its universal spatial structure
that embraces the spatial environments [of each] of us. [4095]
(117) Orientation schemata and the strata of reality in the everyday life-world
of working
The wide-awake man, with his natural attitude, is primarily interested in
that sector of the world of his everyday life which lies within his scope and
is centered in space and time around himself. The place where I am, my
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APPENDI X
actual Here, is the starting point from which I take my bearing in space. It
is, so to speak, the center 0 of my system of coordinates.
Relatively to my body, I group the elements of my surroundings
under the categories of right, left, above, below, before, behind, near, far,
etc. And similarly my actual Now is the origin of all the time perspectives
under which I organize the events within the life-world according to the
categories of earlier, later, past, future, simultaneity, succession, etc.
Within this basic scheme of orientation, however, the world of work
ing is structurized in various strata of reality. G. H. Mead [4096] has the
merit of having analyzed the reality structure at least of physical objects in
its relationship to human action, especially to the manipulation of these
objects with the hands. What he called the manipulatory area constitutes the
core of the reality of the life-world. This area includes those objects that
can be both seen and handled, in contradistinction to the area of distant
objects that cannot be experienced by contact but still lie in the visual field.
Only experiences of physical things within the manipulatory area permit
the “basic test of reality,” namely the experience of resistance; only they
define what Mead called the “standard size” of things that appear outside
the manipulatory area in the distortions of optical perspectives.
On this: Maine de Biran
Scheler
Mead: Philosophy of the Present, pp. 124ff.
Philosophy of the Act, pp. 103-106, 12Iff., 151, 190-192,
196-197, 282-284 [4097]
(M R 546)
(118) Manipulatory area and distant area in the life-world
Mead’s theory of the manipulatory area as core reality of the life-world
coincides with our view that the world of our working, of body movements,
of manipulating objects and handling things and men constitutes the spe
cific reality of our life-world. For our purposes, however, the Meadian
distinction between manipulatory and distant area (which is important in
other respects) should not be overestimated. It can be shown that this
dichotomy originates in Mead’s behavioristic basic position and in the cor
responding application of the stimulus-response scheme.
We, on the other hand, are concerned with the natural attitude of
the wide-awake grown-up man in the life-world, who always has at his
disposal a stock of previous experiences, among them the notion of dis
tance as such and of the possibility of overcoming distance by acts of
working, namely locomotions. In the natural attitude the visual perception
[4098] of a distant object implies, therefore, the anticipation that the dis
tant object can be brought into manipulative contact-proximity by
locomotions, in which case the distorted perspective of the objects will
disappear and their standard size be restored. This anticipationmay—like
any other— be [confirmed] by supervening actual experience. Its refutation
by experience would mean that the distant object does not pertain to the
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AP P ENDI X
world of our working. A child may [try] to grasp the stars with its hand. To
the grown-up with the natural attitude, the shining points lie outside the
sphere of his working, even when he uses their position as a means for
finding his bearings.
To be considered: the problem of accessibility as essential for reach.
In addition empowering; also implementability. Economic commodi
ties and the principle of scarcity. [4099]
(119) The world within my reach
For our purposes, the stratum of the world of working that the individual
experiences as the core of reality will be called the world within his reach.
This includes not only Mead’s manipulatory area but all things within the
range of sight and hearing, moreover not only the realm of the world open
to his actual operation but also adjacent realms open to his potential work
ing. Of course, these realms have no rigid frontiers; rather, they have
“halos” and open horizons, and these are subject to modifications of inter
est (of relevance) and attentional attitudes.
It is clear that the whole system of the world within my reach
undergoes changes by any of my locomotions; by displacing my body I
shift the center 0 of my system of coordinates, and this alone changes all
values of the coordinate numbers pertaining to this system. [4100]
(M R 547)
(120) Modifications of reach: their time-character
We may say that the world within my actual reach belongs essentially to the
present tense. The world within my potential reach shows a far more com
plicated time-structure. At least two zones of such potentiality have to be
distinguished:
(1) The first refers to the past: what was formerly within my reach can, so
I assume, be brought back into my actual reach again (the world within my
restorable reach). This assumption is based upon the general idealizations of
“And so on” and “I can always do it again,” the latter being a correlate
of the former. (Although Husserl states this in this way, it must still be
examined whether “I can always do it again” is not an independent ideali
zation and the only one of the two that is required for the constitution
of the world within my restorable reach, whereas on the contrary the “And
so on” at least horizonwise points to a reach to be achieved in the future.
[4101]
Example: The shifting of the center 0 of my system of coordinates
has turned my former Here to a There. But under the idealization of “I
can always do it again” I assume that I can retransform the actual There
into a new Here. My past world within my reach has under this idealiza
tion the character of a world that can be brought back again within my
reach. Thus, for instance, my former manipulatory area continues to func
tion in my present as a potential manipulatory area in the mode of There
and has now as such a specific chance of restoration (restorability).
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APPENDI X
(2) As the first zone of potentiality is related with the past, so is the second
one based on anticipations of the future. Within my potential reach is
also the world that neither is nor ever has been within my actual reach but
is nevertheless attainable under the idealization of “And so on.” [4102]
The most important instance of this second zone of potentiality is the
world within the actual reach of my contemporaneous fellowman. For
example, his manipulatory area does not coincide with mine, or at least
does so only partly, because it is to him a manipulatory area only in the
Here-mode, while for me it is one in the There-mode. Nonetheless it is my
attainable manipulatory area that would become my actual one if I were
in his place, which by appropriate locomotion actually does happen. G. H.
Mead in the essay “The Objective Reality of Perspectives” (Philosophy of
the Present), p. 173, comes a similar conclusion: “Present reality is a possibil
ity. It is what would be if I were there instead of here.”31
For the face-to-face relation it is characteristic that the world within
my reach [4103] and the world within that of my partner but not necessar
ily within his manipulatory area and mine overlap, and that at least a sector
of the world lies within our common reach.
What has just been said applies, accordingly, quite generally to the
world within your, within their, within someone’s reach. This encompasses
not just the world within the Other’s actual reach, but also worlds within
restorable and attainable reach. The system thus extended over all the
different strata of the social world shows all the shades prearranged in the
perspectives of sociality such as intimacy and anonymity, strangeness and
familiarity, social proximity and distance, etc., perspectives that govern my
relations with consociates, contemporaries, predecessors, successors. [4104]
It is enough for our purposes to state that the (contemporary!) social world
is a world within attainable reach and has a specific chance of attainment.
But the chances of restoration, peculiar to the first potential zone of
reach, and of attainment, peculiar to the second one, are by no means
equal. As to the former we have to consider that what is now to me a mere
chance of restorable reach was previously experienced as located within
my actual reach. My past working acts performed, and even merely pro
jected, belonged to the world within my reach. On the other hand, they
are related with my present state of mind, which is what it is only because
the now-past reality was once my present one. The anticipated possible
[4105] actualization of the once-actual world within my reach is, therefore,
founded upon retentions and reproductions of my own past experiences
of fulfillment. The chance of restoring the once-actual reach is, then, a
maximal one.
The second zone of potentiality refers anticipatorily to future states
of my mind. It is not connected with my past experiences, except by the
fact that its anticipations (like all anticipations) originate in the stock of
experiences sedimented out of past experiences and actually at hand.
