Phenomenology within sociology (also social phenomenology or phenomenological sociology) examines the concept of social reality (German: Lebenswelt or "Lifeworld") as a product of intersubjectivity. Phenomenology analyses social reality in order to explain the formation and nature of social institutions. The application of phenomenological ideas in sociology, however, is not reduced to the notion of the "Lifeworld", nor to "grand" theoretical synthesis, such as that of phenomenological sociology.
Context Having developed the initial groundwork for philosophical phenomenology, Edmund Husserl set out to create a method for understanding the properties and structures of consciousness such as, emotions, perceptions of meaning, and aesthetic judgement. Social phenomenologists talk about the social construction of reality. They view social order as a creation of everyday interaction, often looking at conversations to find the methods that people use to maintain social relations. The leading exponent of Phenomenological Sociology was Alfred Schütz (1899–1959). Schütz sought to provide a critical philosophical foundation for Max Weber's interpretive sociology (verstehende Soziologie) by applying methods and insights derived from the philosophy of Husserl to the study of the social world. It is the building of this bridge between Husserlian phenomenology and Weberian sociology that serves as the starting point for contemporary phenomenological sociology. Not all versions of phenomenological sociology are based on Weberian themes. There is some historical evidence that suggests elements of Weberian sociology are themselves based on certain phenomenological themes, especially in regard to the theory of the intended meaning of an act and ideas regarding theory and concept formation. Weber may have taken influence from Wilhelm Dilthey's theory of Weltanschauung, who may have also taken from Husserl's theory of meaning. While Husserl's work was intended to understand how we reflect on the structures of consciousness in its own right, Schütz was concerned with the relationship between the Lebenswelt ("Lifeworld") and human action. Husserl's work was conducted as a transcendental phenomenology of consciousness. Schütz's work was conducted as a mundane phenomenology of the social world. Their projects differ in level of analysis, topics of study, and the type of phenomenological reduction used in analysis. Ultimately these two distinct projects should be seen as complementary, with the studies of the latter dependent on the studies of the former. That is, valid phenomenological descriptions of the social reality should be consistent with the descriptions of intentional consciousness. It is from Husserl's work that Schütz' derives its meaning and verifiability. This is in keeping with Husserl's conception of phenomenology as "First Philosophy", the foundation, or ground, for both philosophy and all of the sciences.
Core assumptions Phenomenology takes it that social reality does not take place empirically or in any objective sense. Its various manifestations, such as institutions, organizations, social classes, and so on, are thought to be caused by lived social reality. In this way, these manifestations of social reality are considered "objects-constituted-in-and-for-consciousness". The process by which these manifestations come into being as products of consciousness is referred to in sociology as typification. In Husserl's Ideas I, he defines a concept he calls "general thesis of the Natural Attitude" as "state of affairs in which we live before we have engaged in philosophy" or as the assumption that "the world is" as we literally perceive it in consciousness. The general thesis of the Natural Attitude is the ideational foundation for our everyday social experience. It unites the world of individual objects into a unified world of meaning, which we assume is shared by any and all who share our culture. The Natural Attitude forms the underpinning for our thoughts and actions. It is the mental projection of a belief that a naturally occurring social world is both factually objective in its existential status, and unquestioned in its "natural" appearance. According to the Natural Attitude, social objects (persons, language, institutions, etc.) have the same existential status as objects occurring in nature (rocks, trees, and animals, etc.). Although it is often referred to as the "general thesis of the Natural Attitude", it is not a thesis in the formal sense of the term, but a non-thematic assumption, or belief, that underlies our sense of the objectivity and facticity of the world, and the objects appearing in this world. The facticity of this world of common sense is both unquestioned and virtually "unquestionable;" it is sanctionable as to its status as that which "is", and that which "everyone", or, at least, "any reasonable person", agrees to be the case with regard to the factual character of the world. As far as traditional social science is concerned, this taken-for-granted world of social facts is the starting and end point for any and all investigations of the social world. It provides the raw, observable, taken-for-granted "data" upon which the findings of the social sciences are idealized, conceptualized, and offered up for analysis and discourse. Within traditional social science, this "data" is formulated into a second order world of abstractions and idealizations constituted in accordance with these sciences' modelling schemes. Schutz's phenomenological descriptions are made from within the Phenomenological Attitude, which follows the process of phenomenological reduction (epoché), which suspends the Natural Attitude and reveals the phenomena occurring within the Natural Attitude of the mind as manifestations of the non-objective mental world.
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