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Non-player characters (NPCs) are a common feature in contemporary videogames, particularly role-playing games (RPGs). Evidence suggests player relationships with these fictional, digital characters can manifest as deeply emotional experiences that can 'bleed' off the screen and affect the daily lives of players. However, research in this area is still in its infancy, and as yet has not been given a thorough conceptual treatment. Applying the sociological phenomenology of Alfred Schütz, this paper will examine the structure of the experiences that players have with NPCs, and how these experiences manifest as meaningful social experiences. By a reconceptualization of the player-NPC relationship as a deeply mediated human-human relationship, this paper aims to build a foundation for further phenomenological study into how players engage with fictional characters in immersive videogame worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alfred Schutz is, without a doubt, one of the phenomenologists that contributed the most to the reflection on how to apply insights from phenomenological philosophy to the, empirical and theoretical, human and social sciences. However, his work tends to be neglected by many of the current advocates of phenomenology within these disciplines. In the present paper, I intend to remedy this situation. In order to do so, I will systematically revisit his mundane and social-scientifically oriented account of phenomenology, which, as I shall show, emerges from a theoretical confrontation with the Husserlian distinction between transcendental phenomenology and phenomenological psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is initially striking about Alfred Schutz's phenomenological account of the musical experience, which encompasses both the performance and reception of music, is his apparent dismissal of the corporeal and spatial aspects of that experience. The paper argues that this is largely a product of his wider understanding of temporality wherein the mind and time are privileged over the body and space, respectively. While acknowledging that Schutz's explicit or stated view is that the body and space are relatively insignificant to his account, the paper reveals how they actually feature significantly in the latter, but in ways that remain largely implicit. First, the analysis demonstrates that the mental and temporal aspects of Schutz's phenomenology of the musical experience cannot be considered independently of their interrelations with the equally important, albeit under-examined, corporeal, and spatial aspects. Concepts from Nietzsche's early aesthetics are recruited to fulfil this task. Second, the analysis challenges Schutz's dismissal of space in his theory of music perception. Lastly, it reveals the crucial, yet implicit, role of the body and space in his key examination of the intersubjective phenomenon he terms 'making music together'. By presenting the above arguments, the paper aims to draw out the implicit dimensions of Schutz's phenomenology of music and thereby enrich his influential account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of the other was one of the central problems for the founder of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl. He investigated the other as the alter ego intensively in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, in which he introduced the conceptions of "analogical apperception'' and "pairing'' as fundamental forms of "passive synthesis.'' Although it is no doubt Husserl who investigated the other most seriously and intensively, there is an aporia in his theory of the other. If the other is an object of ego's intentional consciousness, the other turns out to be no more than a modification of the ego. In the face of such an aporia, some phenomenologists embarked upon inquiry into the other. This paper focuses primarily on Alfred Schutz's discussion of the "other'' in general and about the "stranger'' in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alfred Schütz is often credited with providing sociology with a firm ground derived from phenomenology of science and justifying it as a science operating within natural attitude. Although his project of social science draws extensively on Edmund Husserl's theory of attitudes, it would be incorrect to assume that Schütz shares with the founder of phenomenology his conception of science. This paper compares Husserl's and Schütz's views on the structure and meaning of science and traces the roots of their radical divergence. Whereas Husserl increasingly emphasises the importance of phenomenological reduction for the genuine human science, Schütz eventually rejects reduction and restricts the social science to a specific system of relevancies within the reality of the lifeworld. This paper presents the argument that Schütz's conception eliminates the possibility of a phenomenological justification of social science, as it implies that there are no rationally justifiable grounds to pursue science. In this way, Schütz's views substantially differ from the phenomenological theory of science and become open to the phenomenological critique of naivety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the concept of the idealization of the interchangeability of phases of life as an enhancement, or rather as a further development of Alfred Schutz's general thesis of the reciprocity of perspectives. It claims that the according figure of thought is a constitutive part of acts of understanding in everyday life where, in order to understand each other, individuals of different age-groups have to overcome the difference of perspectives that are attached to their particular ages. This is accomplished by a specific assumption that is also applied in the case of intrasubjective, autobiographical understanding. By discussing its sociological significance as well as its philosophical