These prior experiences enable me to weigh the likelihood of carrying out
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AP P ENDI X
Contains: pp. 5 0 0 1 -5 0 4 9
(M R 549)
[5001]
(120) The world of working as paramount (main) reality
It is the world of physical things;
the area of my bodily operations and locomotions;
it offers resistance, to overcome which requires effort;
it places tasks before me, permits me to carry through my plans,
enables me to succeed or to fail in my attempts to attain my
purposes.
By my working acts I gear into this world; I change it; I can test these
changes and have others test them, namely as occurrences within
this objective, intersubjective world, independently of the circum
stance that they were produced through my working acts.
I share this world and its objects with others, with whom I have ends and
means in common.
I work with others with whom I am bound in manifold social relations; I
act upon them and they upon me.
The world of working is that unique reality which makes communication
possible and becomes effective in the interplay of mutual motivation
(my in-order-to, his because-motives, and vice versa).
Therefore it can be experienced under a dual scheme of references: the
causality of motives and the teleology of purposes. [5002]
(121) Interest in the world of working and its relevance structure
To the natural attitude, the world of working is in the first place not an
object of our thought but a held of domination, in which we have an emi
nently practical interest, caused by the necessity of complying with the
basic requirements of our life. But we are not equally interested in all the
strata of the world of working.
The selective function of our interest organizes the world [both] in
temporal [and] in a spatial respect of major or minor relevance. From the
world within my actual or potential reach, [elements] that either are actual
ends or means for the realization of my projects or could become so in
306
307
AP P ENDI X
the future are selected as particularly important, further such as are dan
gerous or enjoyable or otherwise relevant to me or could become so. I
am constantly anticipating the future repercussions I may expect from
these objects and the future changes that my projected working will bring
about in and on these objects. [5003]
(122) What “relevance” means in this context
I am, for instance, with the natural attitude, passionately interested in the
results of my action and especially in the question: which of my anticipa
tions will stand the practical test. Now, however, all anticipations and plans
refer to the stock of experience now at hand, which results from previous
experiences and thus enables me to weigh my chances. But that is only half
the story. What I am anticipating is one thing; another is why I anticipate
certain occurrences at all. What may happen under certain conditions and
circumstances is one problem; another is why I am interested in these
happenings at all and passionately await the outcome of my prophecies.
Only the first element of these dichotomies can be answered by reference
to the stock of experiences at hand as the sediment of previous experi
ences. The second element refers to the system of relevances that governs
the individual with his natural attitude in the everyday life-world. [5004]
(M R 550)
(123) Fundamental anxiety as supreme motive of the relevance system
The whole system of relevances that governs us with the natural attitude is
founded upon the basic experience of every single one of us: I know that
I shall die, and I fear to die. We will call this basic experience the funda
mental anxiety. It is the primordial anticipation from which the others
originate. From the fundamental anxiety spring the many interrelated sys
tems of hopes and fears, of wants and satisfactions, of chances and risks
that incite man with the natural attitude to attempt to master the world, to
overcome obstacles, to design and realize projects.
But the fundamental anxiety itself is merely a correlate of our exis
tence as human beings within the main reality of the world of our daily
life, and, therefore, our hopes and fears and their correlated satisfactions
and disappointments are grounded upon and possible only within the
world of working. They are essential elements of its reality but they do not
refer to [5005] our belief in it. On the contrary, it is characteristic of the
natural attitude that it takes the existence of the world and the objects in it
for granted until a counterproof [imposes itself]. As long as the once-
established scheme of reference, the system of our and other people’s war
ranted experiences, works, i.e. as long as the actions and operations
performed under its guidance yield the desired result, we trust these expe
riences. We are not interested in finding out whether the world really does
exist or whether it is merely a coherent system of consistent appearances.
We have no reason to cast any doubt upon our warranted experiences that,
so we believe, represent things to us as they really are. It needs a special
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AP P ENDI X
(M R 553)
(127) Shock experiences
There are as many innumerable kinds of shock experiences as there are
finite provinces of meaning that can receive the accent of reality.
Examples: falling asleep (cf. Linschoten) as a leap into dream,
the theater curtain rises;
picture frame;
laughter as reaction to wit and involved shift of reality;
toys;
Kierkegaard’s “instant”;
the scientist’s decision for the theoretical attitude.
[5011]
(b) all experiences within this field of meaning are consistent in them
selves and compatible with one another (although not compatible
with the meaning-structure of the life-world);
(c) each of these provinces of meaning can receive a specific accent of
reality (although not that of the life-world).
II. Consistency and compatibility with respect to cognitive style subsist
merely within the borders of the respective finite province of meaning to
which these experiences belong. By no means will that which is compatible
within the finite province of meaning P also be compatible within the finite
province of meaning Q. On the contrary, seen from P, supposed to be real,
Q and all experiences belonging to it appear as merely fictitious, inconsis
tent, and incompatible, and vice versa.
III. For this very reason we are entitled to talk of finite provinces of mean
ing. This finiteness implies [5012] that there is no possibility of referring
one finite province of meaning to another by introducing a formula of
transformation. The passing from one to the other can be performed only
by a “leap,” as Kierkegaard calls it, whose subjective correlate is the shock
experience.
IV. What has just been called a “leap” or a “shock” is nothing else than a
radical modification of the tension of consciousness that results from a
different attention à la vie.
V. To the cognitive style peculiar to each of these finite provinces of mean
ing belongs, thus, a specific tension of consciousness and, consequently,
also a specific epochê, a prevalent form of spontaneity, a specific form of
self experience, a specific form of sociality, and a specific time-perspective.
VI. The life-world of working is the archetype of our experience of reality.
All the other provinces of meaning may be considered as its modifications.
Footnote 19 p. 554
The concept of finite provinces of meaning must not be interpreted static
ally as if we were to regard one of the same as our home to live in, to start
from or to return to. Within a single day, even a single hour, we may run
through a whole series of these provinces by modifying the tension of con
sciousness. There is, furthermore, the problem [5013] of “enclaves”; e.g.
any projecting of working within the life-world is a fantasying and involves
in addition a kind of theoretical, though not scientific, contemplation.
(M R 554)
(129) Tasks of a typology of provinces of meaning
A systematic analysis of groupings of the finite provinces of meaning
according to the constitutive principle of diminishing tension of conscious
ness and diminishing attention to life would show that the more the mind
turns away from life, the larger the slabs of the everyday world of working
are put in doubt; the epochê of the natural attitude that suspends doubt
in the existence of the life-world is replaced by other forms of epochê that
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A P P E N D I X
suspend belief in more and more layers of the reality of daily life, “putting
them in brackets.” In other words a typology of the different finite prov
inces of meaning could start from an analysis of those factors of the world
of daily life from which the accent of reality has been withdrawn because
they no longer stand within the focus of our attention to life. What then
remains outside the brackets can be defined as the quintessence of the
constituent elements of the cognitive style of experience belonging to the
province of meaning thus delimited. It may then obtain another accent
of reality, or, in the language of the archetype of all reality, namely the
world of our daily life— the accent of a quasi-reality. [5014]
(M R 555)
(130) Language as Belonging to the Reality of Daily Life
The last remark reveals a specific difficulty for all attempts at describing
these quasi-realities. It consists in the fact that language—any language—
pertains as communication hat’ exochen to the intersubjective world of work
ing and, therefore, obstinately resists every effort to [make it] serve as
vehicle for meaning relations that transcend its own presuppositions. This
fact leads to the manifold forms of indirect communication some of which
still need to be discussed. Scientific terminology is one example of a special
device to overcome the outlined difficulty within a limited field. (Here
insert the Kierkegaard passage from the “Mozart” essay.) [5015]
(M R 558)
(132) Husserls doctrine of predications of existence and predications of reality in
Experience and Judgment (§74a)
W. James’s doctrine of the uncontradicted reality posited as absolute
(Vol. II p. 289) (Maggie in her stall) is cited, and it is stated that Husserl
came to the same result.
