In this paper, I discuss the guidelines of a phenomenology of the social world in the wake of Alfred Schutz and José Ortega y Gasset. While the latter was not, for a long time, acknowledge as a phenomenologist, the former is a well-known critique of Husserl’s theory of intersubjectivity and of the possibility of grounding a community of transcendental Egos. Both, however, remained faithful to some basic phenomenological tenets, namely, that individual subjectivity has a relational character, the circumstances in which (...) men live are a part of their life, and life is characterized by its openness to the world. On this basis, they both carried out a phenomenological description of social existence, stressing its two main assumptions: 1) there are things that must be taken for granted; 2) habitualities, typical constructions, and systems of relevance are the primary ways of dealing with social events and other fellow citizens. In different ways, they both showed that the traditional objections opposed to phenomenology regarding its capacity to address mundane human existence stemmed from a misunderstanding of its basic tenets and intentions. (shrink)

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. (shrink)