Language and lifeworld: Schutz and Habermas on idealization

Abstract

Jürgen Habermas seminally criticized Alfred Schutz. This paper traces the disagreement back to a different role of idealization. Schutz's social theory is based on "types" as idealizations with an inherent dynamics, while Habermas's social theory is based on ideally stable "rules". First, a rule model of linguistic communication is assessed against analyses from linguistics and the philosophy and sociology of language. A rule model, it is found, fails to meet its theoretical goal of explaining linguistic communication. Hypothetical rules of language would not explain our intuitive understanding of the minimal propositional contents expressed by utterances. The rules would be both insufficient and unreliable in every single instance of language use. Against this background, the relation between language and "lifeworld" is then re-evaluated. A lifeworld cannot build on a rule model of language as its foundation. Nor can it supplement such a model in order to save it. Unlike a rule model, Schutz's claim that language and lifeworld are interconnected and structured by "types" that can accommodate the flexibility and precision of linguistic communication. While further research is needed, this conclusion indicates that phenomenology has been unduly neglected in social philosophy and should receive as much attention as it has in sociology. Resumo: Jürgen Habermas criticou Alfred Schutz de maneira seminal. Este artigo traça tal divergência até a diferença na conceitualização de idealização. A teoria social de Schutz é baseada em "tipos" enquanto idealizações com uma dinâmica inerente, enquanto a teoria social de Habermas é baseada em "regras" idealmente estáveis. Primeiramente, um modelo de regra de comunicação linguística é avaliado de acordo com análises da linguística, da filosofia e da sociologia da linguagem. É constatado que um modelo falha em alcançar seu objetivo teórico de explicar a comunicação linguística. Regras de linguagem hipotéticas, portanto, não explicariam nossa compreensão intuitiva de conteúdos proposicionais mínimos expressos em enunciados. * PhD. in Philosophy at the Free University of Berlin (Germany). Guest researcher and lecturer at the Faculty of Letters, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan <jan.strassheim@fu-berlin.de>.412 Civitas, Porto Alegre, v. 17, n. 3, p. 411-434, Sept.-Dec. 2017 As regras seriam tanto insuficientes quanto incertas em todas as instâncias do uso da linguagem. Neste contexto, a relação entre linguagem e "mundo-da-vida" é reavaliada.Um mundo-da-vida não pode ser constituído sobre um modelo de linguagem, nem mesmo suplementar tal modelo a fim de preservá-lo. Diferentemente de um modelo, Schutz reivindica que linguagem e mundo-da-vida estão interconectados e estruturados em "tipos" que podem acomodar a flexibilidade e a precisão da comunicação linguística. Embora seja necessário o aprofundamento da pesquisa, as conclusões apontam que a fenomenologia tem sido indevidamente negligenciada pela filosofia social, e deveria receber maior atenção, assim como tem recebido na...

Ideal Potentials in Action: Schutzian Affinities in Simmel’s View of Life

“…For Schutz, the issue central to human being in the world is that of "coming to terms" with what I have called the fragmented and fragmenting power of transcendence' (Natanson, 1986: 127;see Schutz 1962see Schutz [1955). Besides Natanson's book Anonymity, this topic has been neglected by commentators up to the 2000s (see Dreher, 2003;Perreau, 2012;Strassheim, 2016). At the common-sense level, typical generalities are 'taken for granted until further notice', that is, until troubled and unclarified situations emerge, which urges us to question their taken-for-granted character and come up with new ways of approaching and interpreting actions situations (Schutz, 1962b).…”

“…These distinction between the past, present and future of an action also prevails in the present tense (modo presenti), the past perfect tense (modo praeterito) and the future tense (modo futuri exacti) of language. They remain unavoidable modalities of living consciousness at the grammatical and semiotic level (see Strassheim, 2017).…”