Schutzian Research, Volume 9 / 2017

• Abstract:  In a society undergoing rapid social change, this essay considers how normal aging (without disease or cognitive impairment) might over the long run be thought of as undermining to “thinking as usual.” Informed by the phenomenology of Alfred Schutz, the criteria for thinking as usual are considered. Derived from his essay “The Stranger,” these criteria were developed by Schutz about the experience of an immigrant stranger approaching a new culture (Schutz 1964a). Here it is argued that they might also help us better understand the experience of aging. It is suggested that in the context of social change older people can, under the right circumstances, feel like strangers in the culture they have known all their lives.

• Abstract:  Hikikomori has been one of the social problems in Japan since late 1990s. This term refers to young people who do not go to school or work and stay at home. The aim of this paper is to criticize the current framework of support for them, and to clarify the foundations of a support relationship for them by referring to interview data from hikikomori people and to Alfred Schutz’s theoretical framework. It is not only possible, but also important, to set up basic principles for supporting them, given that a death of a hikikomori person occurred in a private institution which trained hikikomori people in 2006. This paper points out the problems of one mainstream model of the hikikomori support relationship, paternalism, and develops the following 3 principles as the foundation of hikikomori support based on empirical and theoretical considerations: (1) to respect self-determination, (2) to value consensus making in shared-determination, and (3) to take account of the biographically determined, intersubjective foundation at both levels of self-definition and decision making.

• Abstract:  This paper aims to show the logical consistency between the subjective and the intersubjective constitution of meaning in Alfred Schutz by revealing his insight into the dynamic character of reality. In reconstructing what is implied by the proposition “the problem of meaning is a time problem,” this paper reveals that the interrelationship between the past and the present, namely “becoming,” is fundamental to meaning-constitution. By critically introducing the Bergsonian view of the tension between the durée and its symbolization, Schutz thematizes our meaningful reality in the fluidity. From this perspective, the intersubjective world is characterized as a continuous dynamic reality taken for granted by the actors. While subjectivity, as a function of articulating experiences in becoming, is a condition of the intersubjective world, the intersubjective process enables the taken-for-grantedness of subjective reality. Schutzian phenomenology may lead to a theory of the complexity and uncertainty of social reality

MEMORIAL TO LESTER EMBREE

• Abstract: Embree claimed that Schutz did not remain a methodological individualist during all of his academic life since he came to consider the individual as an abstractum abstracted from a concrete collective. In this view, the socio-historical world cannot be understood as a mere structure of individuals because it also contains groups that are related one to another in diverse ways and which are the concrete subject of the social world. I stress three major contributions of Embree to social phenomenology: to have shown the deficiencies of methodological individualism because it conceals that it is a world of groups; to have found a phenomenological way to speak of collective subjects not involving metaphysical mystifications; and to have found a different way to access phenomena by re-specifying the first person perspective as “first person plural.”

• Abstract: In one of his last presentations, Lester Embree “urged” that the expression “reflective analysis” be used as an alternative name for “phenomenology.” I will briefly characterize what Lester produced as “reflective analysis” in his work and will speculate on why he suggested this alternative expression. I will also say what I think the advantage of this alternative name would be.

• Abstract: This article compares and contrasts Dorion Cairn’s treatment of the relationship between phenomenology and psychology with Embree’s handling of that same topic. Embree, who to a great degree aligns with Schutz, and Cairns converge on the treatment of behaviorism. However, fundamental differences appear in their contrasting approaches to psychology, with Cairns seeking to uphold the distinctiveness of philosophy/phenomenology over against psychology and Embree/Schutz inclining toward a more collaborative engagement with psychology. Their differences reflect their preference for transcendental philosophy or phenomenological psychology, both of which possible preferences were clearly recognized by Edmund Husserl in his “Nachwort zu meinen Ideen.” These preferences in turn have to do with the ultimate philosophical purposes each author is pursuing.

• Abstract: Lester Embree’s contributions to phenomenology were, in my opinion, based on his three kinds of activities, which are indissolubly connected with each other: first, teaching activities, second, publication and presentation activities, and third, organization activities. Since I was not his student and had no experience attending his classes, I cannot say anything about his teaching activities with conviction. So I would like to focus in this essay mainly on his organizing activities in the East-Asian countries, and his presentations in phenomenological conferences or colloquiums.