Conclusions
My personal “way to phenomenology” revealed to me qualities that seem to be essential to one's sense of everyday social reality. Having been victimized I became aware of some of the basic elements that lie beneath the intersubjectivity of the taken-for granted life-world.
Death is the ultimate problematic event and the individual is shielded from it by his or her life-world. We hope that actions are repeatable and that others are trustworthy so that we will not confront our own isolation and our own mortality. Although one is alone in death, we act as if we are, and always will be, fundamentally with others within a shared and orderly social world. In short, we avoid our finite individuality through the hopeful construction of a sense of permanent and fundamental sociability. By sheltering ourselves within the life-world, we are, in essence, hoping that we will not die. In this sense, the life-world is a fundamentally deceptive construction. Yet, in this same sense, the life-world is also the source of social and cultural progress. Paradoxically, our sense of everyday reality is both deceptive and productive.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Berger, P. & Luckmann, T.The social consturction of reality. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966.
Freud, S.On creativity and the unconscious. New York: Harper and Row, 1958.
Garfinkel, H. Studies of the routine grounds of everyday activities. In D. Sudnow (Ed.),Studies in Social Interaction. New York: Free Press, 1972.
Garfinkel, H. Comments. Montreal: American Sociological Association Meetings, 1974.
Goffman, E.Frame analysis. New York: Harper and Row, 1974.
Gurwitsch, A.The field of consciousness. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1964.
Heeren, J. Alfred Schutz and the sociology of common sense knowledge. In J. Douglas (Ed.),Understanding everyday life. Chicago: Aldine, 1970.
Heidegger, M.Being and time. (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, trans.), London: SCM Press, 1962.
Husserl, E.Phenomenology and the crisis of philosophy (Q. Laurer, trans.).New York:Harper and Row, 1965.
Husserl, E. Cartesian meditations (D. Cairns, trans.). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973.
Natanson, M.Literature, philosophy, and the social sciences. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1968.
Natanson, M.Edmund Husserl: Philosopher of infinite tasks. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973.
Paskow, A. The meaning of my own death.International Rhilosophical Quarterly, 1974,xiv, 50–69.
Sartre, J. P.Being and nothingness. New York: Washington Square, 1958.
Schutz, A.Collected papers I. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1962.
Schutz, A.The phenomenology of the social world. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. 1967.
Schutz, A.Reflections on the problem of relevance. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970.
Schutz, A. & Luckmann, T.The structures of the life-world. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973.
Spiegelberg, H.The phenomenological movement. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1969.
Zaner, R.The way of phenomenology. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1970.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
The author wishes to express his gratitude to Susan Meisenhelder, George Psathas, and Richard Zaner for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Meisenhelder, T. A further investigation of the life-world. Hum Stud 2, 21–30 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02127213
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02127213