background, this paper introduces the idealization of the interchangeability of phases of life as a fundamental and universal figure of understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to explore the complexities involved in young people's attempts to move away from criminal activity. This paper draws on qualitative data from a study that aimed to identify how young people negotiate transitions away from offending. The paper argues that an analysis of the subtle shifts in young people's perceptions and interpretations of their situation sheds light on the complex nature of desisting from crime. To do so, the paper focuses on the role of relevance in order to explore how these subtle shifts in thinking enable young people to reinterpret their lives and move towards desistance. By way of undertaking this analysis, this paper draws on Alfred Schutz's phenomenological approach to the nature of relevance to explore how young people shift between their known world of 'doing crime' and an unknown world of being 'straight and legitimate'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the "methodology," or philosophy of social science, developed by Felix Kaufmann in the second quarter of the 20th century, with the aim of determining its influence on the early work of the sociologist Harold Garfinkel. Kaufmann's two methodology books are discussed, one written before, the other after, his migration from Austria to the United States. It is argued that Garfinkel took over Kaufmann's conception of scientific practice: as a set of procedural rules or methods that determine whether or not new propositions will be accepted into the corpus of scientific knowledge, and whether previously accepted propositions should be retained or abandoned. However, Garfinkel deployed this methodology not so much as a model for sociological inquiry, but rather for the processes by which the lifeworld is constituted—an area of investigation that is epistemologically prior to the focus of most social science, and one which had been opened up in the writings of Edmund Husserl and (especially) Alfred Schutz. It is suggested that Kaufmann's "methodology" was an important complement to the work of these other two philosophers in their influence on Garfinkel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a critique of the special issue of Human Studies (vol. 40) on "Alfred Schutz and Religion". Following a line similar to that of Dominique Janicaud I call into question the very phenomenological status of the "phenomenology of religion" developed across the various contributions. Appealing to the Husserlian principle of freedom from presuppositions my critique focuses on the way these phenomenologies of religion talk about "religion". At their core, the failure contained within these contributions is the failure to properly consider a question which begins any undergraduate Religious Studies program—what is "religion"? I charge that because these contributions take it as "self-evident" what religion "is" they allow a metaphysical assertion into their phenomenology which breaches the "neutrality" demanded of the principle of freedom from presuppositions. Drawing on the work of the Critical Religion project in Religious Studies I further highlight how this metaphysical assertion predicates an unavoidable ideological assertion, one which serves colonial mechanics of exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Politicas y Sociales is the property of Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Politicas y Sociales and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines Alfred Schutz’s insights on types and typification. Beginning with a brief overview of the history and meaning of typification in interpretive sociology, the paper further addresses both the ubiquity and the necessity of typification in social life and scientific method. Schutz’s contribution itself is lacking in empirical application and grounding, but examples are provided of ongoing empirical research which advances the understanding of types and typification. As is suggested by illustrations from scholarship in the social studies of social science, studies of social identity associated with membership categorization analysis, and constructionist social problems theory, typification can be found to be central to social research whether it is taken up as a largely unacknowledged resource or whether it is addressed by different names. The overview and illustrations suggest the continuing, widespread, and indeed foundational relevance of Schutz’s insights into types and typification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper outlines Schutz’s phenomenology of law in the context of the transformation of positivistic practices in a post-totalitarian society. His major contribution is seen in the disentanglement of social phenomena from any form of naturalness by incorporating the dimension of meaning and interpretation into them. This philosophical gesture is made possible by renouncing any theory of transcendent ground(s) of a pre-formed order (Section 1) and leads to an interpretive concept of law, in which the reciprocity of perspectives play the major role. The conclusions are pointing toward a phenomenological concept of law able to take our freedom seriously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we will attempt to outline a phenomenology of attention centered around the concepts of interest and selection. We will start with an analysis of Husserl’s notion of attention, then turn to the reflections of William James, Alfred Schutz and Erving Goffman, all of whom recognized the fundamental role attention plays in the processes by which social actors frame and define reality. Finally, we will consider Bernhard Waldenfels’ ethics of attention. He offers an ethics based on openness to and recognition of the other that, above all, offers both a response and an antidote to xenology and xenopolitics.

