Paramount Reality Research Articles

When belief is “baptized” by doubt: Transitions from credulity to faith

AbstractBeginning with Luther's understanding of doubt using Genesis 3 as a template, the article explains how credulity differs from faith as the human mind interacts with shifting contexts and their doubts. In distinction from credulity, faith is an emergent phenomenon shaping personality and its social insertion. As faith mediates a compassionate orientation toward sufferers, it expresses the way in which the ultimate transcends into the penultimate or paramount reality dominated by the mechanisms of natural and social selection.

“Multiple Realities” Revisited: James and Schutz

Although James and Schutz provide us with the most insightful investigations of multiple realities that we come across in philosophical, psychological and sociological literature, hardly any critical studies have addressed James’s and Schutz’s conceptions of multiple realities alongside each other. This paper fills this gap. The paper demonstrates that James and Schutz were concerned with the same set of issues in their respective accounts of multiple realities. It further shows the different ways in which James and Schutz understood multiple realities and how they conceptualized the fundamental levels of reality’s constitution. It also provides a critical analysis of Schutz’s allegation that James’s analysis is psychologistic, arguing that this accusation is ungrounded and that Schutz’s epoche of the natural attitude in fact bolsters James’s analysis of belief. The paper concludes with a set of reflections on the heterogenous nature of paramount reality, bringing into question James’s and Schutz’s assumption that each reality is inwardly coherent, although incompatible with each other.

Phenomenology of Online Spaces: Interpreting Late Modern Spatialities

Sociological theories of space have so far not provided an in-depth analysis of online spaces. The paper addresses this issue by means of Löw’s relational theory of space. As this theory mainly focuses on material spaces, it is necessary to embrace the phenomenological perspective in order to apply it to the virtual realm. More recent phenomenological research has highlighted the ongoing mediatization or virtualization of the life-world. These theories, and presence research more generally, are useful for examining the layers of virtual presence. This paper focuses on two emblematic types of spaces: multiplayer online role-playing games and Skype video chats. The first represents an online version of a Schutzian finite province of meaning, while Skyping is an example of how the paramount reality of everyday life expands into the virtual realm. Albeit differently, actors in both cases constitute hybrid, virtual-material spaces with various forms and degrees of virtual presence. User experiences in these spaces are in line with contemporary sociological diagnoses indicating the vanishing experience of living in space and the general tendency of late modernity to question previous social forms of modernity.

On Schutz’s conception of science as one of multiple realities

This article examines Alfred Schutz’s concept of ‘multiple realities’, and in particular, his portrayal of science as one of these realities. It is noted that, while this concept has been widely cited, it has often been interpreted in ways that are at odds with key features of Schutz’s original formulation. A careful assessment is made of the main article he wrote dealing with this topic, focusing on the respects in which the ‘multiple realities’ he discusses are held to differ. Particular attention is given to the relationship between science and what Schutz calls ‘the paramount reality’, that of ‘daily life’. It is suggested that there are some serious problems with the distinctions he makes and that these relate to an ambiguity in his position: that he starts from within phenomenological psychology, drawing on the work of Husserl and James, but moves in a more naturalistic and sociological direction in his account of ‘the world of daily life’. This raises some fundamental questions about the nature of phenomenology and its relationship to social science.

Virtualization of the life-world

Building on Alfred Schutz’s work, this essay conceptually scrutinizes virtual worlds with an aim to clarify what is at stake with the virtualization of the late modern society. The diffusion of technological artifacts, devices of communication and the Internet in particular, have transformed the life-world of essentially everyone. In the past few years our everyday life, including its livelihoods, has seen a proliferation of activities within virtual worlds, such as games and virtual social networks. We can now live and experience actively in different virtual realms, as compared to being mere passive receivers in the era of television and radio. This has direct implications for what is inherently relevant for people and, in consequence, we have to take such transformation into account also in conceptual terms. This article makes a major contribution to the conceptual understanding of phenomenological sociology that due to the virtualization, we can no more equate the paramount reality as the zone of primary relevance. The paramount reality as conceived as the sensorily perceivable, physical world of concrete objects is increasingly far from being equated to that part of the world within our reach which we can immediately observe and also at least partially dominate, that is, the zone of primary relevance. It is furthermore argued that the ongoing virtualization of societies urges us to conceive of virtual worlds as transforming the chief finite province of meaning, that of the world of working, instead of seeing virtual worlds merely as other sub-universes of reality.

