Abstract:

This article is a reconsideration of phenomenological sociology. Edmund Husserl, in his later genetic phenomenology and studies on intersubjectivity, had already addressed issues relevant to sociology. Therefore, in the view of Alfred Schutz, who was deeply influenced by Husserl, the conception of "phenomenological sociology" is rooted in the intersection of Husserl's transcendental phenomenology and Weber's interpretative sociology, that is, using transcendental phenomenology to clarify the legitimacy of interpretative sociological methods. However, "phenomenological sociology," grounded in transcendental phenomenology, simultaneously shares the presupposition about subjectivity of transcendental phenomenology. This presupposition prevents Schutz from accessing the phenomenon of Society as such, and thus, as criticized by Giddens, such a "phenomenological sociology" cannot provide a reasonable explanation of the social world. To address this limitation, this article attempts to utilize the phenomenological resources of Martin Heidegger and of Jean-Luc Marion, building upon the review of Schutz's "phenomenological sociology," to take the discourse on rituals from Émile Durkheim's The Elementary Forms of Religious Life as a starting point. By analyzing the temporality of rituals, it aims to phenomenologically elucidate the social world as such, that is, to reveal the phenomenality of the phenomenon of Society as eventness. By integrating Durkheim's sociology of religion into phenomenological discussions, this article hopes to offer a new possibility for phenomenological sociology and to provide modest contributions to the issue of intersubjectivity.

Key words: phenomenological sociology, Durkheim, ritual, temporality, eventness