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Accomplishing Meaning in a Stratified World: An Existential-Phenomenological Reading of Max Weber’s ‘Class, Status, Party’

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Abstract

This is an existential-phenomenological reading of Max Weber’s “Class, Status, Party” that seeks a fuller understanding of meaning accomplishment in a stratified World. I appropriate stratification as a single meaning structure ontically defined by domination, intersubjectivity, and life-chances and ontologically determined by the power-to-be (Seinkönnen), There-being-with-others (Mitdasein), and potentiality (Möglichkeit). I then discuss the significance of these structures in finite transcendence (There-being, Dasein) and describe ways they factually unfold in World achievement. I conclude with logotherapeutic reflections concerning meaning accomplishment in a stratified World and a summary of key questions facing existential-phenomenology in light of the likelihood that There-being must embrace, indeed, live, the inherent equality of Being (Gleichheit des Seins) among Daseins to accomplish its authenticity.

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Correspondence to Joaquin Trujillo.

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Trujillo, J. Accomplishing Meaning in a Stratified World: An Existential-Phenomenological Reading of Max Weber’s ‘Class, Status, Party’. Hum Stud 30, 345–356 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-007-9068-3

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