A Schutzian Analysis of Prayer with Perspectives from Linguistic Philosophy

In this paper, we propose to analyze the phenomenon of Christian prayer by way of combining two different analytical frameworks. We start by applying Schutz’s theories of “intersubjectivity,” “inner time,” “politheticality,” and “multiple realities,” and then proceed by drawing on the ideas and insights of linguistic philosophers, notably, Wittgenstein’s “language-game,” Austin’s “speech act,” and Evans’s “logic of self-involvement”. In conjoining these accounts, we wish to demonstrate how their combination sheds new light on understanding the phenomenon of prayer. Prayer is a complex phenomenon that involves two major dimensions: the private and the social, as Matthew (6: 6) and Acts (1: 14), respectively, demonstrate. Schutz’s study of the phenomenon of “inner time” and the “polithetical” structure of consciousness, at both the subjective and intersubjective level, provides a useful lens to analyze these two dimensions. In addition, prayer, in following a specific set of rules, can also be considered as a specific, i.e., religious “language-game”. In the last analysis, however, we propose to analyze prayer (and, finally, religion) within the Schutzian framework of “multiple realities,” “enclaves,” and “symbolic appresentation,” which permits accessing the “religious finite province of meaning” in the very midst of the paramount reality of everyday life. In a nutshell, we claim that Christian prayer is a practice of constructing and living within a “religious province of meaning” in the everyday world; it is a practice that revolves around self-involving language-activities such as praising, confessing, thanksgiving, or requesting to God, which enable the praying subject to transfigure the language of everydayness and “see through” (Schutz) the world of everyday life in order to let it appear in a different light, e.g., the light of grace, gift, and salvation.

Life-World, Sub-Worlds, After-Worlds: The Various \u2018Realnesses\u2019 of Multiple Realities

This paper will discuss the correlation between the world of everyday life, finite provinces of meaning, and religion. To this end, the paper will start out by explaining Schutz’ considerations on “paramount reality” of the world of everyday life as well as the theory of “multiple realities” and “finite provinces of meaning”. Schutz’ considerations will then be elaborated upon and taken a step further in a discussion of the various ‘realnesses’ of the multiple realities. Special attention will be paid to a finite province of meaning only mentioned in passing by Schutz: religion. The paper will first analyze the special features of religion as a finite province of meaning and highlight the correlation it enters with the world of everyday life. Subsequently, hereafter and paradise conceptions will be described as “ultimate provinces of meaning,” and it will be shown how their realnesses connect to the world of everyday life. Finally, the “fundamental anxiety” will be studied as the motor of the relevance structures of the world of everyday life, the finite provinces of meaning as well as the hereafter conceptions.

“Secularization” or Plurality of Meaning Structures? A. Schutz’s Concept of a Finite Province of Meaning and the Question of Religious Rationality

Referring to basic Weberian notions of rationalization and secularization, I try to find a more accurate sense of the term “secularization”, intending to describe adequately the position of religion in modernity. The result of this query is—or at least should be—a new, original conceptualization of religion as one of finite provinces of meaning within one paramount reality of the life-world, as defined by Alfred Schutz. I proceed by exposing a well known, major oversimplification of the Weberian concept of secularization, very well outlined in Peter Berger’s The sacred canopy, in order to point to the genuine, much more differentiated position of Max Weber in this matter (especially from the period of Foundations of social economic and Economy and society), and, consequently, to return to the roots of Berger’s thought: phenomenological sociology of Alfred Schutz, an attempt to assure the philosophical foundations of Weber’s sociological theory. At a closer glimpse, transformation of religion in the modern process of rationalization does not consist—according to Weber—in eliminating religion and thus depriving society of the religious source of meaning, but in parallel emancipation of many different domains of rationality, including religion itself. Using Schutz’s analysis of the social world as a complex structure of many different final provinces of meaning, I describe religion as such a province and show what does the process of rationalization of this province consist and what it should consist in: a complex, ongoing exchange of cognitive relevances and contents, combined with growing autonomy of many different sub-worlds. Schutz’s theory of symbol, rooted in Edmund Husserl’s description of constitution of complex objects in mono- and polythetic acts of consciousness, moves the analysis to the epistemological level, pointing to a chance of intensifying our cognitive relation to reality through increasing interpenetration of various sub-universes of meaning.