The opposites to the predications of existence: predications of
non-existence.
The opposites to the predications of reality: predications of non-reality,
of fiction.
EU p. 360 “With the natural attitude there is at the outset (before reflec
tion) no predicate ‘real’ and no category ‘reality.’ Only if we fantasy and
pass from the attitude of living in the fantasy (that is the attitude of quasi-
experiencing in all its forms) to the given realities, and if we, thus, trans
gress the single casual fantasying and its phantasm, taking both as
examples for possible fantasying as such and fiction as such, then we obtain
on the one hand the concepts fiction (respectively, fantasying) and on the
other hand the concepts ‘possible experience as such’ and ‘reality.’ [5019]
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AP P ENDI X
We cannot say that he who fantasies and lives in the world of phan
tasms (the ‘dreamer’), posits fictions qua fictions, but he has modified
realities, ‘realities as if,’. . . . Only he who lives in experiences and reaches
from there into the world of phantasms can, provided that the phantasm
contrasts with the experienced, have the concepts fiction and reality”
(Husserl’s italics). [5020]
(133) Boundaries offantasying.
From our analysis of Don Quixote and the Husserl quotation (132) follows:
The compatibilities of experiences that belong to the world of work
ing in everyday life do not subsist within the realm of fantasy; however,
the logical structure of consistency or, in Husserl’s terms, the predications
of existence and non-existence, however, remain valid. I can imagine
giants, magicians, winged horses, centaurs, even a perpetuum mobile; but not
a regular decahedron, unless I stop— as I would have to do in full-
awakeness— at a blind juxtaposition of empty terms. But otherwise: within
the realm of fantasy merely factual, but not logical, incompatibilities can be
overcome.
The corollary of this last statement is the insight that the chances of
attaining and restoring factual situations do not exist in the same sense
within the world of phantasms or within the world of working. What is a
chance in the latter is in the former a conditio potestiva, that is, a circum
stance which to bring or not to bring about is under the control of the
party involved. The imagining individual masters, so to speak, his chances:
he can fill empty anticipations of his fantasy with any content he pleases.
[5021 ] The anticipation of imagined future events stands within his free
discretion.
(M R 559)
(134) Time perspectives of the fantasy worlds
Husserl on the time of the phantasms: Erf Urteil, §§39-42: Phantasms have
no fixed position in objective time; therefore, they are not individualized
and the category of sameness is not applicable to them. The “same”
phantasm may recur within the uninterrupted continuity of one single
fantasying activity the unity of which is warranted by the continuity of
inner time within which this action occurs. But phantasms pertaining to
dif ferent strands of fantasy or— in our terminology— pertaining to differ
ent finite provinces of meaning— cannot be compared as to their sameness
or likeness. It is meaningless to ask whether the witch of one fairy tale is
the same as the witch of another.
For our purposes it is not necessary to follow Husserl into the
depth of the problems of constitutional analysis here involved. Yet it is
important to point out that the imagining self, in his fantasies, can remodel
all the features of standard time except its irreversability. I may, so to
speak, imagine the course of events in slow motion or accelerated time.
Irreversability, [5022] however, eludes any variation by the fantasy because
it originates within the durée that itself is constitutive for all our fantasying
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AP PENDI X
(M R 560)
(137) The world of dreams
Sleep as complete relaxation of consciousness, complete turning away from
life. The sleeping self has no pragmatic interest whatsoever in transform
ing its confused perceptions into clarity and distinctness, in other words
transforming them into apperceptions. But it continues to perceive, to
recollect, to think: Somatic perceptions of its own body, its position, its
weight, its boundaries; perceptions of light, sound, warmth, without any
activity of regarding, listening, attending to them, which alone would make
perceptions into apperceptions. The “small perceptions” remain perceived;
they escape censorship by the attention to life and gain high importance
in the world of dreams. Although they do not become clear and distinct,
but remain in a state of confusion, they are no longer concealed and dis
turbed by the interference of active, pragmatically conditioned attention. It
is, on the contrary, passive attention— and that is the total effect exercised
by the small perceptions upon the intimate center of the personality—
that alone determines the interest of the dreamer and the topics that
become themes of his dreams.
Cf. Freud. [5025]
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AP P ENDI X
The dreaming self neither works nor acts. This is not the case also
for the fantasying self. But the worlds of fantasies are characterized by the
freedom of discretion, whereas the world of dreams lacks such a freedom.
The fantasying self can “arbitrarily” fill its empty protentions and anticipa
tions with any content and, strictly speaking, it is the cases upon which
the fantasying self bestows the accent of reality. It may, as it pleases, inter
pret its chances as lying within its mastery. The dreamer, however, has no
such freedom, neither his own discretion nor arbitrary choice in mastering
the chances, nor the possibility of filling in empty anticipations. The night
mare, for instance, shows clearly the inescapableness of the happening in
the world of dream and the powerlessness of the dreamer to influence it.
This does not, however, mean that the life of dreams is confined
exclusively to passive consciousness. On the contrary, most of activities of
intentionality, as Husserl calls them, subsist, but without being directed
toward objects of the outer world of working and without being steered by
active attention. Yet among these activities there are none of apperceiving
or of volition. The life of dream is without purpose and project.
But does this not contradict Freud’s doctrine of the predominant
role of volitions and instincts within the world of dreams? I do not think
that there is any contradiction. [5026] Actual volitions, actual projects,
actual purposes etc. do not exist in the life of dreams. Whatever volitions,
projects, purposes are found in dreams do not originate in the dreaming
self. What is involved are presentiations (recollections), retentions, and
reproductions of volitive experience that originated within the world of
awakeness. Now they reappear, although modified and reinterpreted
according to the scheme of reference prevailing in the particular type of
dream. We may consider the whole psychoanalytic technique of dream
interpretation as an attempt to refer the contents of the dream to the origi
nary experiences in the world of awakeness in which and by which they
were constituted.
Generally speaking, the world of working or at least fragments of it
are preserved within the world of dreams as recollections and retentions.
In this sense we may say that attention à la vie of the dreamer is directed to
the past of his self. It is an attention in the tense of the past. The contents
of dream life consist primarily in past or past perfect experiences that
are re-interpreted by transforming previously confused experiences into
distinctness, by explicating their implied horizons and looking at their
anticipations in terms of the past and their reproductions in terms of the
future. The sedimented experiences of the world of awakeness are, thus,
so to speak, broken down and otherwise reconstructed, [5027] the self
no longer having any pragmatic interest in keeping together its stock of
experience as a consistently and coherently unified scheme of reference.
