Papers by Jan Strassheim
In: Božič, Andrej (ed.): Thinking Togetherness. Phenomenology and Sociality. Ljubljana: Institute Nova Revija for the Humanities, pp. 169-181, 2023
To clarify the structure of intersubjectivity that underlies any social world, Alfred Schutz deve... more To clarify the structure of intersubjectivity that underlies any social world, Alfred Schutz developed a "mundane" phenomenology based on constructive criticism of Husserl's transcendental approach and with reference to Max Weber and Henri Bergson. This chapter addresses Schutz's understanding of the relation between ego and alter ego as the focal point of intersubjectivity. His analysis hinges on "types" which mediate between lived experience in its fullness (Erleben) and selectively articulated experience (Erfahrung). I argue that Schutz's analysis, unfinished during his lifetime, can help us identify a problem which also applies to more recent work such as Dieter Lohmar's. By itself, a tendency of experience to follow types only allows for "passive" ways of being open to another person. To grasp the relation between ego and alter that makes our everyday intersubjectivity possible, we need to assume an additional tendency, an "active" openness which inherently motivates our experience to transcend types.
Philosophies, 2022
All levels of semiosis, from the materiality of signs to their contents and the contexts of their... more 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.
Theory, Culture & Society, 2022
Contrary to widespread assumptions, post-truth politicians formally adopt a rhetoric of 'truth' b... more Contrary to widespread assumptions, post-truth politicians formally adopt a rhetoric of 'truth' but turn it against established experts. To explain one central factor behind this destructive strategy and its success with voters, I consider Walter Lippmann and Friedrich Hayek, who from 1922 onwards helped develop and popularize a political rhetoric of 'truth' in terms of scientific expertise. In Hayek's influential version, market economics became the crucial expert field. Consequently, the 2008 financial crisis impacted attitudes towards experts more generally. But even sweeping rejection of experts continues to use the rhetoric, by now dominant, of expert truth. Paradoxically, this bipartisan language fuels division as opponents accuse each other of disregarding 'truth itself'. Against the underlying metaphysics of context-free 'facts', John Dewey and Alfred Schutz recommend understanding truth as 'presumptive' knowledge produced within human practices, which can be robust but requires a readiness to engage in pluralistic and open-ended processes of (re-)contextualization.
In: Coe, Cynthia (ed.): Palgrave Handbook of German Idealism and Phenomenology, 2021
Alfred Schutz agreed with Edmund Husserl that our objective world is based on an interrelation am... more Alfred Schutz agreed with Edmund Husserl that our objective world is based on an interrelation among a plurality of subjects. But to grasp this "intersubjective" dimension, Schutz argued, we need an "anthropology on a phenomenological basis." A key notion of such an anthropology is that we experience the world and the other subjects as "transcending" us. Human experience is inherently open to an "Other." However, Schutz's philosophy of a transcendence immanent to experience remained unfinished. It can be further developed with the help of Immanuel Kant, to whom Schutz had referred since the 1920s. Kant's distinction between "appearances" (phaenomena) and "things in themselves" (noumena) can be read as an anthropological (rather than metaphysical) account of how human experience propels itself into the unknown without ever crossing its own boundaries.
In: Duppel-Takayama, Mechthild / Kobayashi, Wakiko / Pekar, Thomas (eds.): Wohnen und Unterwegssein: Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven auf west-östliche Raumfigurationen. Bielefeld: transcript, 2019
The “spatial turn” starting in the 1990s questioned traditional dualisms between space and experi... more The “spatial turn” starting in the 1990s questioned traditional dualisms between space and experience. The concrete places we live with others, it has been argued, are produced through our social experience. However, the argument often presupposes an abstract space in which human bodies encounter others. Dualism persists unless we grasp even this abstract space as a product of experience. A framework for doing so may be found in texts written around the 1920s and 1930s by Austrian-American Alfred Schutz and Japanese Kitarō Nishida independently of each other. Both philosophers argue that the notion of an empty space filled with material objects, including our own bodies, arises through processes of abstraction within lived experience itself. They then stress different aspects of how space thus conceived underlies any social encounter. In Schutz, spatial experience is the model for all the “common grounds” that connect us with others. In Nishida, spatial experience fundamentally separates us as bodily individuals. The two views complement each other. A “common ground” enables us to share experience, but this is because it abstracts away from most of our individuality (Schutz). Therefore, whenever we encounter the individual other, we “leap” out of the abstractions back into lived experience (Nishida).
