Alfred Schütz

Who was Alfred Schütz?

Alfred Schütz was an Austrian social scientist, whose work bridged sociological and phenomenological traditions to form a social phenomenology. Notably, Schütz is "gradually achieving recognition as one of the foremost philosophers of social science of the [twentieth] century". Schütz "attempted to relate the thought of Edmund Husserl to the social world and the social sciences. His Phenomenology of the Social World supplied philosophical foundations for Max Weber's sociology and for economics."

Schütz believes that, "There will be, however, different opinions about whether this behavior should be studied in the same manner in which the natural scientist studies his object ... [W]e take the position that the social sciences have to deal with human conduct and its commonsense interpretation in the social reality, involving the analysis of the whole system of projects and motives, or relevances and constructs ... Such an analysis refers by necessity to the subjective point of view."