But the postulates of the consistency, coherence, and unity of experience
originate in pragmatic motives insofar as they presuppose clear and distinct
apperceptions. These, and even certain logical axioms, such as the princi
ple of identity, do not, for this very reason, hold good in the sphere of
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A P P E N D I X
(M R 564)
(142) The nature of scientific contemplation
It is, within the meaning of our definitions, an action and even a perfor
mance—an “action,” i.e., an emanation of our spontaneous life carried out
according to a project, and a “performance” because the intention to carry
through the project is added.
Thus, scientific theorizing has its own in-order-to and because-
motives; it is planned, and planned within the hierarchy of a system of
plans based on the decision to pursue science. (This action-character of
theorizing alone would suffice to distinguish it from dreaming.) Scientific
thinking is, furthermore, purposive thinking (and this purposiveness alone
would suffice to distinguish it from fantasying). The purpose of scientific
thinking is the intention to solve the problem at hand.
Yet scientific action is not as such working, i.e. it does not gear into
the outer world. To be sure, scientific theorizing is based upon working
(measuring, handling instruments, conducting experiments) and it can be
communicated only by [5033] working acts (delivering lectures, writing
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AP P ENDI X
papers, etc.). All these activities are the precondition or the consequence of
theorizing but they do not belong to the theoretical attitude as such.
Further, we have to distinguish between the scientist qua human
being who lives his daily life among his fellowmen and the theoretical
thinker who is not interested in the mastery of the world but in observing it.
[5034]
(M R 565)
(143) The scientist as “disinterested observer”
A peculiar attention to life [is] the prerequisite of all theorizing. It consists
in the abandoning of the system of relevances that prevails within the prac
tical sphere of the natural attitude. Of course, the whole universe of life is
pregiven even to the theorizing thinker. But whereas for man with the
natural attitude the system of relevancy is determined by his fundamental
anxiety, the theoretical thinker, once having made the “leap” into the disin
terested attitude, is free from fundamental anxiety and all hopes and fears
arising from it.
(Of course, making the leap is itself motivated by fundamental
anxiety. Philosophy [is] a time-tested means of overcoming anxiety. An
immortal being—say an angel of St. Thomas’s— would not need to turn
philosopher. The “leap” into the theoretical attitude can be considered as
the assumption of a peculiar epochë from the fundamental anxiety, putting
it and all its implications in brackets. [5035] Certainly, even the theorizing
thinker has a system of anticipations, which, on the one hand, refers back
to his stock of sedimented knowledge, on the other to its special system
of relevances, which will be discussed later. However, unlike man in the
natural attitude of the life-world, the thinker is not passionately interested
in the question, whether his anticipations are fulfilled in the sense that they
will prove helpful for the solution of his practical problems, but merely in
whether they will stand the test of verification by supervening experiences.
Rightly understood this involves a certain turning away from life and from
the state of wide-awakeness.) [5036]
(M R 566)
(144) Characteristics of theoretical thinking
(a) As mere performance (in contrast with working), it is revocable; it can
be “crossed out.”
(b) It is independent of the world within the reach of thinking; this refers
not to the inaccessibility of data, but to the fact that the thinker “puts in
brackets” his physical existence (the body as center of the system of
coordinates) and thus the entire system of orientation formed around
his body; his personal psycho-physical existence within the world and
this environment. Theoretical problems and their solution have validity
not only for him, but for everyone, everywhere, at all times, wherever
certain acceptable conditions prevail. The leap to the theoretical atti
tude involves the resolution of the individual to suspend his subjective
point of view.
319
AP P ENDI X
(c) In the theoretical attitude, not the complete self “acts” but only a partial
aspect of the same, a “Me,” a taker of a social role, namely the theoreti
cian. He has no “essentially actual” experiences, also none connected
with his own body, its movements, and its limits. [5037]
(M R 567)
(145) Epoche of the theoretical attitude
In this epochë are “bracketed” (suspended) the following:
(1) the subjectivity of the thinker as a man among his fellowmen, including
his bodily existence within the life-world. (But this epochë is made within
the “natural” attitude; in phenomenological reduction even the world of the
epochë is lacking.)
(2) the system of orientation, by which the world of everyday life seems to
be grouped (around my body as center 0) in zones of actual, restorable,
attainable reach, etc.;
(3) the fundamental anxiety and the system of pragmatic relevances origi
nating therein.
But within this sphere, modified in this way (1-3), the life-world of all of us
is preserved as the reality of theoretical contemplation— although not of
practical interest. With the shift of the system of relevances from the prac
tical to the theoretical field all terms referring action and performance
within the world of working, such as ‘plan,’ ‘motive,’ ‘project,’ change their
meaning and receive ‘quotation marks.’ [5038]
(146) The system of relevances within the theoretical attitude
originates in a voluntary act of the scientist: the stating of the problem. There
with the more or less empty anticipation of its solution is set up as the
supreme goal of the scientific activity, but simultaneously also that sector or
those elements of the world are defined which are actually or potentially
related to it or relevant to its solution. Henceforth, the field thus circum
scribed as relevant will guide the process of inquiry: it will, first of all,
determine the level of the research. (The term ‘level’ [Tiefenschicht] is just
another expression for the demarcation line between all that does and does
not pertain to the problem under consideration. The former are the topics
to be investigated, explicated, clarified; the latter the other elements of
the stock of knowledge at the scientist’s disposal, which he decides to
accept in their unexamined givenness [— ] as irrelevant to his problem [— ]:
the so-called “data.” In other words, the demarcation line is the [— ] geo
metrical [— ] locus of all points which are of current interest to the scientist
and at which he has decided to stop or break off further research.) [5039]
Second, the stating of the problem, once done, determines its open hori
zons, the outer horizon of the other related problems, which will have
to be stated later, and the inner horizon of all the implications hidden
within the problem itself, which have to be explicated in order to solve it.
This decision of the scientist that leads to the stating of the problem
is, however, by no means an arbitrary one, and he by no means has the
320
APPENDI X
325
326
APPENDI X
Translators' Preface
1Alfred Schutz and Thomas Luckmann, The Structures of the Life-World,
vol. 1, trans. Richard M. Zaner and H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. (Evanston,
111.: Northwestern University Press, 1973).
2This was subsequently published by Luckmann: “On the Boundaries of
the Social World,” in Phenomenology and Social Reality: Essays in Memory of Alfred
Schutz, ed. M. Natanson (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1970), pp. 73-100.
3Preface, vol. I, p. xxvi.
4This constitutes the core of Luckmann’s essay, “The Constitution of Lan
guage in the World of Everyday Life,” in Life-World and Consciousness: Essays
for Aron Gurwitsch, ed. Lester E. Embree (Evanston: Northwestern University
Press, 1972), pp. 469-88.
5In particular, “Common-Sense and Scientific Interpretation of Human
Action,” in Alfred Schutz, Collected Papers: The Problem oj Social Reality, vol. 1,
ed. M. Natanson (The Hague: Martinus Nijhof) Phaenomenologica 11,
pp. 3-47. Others of Schutzs reflections on this issue might be mentioned, in
particular: “Concept and Theory Formation in the Social Science,” ibid.,
pp. 48-66; “Phenomonology and the Social Sciences,” ibid., pp. 118-39;
“Husserl’s Importance for the Social Sciences,” ibid., pp. 140-49; and “On
Multiple Realities,” ibid., pp. 207-59.
