Clock-time or Lived Time? Twenty-five Years of Human Studies

Abstract

"Habent sua fata libelli (Books have their destiny)" says the Latin grammar? ian Terentianus Maurus, and his saying might with good reason be extended to periodicals or journals. The philosopher Gadamer would say that books and journals have a Wirkungsgeschichte or "effective history" a phrase which well suits the present occasion. In many ways, the history or historical unfolding o? Human Studies has been closely intertwined with my own professional or intellectual history. A quar? ter of a century ago I happened to be involved in the founding of the journal, and subsequently also participated in the establishment of the Society for Phenomenology and the Human Sciences (SPHS) which shared, and contin? ues to share, the journal's basic aspirations and intellectual commitments. On a personal level, the historical unfolding of the journal is for me also the story of a long-lasting friendship with its editorial staff and especially with its edi? tor-in-chief George Psathas, whose insights and unwavering dedication to the journal's aims have been for me a steady source of inspiration and encour? agement. The j ournal started at a difficult time for the "human studies"?a term which can be defined here as encompassing broadly the humanities and, more spe? cifically, the "humane" or humanistic dimensions of the social sciences and psychology. The situation was particularly bleak in the latter disciplines: psy-. chology was still in the throes of a rigidly reductionist model (behaviorism), a model which also successfully colonized the social sciences under the aegis of purely quantitative criteria of explanation and prediction. In this context, the notion of "human studies" or "human sciences" became a rallying point for many social scientists and psychologists still concerned with the more qualitative (interpretive, ethical, and existential) aspects of human life. In their search for alternative methodologies and models, practitioners of "human stud? ies" turned primarily to three intellectual or philosophical resources: phenom? enology as inaugurated by Edmund Husserl and later developed by Alfred Schutz, Aron Gurwitsch and others (phenomenological sociology and psychol? ogy, ethnomethodology); hermeneutics as conceived by Wilhelm Dilthey and later refined by Heidegger and Gadamer; and ordinary language philosophy as launched by Ludwig Wittgenstein and subsequently fleshed out by forms