Informed by Alfred Schütz's phenomenology of social relations and its recent developments addressing online relationality, this essay reflects on the differences between online and offline death-related experiences in contemporary Romania. In Orthodox death cultures, religious, social, and familial bonds overlap. Orthodox Christianity is sceptical about body–mind separation and values unmediated liturgical communities. It is, thus, pertinent to ask what death online brings and denies in terms of experience to Romanian internet users. Some preliminary findings from our fieldwork are discussed. So far, on Romanian Facebook, three clusters of experience emerged widely: 1. A realm of belief where faith, unchallenged by digital practices, "decodes" deadly events across life-worlds; 2. Experiences of resistance and ambivalence of those who are stuck "in-between", that is, those less competent in their traditions, yet sceptical about digital change; 3. Death experiences seem less synchronised across life-worlds for those who value electronic proximity: digital death and real death obey different rules. Historical specificity, we shall conclude, sets typified combinations of motives for what Romanians do in the proximity of death and how they do it. Digital technologies modulate the "hows" and, less notably, the "whats". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Discusiones Filosóficas is the property of Universidad de Caldas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both theoretical and empirical work in a variety of disciplines has resulted in a recent turn away from Cartesian and Meadian anthropocentrism in the direction of a radical reconsideration of nonhuman animal mind and agency. Central to sociology's role in envisioning a repopulated social world is the analysis of nonhuman-human social interaction. Because all social action is predicated on certain assumptions regarding the minds of others, a theory of intersubjectivity must be at the core of any such project. It is argued here that the key elements employed in Alfred Schutzs conceptualization of intersubjectivity among humans are also demonstrated in the routine communicative projects of humans and their companion animals. After presenting a Schutzian theory of intersubjectivity, this article analyzes, from an ethnographic perspective, elements of the everyday lifeworld Rocky-a deaf, paraplegic cat-cohabits with the author and other family members. Through that analysis, the paper demonstrates that the dynamics of everyday interactions through which Rocky actively participates in the creation of meaning and the achievement of understanding is highly consistent with Schutzs theory of human intersubjectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Tópicos is the property of Asociacion Revista de Filosofia de Santa Fe and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The work of Alfred Schutz was an important early influence on Harold Garfinkel and therefore on the development of ethnomethodology. In this article, I try to clarify what Garfinkel drew from Schutz, as well as what he did not take from him, specifically as regards the task of social inquiry. This is done by focusing in detail on one of Schutz's key articles: 'Concept and Theory Formation in the Social Sciences'. The aim is thereby to illuminate the relationship between Schutz's views on the character of social science and Garfinkel's radical proposal for a re-specified focus of investigation. This is further pursued by examining an important debate about the link between Schutz and ethnomethodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Japanese Sociological Review / Shakaigaku Hyoron is the property of Japan Sociological Society and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista de Estudios Sociales is the property of Universidad de los Andes and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper lays the groundwork for developing a thorough-going phenomenological description of different phenomena of violence such as physical, psychic and structural violence. The overall aim is to provide subject-centered approaches to violence within the social sciences and the humanities with an integrative theoretical framework. To do so, I will draw primarily on the phenomenological accounts of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Alfred Schutz, and thereby present guiding clues for a phenomenologically grounded theory of violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mediation services arise in contexts where the notions of community cohesion, relationship integrity and social order are valued over their opposites (disorder, dissent, conflict etc). Yet it is not at all clear whether and how the mediation of conflict works to re-establish harmony or consensus. Indeed it is not at all clear that mediation is always effective or just. It has even been suggested that some conflicts (e.g. work-place, commercial and sexual assault) are either not resolved or not resolved justly by mediation. On the other hand, advocates maintain that mediation can bring resolution and repair to ongoing relationships, promote community harmony, and empower people to be self-determining in the construction and maintenance of their resolutions. Whether mediation is adjudged positively or not, all mediation is instantiated in, indeed performed through, talk. In this paper I examine mediations from an Australian mediation program, and use Conversation Analysis to expose the practical methods by which mediators achieve consensus between disputants. I then examine a case in which mediation has failed to produce the sought-after consensus, and explore one way of understanding the failure of mediation in that case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alfred Schutz tends to be falsely considered as an illustrious representative of social ontological individualism. In this paper, I seek to correct this flawed interpretation of his work by means of a revisitation of his criticism of what I-taking up a Marxian term-call the "robinsonades" intrinsic to Husserl's 5th Cartesian Meditation. It is my contention that the systematic reconstruction of this classical criticism makes it possible to lay bare Schutz's actual ontological account, namely: social ontological intersubjectivism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In this article, the author addresses the