6Preface, vol. 1, p. xxiii.
7Ibid., p. xxi.
8Ibid., p. xxiv.
9Ibid., p. xxv.
1°Ibid., p. xviii.
Chapter 5
^ f . esp. Chap. 2, A 2; 2, B 4 c; 3, A 2 c. (Chapter references refer to
Vol. 1 (Chaps. 1-4) or Vol. 2 (Chaps. 5 8c 6).
2Aron Gurwitsch, Théorie du champ de la conscience (Bruges, 1957).
3Chap. 3, B.
4More on appresentation in the next chapter.
5Chap. 3, B 8c C.
327
328
N O T E S TO P A G E S 8 - 7 1
6Chap. 6, C.
7Chap. 5, A 5.
8Cf. Chap. 2, B 5, as well as Thomas Luckmann, “On the Boundaries of
the Social World,” in Phenomenology and Social Reality: Essays in Memory of Alfred
Schutz, ed. Maurice Natanson (The Hague, Nijhoff, 1970), pp. 73-100.
9Chap. 6, B.
10Chap. 5, B.
u Esp. Chap. 3, C.
12Cf. Chap. 2, B 4.
13Cf. Chap. 2, esp. B 2, 3, & 4.
14Chap. 3, B 4 b.
15Chap. 3 B 4.
16Chap. 3, B 4 a.
17Chap. 3, B 2 c.
18Chap 1, A; B 2; Chap. 2, 4 c.
19Chap. 3, A 1 c.
20Chap. 2, B 2; and Chap. 2, B 4 b.
21Chap. 2, B 3.
22Chap. 3, A 1 c.
23Cf. esp. Chap. 3, B 2 c and C 4.
24Cf. Chap. 3, B 4.
25See note 24.
26Chap. 3, B, esp. 2 a.
27Cf. esp. Chap. 3, B 1.
28Edmund Husserl, Erfahrung und Urteil, ed. Ludwig Landgrebe (Ham
burg: Claasen, 1954), § 21. English translation: Experience and Judgment, trans.
James S. Churchill and Karl Ameriks (Evanston, 111.: Northwestern University
Press, 1973).
29Cf. Chap. 3, A 2; and Chap. 3, B 1, 2, 3, and 4.
30Cf. Chap. 3, A 3.
31A few more things would have to be said on the reasonable founding of
action. Cf. Chap. 5, D.
32Cf. Chap. 4, B 2.
33Cf. Chap. 4, D.
34Cf. Chap. 4, A 2.
35Cf. Chap. 6, C.
36Cf. Chap. 5, A 5.
37Cf. Chap. 5, A 2 a.
38Cf. Chap. 2, B 4.
39Chap. 3, B 2 c.
40Cf. Chap. 5, A 5.
41Cf. Chap. 5, B 4 c.
42Cf. Luckmann, “On the Boundaries of the Social World.”
43Cf. Chap. 2, B 5.
44Cf. Chap. 2, B 2, and 2, B 4 b.
329
N O T E S TO P A G E S 7 5 - 1 3 0
45Œ Chap. 2, B 5.
46Cf. Chap. 5, A 5.
47Cf. Chap. 2, B 5 b ii.
48Cf. Chap. 6 B.
49We have studied in detail the social stratifications of the life-world. Cf.
Chap. 2, B 5.
50Max Weber is the one who pointed this out. Cf. Max Weber, Wirtschaft
und Gesellschaft, ed. Johannes Winckelmann (Tübingen: Mohr, 19765), 1st
half-volume, pp. 13ff. Translated as Economy and Society, vol. 3, ed. Guenther
Roth and Claus Wittich (New York: Bedminster Press, 1968), pp. llff.
51Cf. on this topic the analysis of the secondary zone of operation, Chap.
2, B 3.
Chapter 6
^ f . Chap. 3, A 1 a and Chap. 3, A 3.
2Cf. chap. 6, B 2 & 3.
3Cf. Chap. 6, B 4.
4Cf. Chap. 6, C 1.
5Cf. Chap. 6, B 5.
6Cf. Chap. 2, B 2 a and b.
7Cf. Chap. 3, A.
8Cf. Chap. 6, B 1.
9Cf. Chap. 2, B 2, 3, and 4 b.
10Cf. Chap. 2, B 2 b iii.
n Cf. Chap. 3, B 2 and 3.
12Cf., however, Luckmann, “On the Boundaries of the Social World.”
13Here we are touching upon a basic motif of philosophical anthropology.
Cf. on this especially Helmuth Plessner, Conditio humana (Pfullingen: Neske,
1964) and Lachen und Weinen (Bern and Munich: Franke, 19613). Translated
as Laughing and Crying, trans. James S. Churchill and Marjorie Grene (Ev
anston, 111: Northwestern University Press, 1970).
14Cf. Chap. 2, B 5 a.
15Cf. Chap. 2, B 5 c i.
16Cf. Chap. 2, B 5 c, Chaps. 5 and 6.
17Cf. Chap. 3, B 2 a and b, and 3.
18Cf. Chap. 3, A 2 c and d.
19Cf. Chap. 2, A 4.
20Most recently there have been significant signs (in the sociology of knowl
edge and of religion) of a tremendous increase of interest in the scientific
study and semi-scientific exploitation of this field.
21Cf. Chap. 2, B 4 2 a i, and Chap. 6, A 4 b.
22Cf. Chap. 3, A 3 a.
23Cf. also section B of this chapter.
24Cf. Chap. 4, B 3 c and C 3.
330
N O T E S TO P A G E S 1 3 1 - 1 4 8
25In Chap. 6, A 1.
26The illumination of the structure of appresentation begins in the Hus-
serlian analyses, already in his Logische Untersuchungen (Tübingen, 19685, 19001),
especially vol. 2, part 2, where it is still formulated in the terminology of
“components of intuition and meaning” but is already recognized in its func
tion of significative relations. Later it is arranged into the general analysis of
passive syntheses and active cogitations, into perception, judgments, and in
the constitution of intersubjectivity. Cf. Edmund Husserl, Erfahrung und Urteil
(Hamburg, 19482), esp. p. 79; E. Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie
und phänomenologischen Philosophie, book 2 (The Hague: Nijoff, 1952), pp. 162ff.
(Husserliana, vol. 4, ed. M. Biemel); but esp. E. Husserl, Cartesianische Medita
tionen and Pariser Vorträge (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1950), esp. pp. 138- 149 (Hus
serliana, vol. 1, ed. S. Strasser).
27Husserl, Cartesianische Meditationen, § 51, Husserliana, vol. l,p . 142. Trans
lated as Cartesian Meditations by Dorion Cairns (The Hague: Martinus Niihoff,
1969), p. 112.
28Husserl, Erfahrung und Urteil, p. 214.
29Husserl, Cartesianische Meditationen, § 51, p. 142.
30Ibid., p. 142 (p. 112 of English translation).
31Husserl, Erfahrung und Urteil, p. 79 (p. 113 of English translation).
32Husserl, Cartesianische Meditationen, § 55, p. 150 (p. 122 of English
translation).
33Cf. Chap. 4, B 2 a, b, and d.