Crossing the Finite Provinces of Meaning. Experience and Metaphor

Schutz’s references to literature and arts in his theoretical works are manifold. But literature and theory are both a certain kind of a finite province of meaning, that means they are not easily accessible from the paramount reality of everyday life. Now there is another kind of referring to literature: metaphorizing it. Using it, as may be said with Lakoff and Johnson, to understand and to experience one kind of thing in terms of another. Literally metapherein means “to carry over”. Metaphorizing in this view is then a specific kind of border-crossing between different provinces of meaning. That poses two questions: 1. What means finiteness of those provinces of meaning, what kind of border crossings are possible? What is the ground for metaphorizing meaning? 2. Could this concept used for founding a theory of the constitution of the societal and of society, that overcomes the dichotomy of structure/agency? These questions will be answered with one example in view: Schutz’ report to Kaufmann of his first visit of Husserl describing his experience as feeling like Wilhelm Meister at the Society of the Tower. In a first step this metaphor is presented together with some crumbs of metaphor theory. In a second step these crumbs will be connected to Husserl’s concept of experience. After developing a short overview over Schutz’ “finite provinces of meaning,” the relation of experience, metaphors to the intersubjectivity of these provinces in their dependence from writing and printing is discussed.

The scene

The article explores the relationship between what we take to be objective or paramount reality and, roughly, its subjectification: a shadowy world, edging on the imaginative, which I call the scene. I suggest that the two ‘realities’ are mutually implicated; that their interplay affects understanding and consequent behavior; and that our present take on the ‘empirical’ has led us to ignore this dimension of experience. I argue that insofar as we respond to (as we create) these scenes that color our experiences of objective reality, they demand anthropological consideration. I stress the intersubjective nature of subjectivity itself and offer a preliminary attempt at understanding the complex interlocutory-the indexical-dramas occurring in ritual, for example, psychoanalysis and anthropological research, that constitute the scene.

A cena: lançando sombra sobre o real

Este artigo explora a relação entre o que se considera como realidade 'objetiva' ou 'suprema' - e digamos - a sua subjetivação: um mundo de sombras, na fronteira da imaginação, que chamo de 'cena'. Sugiro que essas duas 'realidades' são mutuamente implicadas. Argumento que, na medida em que reagimos a (ou criamos) essas cenas que colorem a nossa experiência da realidade objetiva, elas merecem atenção antropológica. Enfatizo a natureza intersubjetiva da própria subjetividade e apresento uma tentativa preliminar de entendimento dos dramas interlocutórios complexos (que ocorrem no ritual, por exemplo, ou na psicanálise) que constituem a cena.

Not the Whole Story: Another Response to John Milbank's Theology and Social Theory: Part II

This paper is an attempt to respond to John Milbank’s Theology and Social Theory from a perspective informed by hermeneutical phenomenology. In the first part, the ‘classical’ distinction of explanation and understanding was defended against Milbank’s critique by reference to Paul Ricoeur’s account of the distanciation/appropriation polarity. It was argued that Milbank’s account does not sufficiently grasp identity as a hierarchical synthesis of ‘ironic’ identities which reflect different degrees and kinds of distanciation from the paramount reality of everyday life (see Schutz 1962a, 1975). The explanation/understanding binary therefore retains a validity insofar as it draws attention to the way in which different readings variously manifest the moments of distanciation and appropriation.With this groundwork in view, the second part of the paper sets out to examine Milbank’s understanding of the role of Christian theology vis-á-vis other accounts of being and the adequacy of the category of narration.

Consuming work/productive leisure: the consumption patterns of second home environments

This paper, based on a research project on British second home owners in rural France, uses empirical evidence derived from ethnographic interviews to investigate and analyse the escapism opportunities afforded by the purchase and consumption of a second home in a foreign environment. Escape is the main theme, from pressure of work, everyday routine, from commodification, to a space which is a bolt-hole, a retreat or a genuine break from paramount reality. The actions and activities through which the escape is attempted or effected are examined, leading to some insights into the home-holiday as well as the production-consumption relationship. It seems that the French second home experience provides an example of an alternative to the routines and constraints of the world of work on the one hand and from commodified tourism products on the other. In committing to the project, which mingles production and consumption, owners believe they are achieving a balance which is missing from their lives in Britain, through the mechanism of having a recurrent escape route to a way of life which offers them a degree of permanence. The French house project is also an identity project, in which reflexivity plays an important role. The practice, for those who succeed at it, ultimately can be seen as a form of social and spatial delinquency, breaking through the boundaries of a commodified existence to the lived space of another life.