mechanisms of the acculturation of people who move across different cultural communities (immigrants, refugees, sojourners, international students, etc.). It starts by analyzing Alfred Schutz's essay 'Stranger' and then connects it to the theory of sociocultural models (TSCM) (Chirkov, 2020a). Schutz's treatise provides background and a conceptual map for articulating the mechanisms of acculturation. The TSCM elaborates on these concepts and hypotheses and justifies the proposed understanding of the psychological and sociocultural basis of acculturation. The primary idea of this approach to acculturation is that migrants experience a clash and tension between two sets of sociocultural models: from their home communities and from their host communities. Newcomers must understand the sources of this tension; in turn, they must reflect on it and then develop strategies for reconciling these two sets of models. During this process, their selves, rationality, reflective capacities, agency and intellectual autonomy become the primary means for their acculturation success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Revista Colombiana de Sociologia is the property of Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas, Departamento de Sociologia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

All levels of semiosis, from the materiality of signs to their contents and the contexts of their application, are structured by a selectivity in human experience and action that foregrounds only a fraction of the situation here and now. Before Sperber and Wilson, concepts of "relevance" were proposed in both semiotics and phenomenology to analyze this selectivity. Building critically on Alfred Schutz's phenomenology, I suggest that a productive way to capture the fundamental role of relevance in processes of meaning-making is to see relevance as the outcome of an interplay between two antagonistic tendencies. On the one hand, socially stabilized and individually sedimented "types" guide our experience and action along established patterns. On the other hand, we are actively open to new and unexpected aspects; we are ready to deviate from types and to change typical patterns. Only both tendencies taken together account for our semiotic behavior in context. Spatial metaphors such as "ground" illuminate only a part of this interplay. Due to the double movement in what becomes relevant to us, the typical ground on which we produce and interpret signs is constantly being shifted and re-grounded, which keeps driving on an endless process of semiosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article re-examines the relationship between the works of Alfred Schütz and Harold Garfinkel, focusing on their respective approaches to temporality in interaction. Although there are good reasons to emphasize the differences between Schütz's notion of individual projects of action and Garfinkel's interest in communicative sequencing, there is also an interesting historical connection. In order to elucidate this connection, the article provides a close reading of the steps that lead Schütz from his premise of 'egological' time consciousness to his understanding of the reflexive and interactive process of meaning establishment and interpretation developed in his first book, The Phenomenology of the Social World (1967 [1932]). The article reflects further upon which aspects of Schütz's considerations resonated with Garfinkel in his formative years and how Garfinkel related to them variously in his later development of ethnomethodology. Hence, it appears that Garfinkel's ethnomethodology successively departs from many of Schütz's premises while simultaneously incorporating and further developing some of his notions on the sequential organization and temporal flux of interactive processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Filozofija i Drustvo is the property of University of Belgrade, Institute for Philosophy & Social Theory and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The purpose of this paper is to show that the work of Alfred Schutz, mostly neglected by the current representatives of the social scientific movement of methodological individualism, can provide a foundation for an alternative methodological individualist programme, which instead of building on the presumed rationality of action, starts from the subjective consciousness of the actor, thus can overcome the objectivist bias characterizing most other variants. Following the Schutzian guidelines, this individualist approach can avoid the error of introducing elements incompatible with the individual level of explanation, and also can avoid the conflict between the principle of the freedom of choice, assumed by the action theoretical point of departure, and the implicit determinism of the theories grounded on the idea of rational action. Adopting the results on the fields of the definition of the situation and intersubjective understanding, provided by the phenomenologically grounded interpretive theory of Schutz, methodological individualist theory can also overcome some of its serious deficiencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the key insights of Scheler's approach to the topic intersubjectivity is to recognise that the problem of intersubjectivity is in fact several problems. In The Nature of Sympathy, Scheler lays out an order of precedence in which these problems need to be addressed. One of his major criticisms against analogical arguments and theories of empathy is that they violate this order. Specifically, they provide accounts of what the Other is thinking (intersubjectivity as achievement), but treat this as a solution to how we recognise the Other as Other (intersubjectivity as possibility). In responding to Scheler, Schutz takes up this order of precedence but then makes the significantly bolder claim that intersubjectivity as possibility is not problematic and does not require a solution. The purpose of this paper is to show that Schutz's argument relies on a Husserlian reading of Scheler's use of "transcendental psychology" and that rather than sidestepping the problem Schutz in fact tacitly presupposes a solution in the form of the human prejudice. Significantly, this solution radically overturns the aims of Scheler's phenomenology and even that of the broader Phenomenological Movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]