34According to Husserl (Cartesianische Meditationen, § 50ff.; Ideen §§ 43-50),
this constitutes a particularly remarkable case of appresentation. The Other
is from the outset given as a material object in space and time and as a subject
with his mental life. His body is given within immediate perception (Husserl:
originary presence), his life only co-given, appresented (in co-presence).
35Cf. Chap. 4, B 2 d.
36Ibid.
37Cf. Luckmann, “On the Boundaries of the Social World.”
38Cf. Chap. 6, C 1.
39Cf. Chap. 4, B 2 d.
40E.g. Chap. 2, B 5 c; Chaps. 3, A 2 d, and 6, A 5.
41The traditions of this quest in the science of religion, cultural anthro
pology, and political theory are well known. Among their outstanding con
temporary representatives we will name only Eric Voegelin and Claude Lévi-
Strauss.
42I have already dealt with the problem of the constitution of language in
Vol. I. The results of the investigation would have exceeded the framework
of the statements of the problem in the chapters of Vol. I, so 1 have kept
them for Vol. II. It was published as an essay under the title “The Consti
tution of Language in Everyday Life,” in Essays for Aron Gurwitsch, ed. Lester
Embree (Evanston, 111., Northwestern University Press, 1972), pp. 469-488.
The findings of this study also were incorporated, among other things, in my
331
N O T E S TO P A G E S 1 4 8 - 2 6 4
Notebooks
1Felik Kaufmann, Methodenlehre der Sozialwissenschaften (Vienna, 1936).
2A. Whitehead, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (New York, 1941).
3In the translation by J. L. Achrill, it reads: “Now spoken sounds are
symbols of affections in the soul, and written marks symbols of spoken sounds.
And just as written marks are not the same for all men, neither are spoken
sounds. But what these are in the first place signs of—affections of the soul—
are the same for all; and what these affections are likenesses of—actual
things—are also the same.” Cf. J. L. Achrill, ed., Aristotle!v Categories and De
Interpretatione (Oxford, 1963), p. 43 (16a3ff.)
4Schutz’s translation. “A name as spoken sound significant by conventions”
in Achrill translation of Aristotle’s Categories.
5Henri Bergson, Dévolution créatrice (Paris, 1930).
6G. H. Mead, The Philosophy of the Present, ed. A. E. Murphy, (La Salle, 111.,
1959).
7G. H. Mead, The Philosophy of the Act, ed. Ch. W. Morris (Chicago, 1964).
8Schutz, Gesammelte Aufsätze III, pp. 86-126.
9(Not only that, but the indication-relation mediates by my intransparency
various levels of clarity of the stock of knowledge at hand.)
10Cf. Husserliana, vol. 6, Supplement III to § 9 a, pp. 365-386.
11Bruno Snell, Aufbau der Sprache (Hamburg, 1952).
12Susanne K. Langer, Problems of Art: Ten Philosophical Lectures (New York,
1957).
13Ernst Benz, Die Ostkirche—im Lichte der protestantischen Geschichtsschreibung
von der Reformation bis zur Gegenwart (Freiburg, 1952).
14Curt Sachs, World History of the Dance (New York, 1965).
15John Dewey, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (New York and Chicago, 1964).
332
N O T E S TO P A G E S 2 6 6 - 3 2 1
333
334
I NDEX
143, 145, 154, 279, 308, 314; Death, 77, 117, 125-29, 131, 194, 250,
crossings, 102, 118, 123-26, 214 252, 262, 270, 276, 324
Bryson, Lyman, 326, 332 Decision, 15, 35, 38 -4 9 , 58, 85, 108,
Buber, Martin, 172, 213, 256 220-24, 229, 317
Burke, Kenneth, 205 Delius, H., 332
Buytendijk, Frederik J., 263 Dempf, 197, 240, 280
Depersonalization, 96
Cairns, Dorion, 325, 330 Descartes, Réné, 257, 270
Calvin, John, 12 Desubjectization, 154
Carneades, 19, 33, 169, 181, 187 Dewey, John, 192, 204, 216, 237, 239,
Carr, David, 326 264, 297, 331
Cassirer, Ernst, 174 Doubt, 27 -2 9 , 38, 49, 216, 223, 309
Categories, grammatical, 45 Doxa, 192, 196
Cervantes, 260 Dream, 100, 103, 118-21, 126, 133,
Ceteris paribus. See “Other things being 193, 195, 243, 266, 271, 283, 287,
equal” 296, 309, 314-17
Choice, choosing, 14, 18-21, 29-33, Duration, inner (durée), 31, 35, 42, 67,
35, 3 9-42, 44, 47, 57, 60, 65, 67, 125, 197, 219, 261, 263, 297-301,
198, 205, 216-25, 240, 299, 315, 309, 316, 321
320
Churchill, James S., 325, 328 Ecstasy, 123-28, 145
Common sense, 121, 227, 230, 238, Eichmann, Adolf, 97
260, 263, 268, 284, 286, 291 Embodiment, 141, 144
Communication, 3, 13, 34, 36, 39, 67, Embree, Lester E., 327, 330
77, 92, 96, 99, 101, 105, 131, 134, Empiricism, 204
142, 148, 150, 153-57, 193, 195, Encounter, 19, 27, 44, 69, 79, 95,
242, 252, 256, 259-61, 263, 265, 101, 149
284, 287, 299, 306, 311, 316, 323 Engelhardt, H. Tristram, Jr., 327
Conduct, 6 -8 , 11, 13, 80, 295, 300 Epistémè, 192, 196
Consciousness, 1-6, 17, 28, 33, 37, 49, Epoche, 308, 310, 319
54, 62, 67, 85, 118, 122, 129, 132, Ethics, attitudinal, 14
140, 144, 150, 234, 308, 310, 323; Everyday (life, world, reality, thinking),
the Other’s, 132, 138, 140, 144; 1, 4 -6 , 17, 24, 29, 34, 4 1 ,4 9 , 55,
performances of, 1, 17, 42, 63, 58, 63, 66, 79, 85, 92, 100-104,
95, 112, 117, 132, 148; stream of, 110, 112, 114, 117, 120-33, 142
2, 16, 36, 113, 148, 294, 301; 46, 202, 204, 211, 223, 229, 233,
tension of, 41, 107, 118, 121, 123, 235, 239, 242, 246, 252, 256, 260,
124, 283, 296, 309 265, 279, 284, 291, 293, 301, 307,