"The Between" of Teaching Sociology: Ways of Knowing and Teaching

B UBER (1965:202-205) IDENTIFIED THE SUBJECT of sociology as between. His sensitivity to the inherently relational character of human existence has particular poignancy for between of teaching sociology (Berry 1985). From dyads to transnationals, sociologists attend to the normative character of life. Attending to between of teaching sociology means asking a reflexive question about the normative character of pedagogy. The question is not whether pedagogy has an ethical dimension, but rather Which ethos does any given pedagogy promote? (Schwehn 1993:84). In this essay, I ask about a pedagogy that promotes an ethos of connectedness and compassion. Teaching sociology in a culture of individualism presents ironies. We explore a subject matter that seems to many ofour students not quite real. As cultural solipsists for whom the self, its experience, and choice constitute the paramount reality, many students view society as epiphenomenal. A second irony is that while we analyze the normative character of life, ethics seems to us not quite real knowledge. As scientists for whom knowledge is public fact, clear and distinct from values, we relegate ethics to private opinion. A third irony is that while we focus on social as content, we overlook the classroom as context. Methodological individualism extends to our pedagogy, reducing the classroom to the sum of its student parts. Within contemporarywestern culture, as Mills (1959), Macpherson (1962), Lasch (1984), Bellah et al. (1985, 1991), Taylor (1989, 1991), and many others have pointed out, individualism filters and flattens howwe perceive, experience, and act toward the self, others, and the world. It dominates and emasculates how we teach.

“Paramount reality” in Schutz and Gurwitsch

Both Schutz and Gurwitsch describe reality as having a manifold character: Schutz speaks of “multiple realities” and Gurwitsch of “orders of existence”. Both hold that one realm of reality has a privileged status compared to the others: common everyday experience. However, in spite of this apparent convergence in their views, a closer reading of their various works reveal the important difference in what they understand under “common everyday experience”.

THE PROBLEM OF THE ONTOLOGY OF THE LIFE-WORLD AND THE EXISTENTIAL SITUATION IN MODERN SOCIAL SCIENCE

This article analyses three variants of a situation characteristic for modern social science called `Roquentin's situation', the main character in Sartre's Nausea who symbolises the mutual estrangement between a researchers' standpoint and their social object. The first variant is represented by the transcendentalist position of Edmund Husserl. We find Roquentin in the passages of the transcendental ego expanding the philosopher's position by a certain constellation of inner viewpoints of the social object itself. The idea of a possible ontology of the life-world appears to be an indispensable condition for this reassessment. But the lack of a sociologically worked out concept of everyday life as a self-problematising layer of the culturally formed life-world confines it to an idea ` en passant' and results in privileging the self-evidences of the philosopher as `functionary of European mankind'. Everyday life as a `paramount reality' has already become privileged in Alfred Schutz's social phenomenology. Thus emerges the intersubjective drama between the ego agens and the objective observer, which leads to the figure of the ontologist of the life-world. Schutz's solution tacitly leads to ensuring a firm position for scientific consciousness. Harold Garfinkel's ethnomethodology provokes the figure of the objective observer as an ontologist of the life-world as well as the figure of the philosopher as a functionary of European mankind. The ethnomethodological attitude provokes not only functioning intentionality itself, but also gains access to its own mode of functioning. Thus the peculiar mobility of the researcher's position becomes clarified as a continual gaining of marginal grounds between practical everyday worlds and scientific reality as everyday reality par excellence. In other words, Roquentin's situation here is not resolved but becomes a motif for its own incessant reproduction. We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched. Of course there are then no questions left, and this itself is the answer. (Wittgenstein 1969: 149)

「制度としてのスポーツ」論の再検討 : Loy, J.W.のスポーツ論をめぐって

As a preliminary step of composing the concept of sport, the meaning and significance of sport as a social institution was discussed through reconsidering J.W. Loy's five papers on sport paradigm. After examining his papers following problems were pointed out. 1) As a criterion of classifying play, game and sport, the dichotomy of competition and physical prowess is too narrow while the institutionalized level is too wide. Since institutional pattern is recognized both in sports and games, it can not be a proper criterion of classifying them. It is not clear that how expressive and instrumental aspects, as well as play and work, of his paradigm are to be integrated and sublated. 2) Loy's definition of institution is still ambiguous. It is used in such various meanings as group, organization, social system, and situation. It should be specified as a norm system. 3) As his theory of sport as an institution excessively emphasizes the negative aspects of reified and alienated sport, his theory based on humanistic views is confined to presuppose pre-established harmony in sport which points up only positive and autonomous aspects. 4) The function of sports should be distinguished from that of sport as an institution, but he confuses them and restricts these functions too narrowly. It was concluded that sport should neither be contrasted with social realities nor be considered to be subsumed by a paramount reality. In order to analyze the simultaneity of the subjective and objective aspects of sports and the expressive and instrumental functions of sport it should conversely be understood that sport is one of the multiple realities and sport constructs a multiple reality in itself.