Chinese Journal of Sociology ›› 2013, Vol. 33 ›› Issue (1): 38-74.

• Articles • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Methodology and the Lifeworld：Revisit the Discussion on Schutz’s Intersubjectivity Theory

SUN Feiyu，Sociology Department, Peking University   

  1. Sociology Department, Peking University
  • Online:2013-01-20 Published:2013-01-20
  • Contact: SUN Feiyu，Sociology Department, Peking University E-mail:sunfeiyu@pku.edu.cn
  • About author:SUN Feiyu，Sociology Department, Peking University

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Abstract:

Based on Husserl’s phenomenology and Bergson’s philosophy of consciousness, Alfred Schutz, from an analysis of the consciousness behind individual actions, started theory building based on Weber’s social scientific conceptual system according to its key concept of “meaning” and further developed his own structure of social world by the method of the Ideal Type. In this work, the issue of otherness has raised a series of sociological questions, especially the question of intersubjectivity. Within the tradition of social thoughts, via Schutz’ beginning effort to answer the essential methodological question in modern sociology through the meaningful lifeworld that is based on the werelations, the probability of intersubjectivity is not only a key question as to how sociology is possible; it is also a question of how society is possible. In this paper, with the discussion of Schutz’s work placed within the history of methodological thinking, the author argues that Schutz’s work on sociological methodology provides us with a new possibility to understand the lifeworld of modern individual, and further, a way to reflect upon current sociological research in China.

Key words: intersubjectivity, phenomenological sociology, methodology, lifeworld