Consociates, 194, 210, 214, 227, 309, 316, 318
233, 256 Expectation, reciprocal, 95, 97, 212,
Contemporaries, 194, 203, 208, 211, 227
225-28, 233, 2 5 7 ,2 9 1 ,3 0 0 Experience, 2, 17, 44, 62, 79, 101-18,
Cooley, Charles H., 174, 204, 212, 123-27, 138, 143, 149, 191, 194,
228,292 197, 202, 2 0 6 -8 , 211, 217, 239,
Crisis, 4 1 ,4 7 , 102, 125, 127-29, 242-45, 252-57, 263, 266-72,
146,322 274, 280, 283, 286-89, 291, 296,
Crusoe, Robinson, 67 300-304, 307-10, 312, 315, 318
20, 324; everyday, 127, 136; lived,
Dante, 286 2, 18, 79, 122, 131, 149-52, 197,
Daydream(ing), 18, 22, 25, 56, 75, 204, 267, 270, 272, 274, 278, 294,
121,311 298
335
I NDEX
Interpretation, 8, 38, 47, 63, 67, 80, Life, course of, 122, 143, 156
81, 85, 87, 90, 101, 111, 128, 130, Life-plan, 3 1 ,4 1 ,4 3 , 51, 127
140, 142, 150, 203, 208, 225, 227, Life-world, 1, 6, 65, 77, 87, 95, 131,
233, 235, 247, 250, 260, 254, 296, 147, 179, 191, 195, 206, 208, 224,
299, 315 227, 232, 234, 238, 254, 266, 270,
276, 291, 293, 295, 299, 301, 329
James, William, 172, 185, 196, 204, Linschoten, J., 271, 309, 332
207, 212, 239, 244, 250, 265, 267, Lowe, Adolph, 205
282-85, 289, 291, 296, 298, 308, Luckmann, Thomas, xi, xii, xiii, xiv,
312,323 164, 181, 3 2 7-30
Janssen, Paul, 325 Lynd, R. S., 310
Jaspers, Karl, 177, 184, 256, 279, 287,
332 Malinowski, Bronislaw K., 280
Jung, C. G., 271 Manipulation, 108, 302
Manipulatory sphere, 194, 209,
Kallen, Horace, 196, 296 247-50, 259, 277, 302
Kant, Immanuel, 201, 269, 272, 323 Marks, 101, 131, 137-43, 243, 247,
Kaufmann, Felix, 237, 331 249, 252, 276, 279, 287
Kierkegaard, Soren, 213, 286, 309, 316 Marty, Anton, 259, 300
Knoof, U., 331 Marx, Karl, 12
Knowledge, 26, 39, 59-65, 69, 78, 84, Mauss, Marcel, 262, 280
89, 101, 107, 111-14, 116, 120, Mead, G. H., 174, 197, 204, 212, 228,
126, 135, 138, 142, 155, 194, 196, 238, 256, 263, 298, 302, 331
202, 206, 209, 215, 219, 222, 228, Meaning, 3, 18, 44, 68, 111, 133-38,
232, 237, 247, 252, 274, 289, 316; 140, 142, 144-48, 152, 157, 197,
habitual, 26; social distribution of, 200, 207, 211, 235, 245, 247, 250,
60, 155, 202, 232; special, 80, 253, 256, 258, 266, 268, 282-86,
123, 129, 130, 147; stock of, 2, 289, 294, 296, 299, 308-11, 313,
11, 1 5 ,2 1 ,2 3 ,2 5 ,3 5 , 43, 60, 67, 324
72, 80, 84, 87, 96, 101, 117, 127, Mediacy, 71, 77, 114
130, 149, 152, 156, 196, 198, 204, Mediation, 70
207, 211, 215, 226, 229-34, 244, Memory, 62, 69, 75, 101, 106, 119-21,
250, 288 123-26, 128, 130, 138, 145, 295,
324; remembering, remembrance,
La Bruyère, Jean de, 213 95, 104, 108, 114
Lalande, A., 199 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 188, 197,
Langer, S. K., 241, 261, 331 204, 212, 284, 297
Language, 5, 44, 48, 77, 102, 106, 115, Merton, Robert K., 202
120, 123, 143, 145, 148-57, 202, Mills, C. Wright, 68
208, 226, 237, 246, 253, 256, 261, Mirroring, intersubjective, 77, 148, 151
265, 277, 281,287, 321,323; Model, 203, 231, 234
inner, 45, 142 Moore, G. E., 268, 272, 296, 332
Layman, 84, 211, 289 Morgenstern, O., 205
“Leap” between fields of reality, 310, Morris, Charles, 184, 266-70, 274-76,
318 332
Leibniz, Gottfried, 173, 182, 196, 202, Motivation, 39, 41, 198, 200, 205, 223,
214, 221, 269, 294 253,257
Lessing, Gotthold E., 191 Motive, 4, 64, 68, 73, 84 -8 9 , 93, 113,
Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 330 137, 221, 226, 228, 233, 238, 240,
Levy-Bruhl, Lucien, 212, 280 247, 251,264, 306,319;
337
I NDEX
pragmatic, 27, 34, 101, 122, 127, Piaget, Jean, 170, 207
130, 248, 252, 293, 311, 315 Pierce, Charles, 256
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 176, Plan, 12, 14, 30, 44, 65, 68, 84, 87,
213, 311 197, 202, 209, 224, 306, 316, 319;
daily, 3 1 ,4 3 , 51; hierarchy of, 14,
Nagel, Ernest, 236 30, 35, 3 8-41, 43, 58-61, 201,
209, 223, 229, 231, 233, 316
Natanson, M., 327
Neumann, J. von, 205 Plato, 197
Plausibility, 192, 230
Newton, Isaac, 280
Play, 74, 195, 282,285, 309,311
Noema, 104
Plessner, Helmut, 263, 329
Normalcy, 6, 106, 122, 125
Possibility, 193, 216, 245, 278, 284;
open and problematic, 24, 31-35,
Objectivation(s), 2, 42, 44, 51, 67, 90, 38, 198, 205, 214, 216-19, 221
136,138 Power to act, 193, 195
Observer, 212, 224, 227, 231 Practicability, 23, 24 -2 7 , 32, 34, 43,
Olivier, Lawrence, 283 50, 55, 60, 68, 206, 214
Operation, 8-13, 16-18, 47, 56, 71, Pradines, Maurice, 199
73-76, 7 8 ,8 1 ,2 2 0 , 298, 303 Predecessors, 71, 117, 194, 203, 208,
Ortega y Gasset, J., 171, 203, 210, 212, 210, 225, 233, 255, 257, 291, 293,
253, 256, 262, 265, 300 300
Other, 68-71, 73, 75, 78, 82 -8 5 , 87 Present (presence), 1, 8, 50, 57, 87,
94, 96, 100, 109-16, 118, 125, 206, 227, 251, 254, 295, 316
131, 136, 138-42, 144, 151, 194, Problem(atic), 192, 195, 199, 203, 213,
203, 205, 208, 210, 225-28, 243, 224, 232, 239, 253, 255, 272, 274,
255, 257, 263, 266, 272-75, 277, 278, 288, 290, 293, 298-301, 303,
299, 304 317, 320, 322
“Other things being equal,” 24, 25, 28, Project, 4, 7, 13-16, 18-44, 4 6 -5 2 , 54,
37, 59, 85, 90, 109, 119, 231 58, 61, 63, 6 7-70, 73, 80, 82, 86,
Outer world (outside world), 17, 42, 89, 91, 101, 109, 114, 119, 213,
44, 82, 210, 221, 225, 244, 256, 216, 219,. 221, 223, 227, 229, 240,
260, 264, 284, 294, 298, 308, 311 250, 295, 307, 311, 315, 317,319