In: Strassheim, Jan / Nasu, Hisashi (eds.): Relevance and Irrelevance: Theories, Factors and Challenges. Berlin; Boston: de Gruyter, 2018
Relevance and irrelevance, it is argued, is constitutive to our access to “information objects” o... more Relevance and irrelevance, it is argued, is constitutive to our access to “information objects” on three interconnected levels: (1) access to the information object itself, (2) the information gained from it, (3) the use of that information. Relevance selectively shapes our experience and action, but the “irrelevance” of what is left out is not simply the opposite or absence of relevance. The complex relation between relevance and irrelevance expresses itself in different shades of knowledge and ignorance, and in a fuzzy border between information we do not want to access and information we cannot access. This implies both chances and risks for communication as a process of producing and exchanging information objects. In a second step, previous research on relevance and irrelevance is sketched with respect to different traditions and approaches: (1) Alfred Schutz and Aron Gurwitsch; (2) Paul Grice, Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson; (3) library and information science; (4) signs and language; and (5) epistemology and logic. Finally, the role of the word “relevance”, which is not found in all languages, is briefly considered after distinguishing the explicit reflection of relevance from the constitutive role of relevance, which often remains implicit.
In: Strassheim, Jan / Nasu, Hisashi (eds.): Relevance and Irrelevance: Theories, Factors and Challenges. Berlin; Boston: de Gruyter, 2018
The word “relevance” seems to have originated in legal practice. Against this background, an atte... more The word “relevance” seems to have originated in legal practice. Against this background, an attempt is made to clarify A. Schutz’s theory of relevance by referring it to notions found in legal thinking. The main point is to contribute to an understanding of the role of relevance and irrelevance at the level of social order which is often modelled on a legal system. Schutz’s concept of relevance reflects a tension between general patterns and the dynamic of their application which has been discussed, in reference to laws, as the problem of “equity” (Aristotle). Schutz’s reference to types taken for granted “until further notice” expresses this tension in the form of a legal “presumption” (G.W. Leibniz). Through the concept of a legal “state of affairs”, the analysis is referred to the role of “critique” (L. Boltanski and L. Thévenot). Against the suspicion that a relevance theory may describe something like an “order of the visible” (J. Rancière) which would suppress critics by making them “invisible”, it is argued that an analysis of relevance based on Schutz may help account both for the stability of social order and for the fact that social order can, in principle, be changed through criticism.
Civitas, 2017
Jürgen Habermas seminally criticized Alfred Schutz. This paper traces the disagreement back to a ... more Jürgen Habermas seminally criticized Alfred Schutz. This paper traces the disagreement back to a different role of idealization. Schutz's social theory is based on "types" as idealizations with an inherent dynamics, while Habermas's social theory is based on ideally stable "rules". First, a rule model of linguistic communication is assessed against analyses from linguistics and the philosophy and sociology of language. A rule model, it is found, fails to meet its theoretical goal of explaining linguistic communication. Hypothetical rules of language would not explain our intuitive understanding of the minimal propositional contents expressed by utterances. The rules would be both insufficient and unreliable in every single instance of language use. Against this background, the relation between language and "lifeworld" is then re-evaluated. A lifeworld cannot build on a rule model of language as its foundation. Nor can it supplement such a model in order to save it. Unlike a rule model, Schutz's claim that language and lifeworld are interconnected and structured by "types" that can accommodate the flexibility and precision of linguistic communication. While further research is needed, this conclusion indicates that phenomenology has been unduly neglected in social philosophy and should receive as much attention as it has in sociology.
Annual review of the Phenomenological Association of Japan, 2017
This paper investigates the relation between art and everyday life by building on the social phen... more This paper investigates the relation between art and everyday life by building on the social phenomenology of Alfred Schutz. Most aesthetic theories still focus on art and take everyday life for granted. In contrast, Schutz offers a general analysis of experience in a social world which allows us to compare both sides. I suggest that a dynamics of "relevance" shapes experience in both art and everyday life, marking a fundamental continuity between them. Aesthetic experience can be produced when the dynamics of relevance includes recursive patterns. When aesthetic theorists provide us with such patterns, their theories help shape aesthetic experience rather than merely describing it. Historically, this effect of aesthetic theory was strengthened on a social scale by parallel events in 18th century Europe. Around the same time that "aesthetics" was established as a discipline, efforts were undertaken to unify various "arts" under a single concept of "art". One result of this development is the close relationship between aesthetics and art in the European tradition, which has obscured the fundamental continuity between art and a seemingly unaesthetic "everyday life". The concept of relevance, which aims to capture this continuity, may account for another, otherwise puzzling feature of the European tradition which continues to this day. Aesthetic theories cluster in two opposed camps, something that literary theorist Carsten Zelle has called "the double aesthetics of modernity". This is to be expected given that the dynamics of relevance has two sides, neither of which can be reduced to the other.
Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio , 2017
Can there be "languages of food" in Nelson Goodman's sense of "languages of art" ? Food appears l... more Can there be "languages of food" in Nelson Goodman's sense of "languages of art" ? Food appears like a borderline case because of its strong dependence on context and on the individuals involved. We seem to have difficulty either comparing food with language or seeing it as art. This is at odds with the fact that food has been recognized as an art form for decades by art institutions. The paper approaches this problem on a level often neglected in the discussion: pragmatics, the application of language in context. Cognitive scientists Deirdre Wilson and Dan Sperber have shown that the use of language is ultimately based not on rules, but on relevance. Relevance in turn depends on contexts and individuals. Such dependence, therefore, does not make food a borderline case. Rather, it is something that food and language have in common. But can we use a concept of relevance to analyze food? Following the phenomenology of Alfred Schutz, relevance has two sides, termed here "typicality" and "spontaneity". Both sides of relevance are found to shape our experience of food in striking ways. Food is a particularly clear example of a more general, relevance-driven context dependence of both language and the arts.
Schutzian Research, 2016
Alfred Schutz made a point which is crucial for understanding communication and social coordinat... more Alfred Schutz made a point which is crucial for understanding communication and social coordination. Through symbols, signs or indications we experience that which transcends our experience. However, Schutz never solved the conceptual problems his claim implied. A solution is proposed through constructive criticism of Schutz. Symbols, signs and indications are based on typical expectations. In contrast, ‘experiences of transcendence’ are analyzed as experiences which deviate from typical expectations due to a tendency inherent to experience, as opposed to deviations prompted by the frustration of types. Such experiences are shown to be constitutive of our use of symbols, our use of language, and our relation to individual others. Experiences of transcendence do not passively reflect the situation, but they are motivated in their selectivity by ‘anxiety.’ Anxiety is phenomenologically understood as the expectation of atypical experiences. While anxiety motivates deviations from types, it is itself motivated by previous frustrations of types. Through this dynamics of motivation, experiences of transcendence and typical experiences refer to each other. Even so, the two categories are logically distinct. The possibility of communication and social coordination can only be explained by assuming, in addition to shared types, anxiety as a shared readiness to transcend types.
Human Studies, 2016
Alfred Schutz’s theory of the social world, often neglected in philosophy, has the potential to c... more Alfred Schutz’s theory of the social world, often neglected in philosophy, has the potential to capture the interplay of identity and difference which shapes our action, interaction, and experience in everyday life. Compared to still dominant identity-based models such as that of Jürgen Habermas, who assumes a coordination of meaning built on the idealisation of stable rules (primarily those of language), Schutz’s theory is an important step forward. However, his central notion of a “type” runs into a difficulty which requires constructive criticism. Against the background of Schutz’s theory of meaning inspired by Bergson and Husserl, his idea of types “taken for granted until further notice” is shown to express a primacy of identity which, in the final analysis, leads into the implausible scenario of ‘ubiquitous tunnel vision’. This makes it necessary to go beyond Schutz and assume an inherently motivated tendency towards difference in meaning termed ‘spontaneity’. Where spontaneity and the opposed tendency towards identity of meaning work together in the application of types, they enable embodied subjects to interact with the world and with each other in the routine yet flexible and sometimes innovative ways which we all know.
Journal of Pragmatics, Feb 1, 2010
Two seminal but unconnected relevance theories of communication are compared: one found in Alfred... more Two seminal but unconnected relevance theories of communication are compared: one found in Alfred Schutz’s philosophy, and one developed by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson in a cognitive-science framework. The comparison is meant to strengthen both sides by integrating their advantages, and to prompt further discussion between these and other relevance accounts. Both theories, it is argued, aim to grasp and explain the fact, unaccounted for by code-like rules (e.g. of language), that people interact in context in a routine yet flexible way. Both investigate a dynamics of selectivity in experience making certain selections ‘relevant’ to an individual, which interactants exploit for coordination. Three differences between the theories are examined, and specific integrations encouraged: (a) The central problematic of inter-individual ascriptions of relevance remains underdeveloped with Sperber/Wilson. Schutz’s idea of ongoing ‘typification’ is proposed as an amendment. (b) Schutz lacks a concise notion of relevance. Sperber/Wilson’s two-sided concept paves the way for a different concept meeting requirements identified in the article and captures the interlocking of routine and flexibility in interaction. (c) Sperber/Wilson overly restrict the range of experience powering their theory. This is shown for individual goals, whose inclusion via the recommended concepts of typification and relevance is suggested.