“Outside” (and inside), 64, 111-14
Outsider, 203 Rationality, 57, 60, 65
Reach, 27, 6 8-71, 73, 78, 82, 94, 108
Pairing, appresentative, 132, 201, 244, 11, 114, 118, 125, 132, 137, 139,
246, 272, 280 144, 149, 151, 193-96, 198, 214,
Pareto, 229, 293 219, 230, 247-50, 252, 255, 257,
Park, R. E., 204 259, 265, 267, 271, 277, 287, 303,
Parmenides, 204 307, 311,322
Parsons, T., 172, 213 Reality, 25, 34, 57, 107, 117, 120, 123,
Past, 17, 31, 36, 63, 68, 116, 206, 211, 125, 128-33, 144-47, 193, 195,
230, 251, 295, 299, 302, 315 238, 243, 262, 266, 282, 285, 291,
Paul (Saul), 61 296, 302, 304, 307-12, 315, 319,
Perception, 111, 133, 145, 206, 217, 322; multiple, 202, 244, 260, 283,
241, 245, 252, 258, 262, 268, 270, 285, 306, 308; paramount, 195,
294, 314; of the body, 110; object 244, 260, 283, 285, 306, 308
of, 133, 145 Recipes, 27, 192, 195
Personality, 211, 231, 256, 314, 322 Reciprocity, 70, 74-78, 81, 90 -9 4 ,
Personalization, 96, 130, 133 132, 233; of perspectives, 5, 7, 66,
338
I NDEX
78, 87, 89, 113, 209, 214, 226, Social world, 5, 12, 69, 114, 194, 201,
229, 255, 263 208, 214, 224, 232, 252, 255, 277,
Reduction, 206 281, 291, 300, 304
Relativity, 194 Socrates, 204
Relevance, 2, 25, 31, 35, 51, 63, 68, Solitude, 66, 317; solitary action, 75
117, 127, 138, 196, 198-205, 209, Sound, 149, 151, 242, 259
211, 225, 227, 229, 231, 233, 251, Specialist, 84, 211
256, 260, 274, 306, 317; system, Speech, 152, 299
3, 30, 41, 63, 111, 123, 145, 233, Spiegelberg, Herbert, 308, 332
261, 271, 292, 296,319 Spinoza, Baruch, 58
Repersonalization, 96 Spontaneity, 197, 217, 269, 283,
Responsibility, 5, 13, 48, 80, 97 294-97, 309
Roth, Guenther, 329 Stein, Edith, 178
Routine, 199 Strasser, S., 325, 330
Routinization, 27, 53, 83, 85, 154 Style, cognitive, 308-11, 320
Royaumont, Louis de, 250 Subuniverse, 244, 266, 282, 291, 308
Royce, Josiah, 256 Successor, 71, 194, 203, 210, 233, 257,
291,300
Sachs, Curt, 263, 331 Sumner, W. A., 204, 210, 288
Santayana, George, 284 Surrounding world, 10-13, 16, 79, 84,
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 188, 197, 204, 265 112, 122, 144, 149, 194, 203, 210,
Schaff, A., 297 277; common, 71-74, 76, 82, 101
Sch el er, Max, 178, 192, 203, 206, 210, Symbols, 102, 123, 131-35, 143-47,
218, 221, 256, 258, 272, 284, 288, 193, 195, 203, 207, 220, 226,
296, 302 240-43, 247, 256, 276, 279, 285,
Schuhmann, Karl, 325 287, 290-93
Schutz, Alfred, xi-xiv, 325, 327, 331 Synchronization, 73, 75, 83, 88, 90,
Self, the, 19, 60, 61, 217, 298, 300, 149, 299
3 0 9 ,3 1 4 ,3 1 7 , 322 Synonymy, 135
Sense, 114 Syntheses, 2, 111, 132
Shock experience, 145, 309
Sight, 150 Theaetetus, 204
Signs, 8, 102, 114, 131-36, 138-47, Theory, theoretical, 7, 100, 130
148, 151-54, 193, 203, 208, 240 Thomas, W. L, 174, 195, 202, 204,
43, 247, 249, 251, 257, 259, 261, 207, 238, 288
265, 269, 276, 279; proto-, 152; Thought, thinking, 10-13, 16, 47, 73,
system of, 90, 102, 143, 148, 152 75 -7 8 , 113, 130, 137, 212, 231,
53, 226, 253 239, 257, 261, 265, 268, 295, 320
Simmel, Georg, 212, 256 Time, 14-18, 31, 56, 63, 194, 209,
Situation, 11, 29, 32, 38, 47, 6.1, 70, 220, 222, 240, 243, 248, 252, 280,
80, 116, 149, 154, 157, 197, 204, 283, 296-303, 313, 316, 322;
207, 210, 212, 214, 217, 222, 229, internal, 16-18, 61, 210, 256,
233, 248, 260, 265, 274, 278, 288, 297. See also Duration
291, 323 Tiresias, 61, 171, 188, 190, 206, 213
Sleep, 117, 122, 127, 271, 276, Tools, 193, 208, 249, 254
283,314 Toynbee, Arnold, 280
Snell, Bruno, 176, 258, 280, 300, 331 Transcendence, 100-106, 114, 125—
Social reality, 203, 231, 233, 236, 238 28, 142, 145, 243, 255, 263, 265,
Social science, 203, 209, 218, 225, 231, 267-79, 287, 323; great, 105,
235, 239, 323 110, 117-30, 144; little, 105-110,
339
I NDEX
142; medium, 105, 109-17, 145 Weights, weighing, 23, 33, 3 5-41, 61,
Truth, 192, 231 92, 205, 216, 222
Type(s), 26, 70, 89, 94, 107, 195, 199, We-relationship, 75, 77, 83, 87, 90,
204-11, 215, 227, 234, 261, 290 113, 148-52, 154, 156, 210, 212,
Typicality, 75, 206, 208, 248, 274 224, 227, 256, 317, 322
Typification, 3, 15, 70, 72, 75, 80, 87, Whitehead, Alfred North, 204, 206,
89, 91, 94, 111, 114, 154, 156, 209, 211, 239, 241, 268, 280,
195, 201, 204, 211, 228, 234, 261, 286, 331
263, 271, 274, 288, 290 Wide-awakeness. See Awake(ness)
Typology, 21, 89, 194, 200, 205, 285 Wild, John, 241, 250
Winckelmann, Johannes, 329
Within (and outside), 16, 64, 111-15,
Unilateralness, 70-78, 91 -9 6 136,140
“Until further notice,” 127 Wittich, Claus, 329
Urgency, 36, 61 Work(ing), 11-14, 295, 298, 301-7,
Utopia, 14, 22
309, 312, 317, 322
World, 193-202, 208, 218, 224, 233,
Van Breda, H. L., 183, 189, 240 239, 241, 243, 248, 252, 255-59,
Vehicle, relative irrelevance of, 246, 263, 267, 272, 277, 282, 284, 287,
258, 260 291, 294, 3 03-8, 311, 316, 320,
Vocabulary of motives, 98 322; structure of, 191, 197, 207.
See also Life-world; Social world;
Voegelin, Eric, 213, 280, 282, 330, 332
Surrounding world
Volition, 222, 315
World-time, 17, 90
World-view, 6, 120; relative-natural,
Walter, G., 178 48, 77, 80, 120, 141, 191, 210,
Weber, Max, 68, 70, 171, 210, 227, 212,288
229, 274, 292, 329
Wehl, Herman, 286 Zaner, Richard M., 327
Weigand, H. E., 331 Zimmermann, Jörg, 331