This is an early and (perhaps too) concise version of some ideas developed in my 2012 paper "Emot... more This is an early and (perhaps too) concise version of some ideas developed in my 2012 paper "Emotionen nach Alfred Schütz".
In: Schnabel, Annette / Schützeichel, Rainer (eds.): Emotionen, Sozialstruktur und Moderne. Wiesbaden: VS, 2012
I apply my particular reading of Schutz's theory to the problem of emotion, which Schutz himself ... more I apply my particular reading of Schutz's theory to the problem of emotion, which Schutz himself only hinted at. How is it that emotions are rich and varied phenomena bound to unique embodied individuals - while at the same time emotions can be shared, understood, and even predicted (e.g. when we intentionally offend or amuse other people), and show a high degree of cultural and historical relativity?
Edited Books by Jan Strassheim
Relevance drives our actions and channels our attention; it shapes how we make sense of the world... more Relevance drives our actions and channels our attention; it shapes how we make sense of the world and communicate with each other. Irrelevance spreads a twilight which blurs the line between information we do not want to access and information we cannot access. In disciplines as diverse as philosophy, sociology, the information sciences and linguistics, “relevance” has been proposed as a key concept. This book is the first to bring together the often unrelated traditions. Researchers from different fields discuss relevance and relate it to the challenges of “irrelevance”, which have so far been neglected despite their significance for our chances of making well-informed decisions and understanding others. The contributions focus on theoretical and conceptual questions, on specific factors and fields, and on practical and political implications of relevance and irrelevance as forces which are even stronger when they remain in the background.
Books by Jan Strassheim
Uniquely individual perspectives, interactive processes, and collectively construed worlds form t... more Uniquely individual perspectives, interactive processes, and collectively construed worlds form the three dimensions of a “social nexus”. None of the three distinct dimensions can exist or be understood apart from the others. The claim hinges on a two-sided concept of “relevance” developed from a critical re-reading of Alfred Schutz. A philosophical focus on the individual body and mind in its creativity and richness, it is argued, is conceptually bound up with the analysis of a social nexus - and vice versa.
Sinn und Relevanz. Individuum, Interaktion und gemeinsame Welt als Dimensionen eines sozialen Zusammenhangs, 2015
Im Denken der Moderne und erst recht des 20. Jahrhunderts verbindet das Individuum und die sozial... more Im Denken der Moderne und erst recht des 20. Jahrhunderts verbindet das Individuum und die soziale Welt, in der es lebt, ein spannungsreiches Verhältnis. Einerseits zieht sich das Individuum in die Fülle seiner privaten Gedanken und Gefühle und seiner ganz eigenen Leiblichkeit zurück, die andere nicht haben, nicht verstehen können und doch beeinflussen wollen. Andererseits können wir uns sehr wohl verständigen und die einzigartige Lage anderer Personen nachempfinden; wir machen uns sogar die fremden Standpunkte zu Eigen. Einerseits gelten unpersönliche Regeln, Rollen und Techniken scheinbar abgelöst von den Einzelnen und ihrem näheren Umfeld, waren schon lange vor ihnen da und treten ihnen wie äußere Zwänge entgegen. Andererseits ermöglichen uns diese anonymen Vorgaben einen freien und reibungslosen Umgang mit Menschen, die wir nie zuvor getroffen haben, ja sie prägen alle Individuen einer Gruppe ‚von innen', bis in ihr Handeln und ihre Körper hinein. Wortpaare wie Sinn und Sinnlichkeit oder Routine und Kreativität werden verwendet, um Gegensätze aufzuspannen, deren Pole häufig und unerwartet wieder ineinander fallen.
Sinn und Relevanz. Individuum, Interaktion und gemeinsame Welt als Dimensionen eines sozialen Zusammenhangs, 2015
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Papers by Jan Strassheim
Edited Books by Jan Strassheim
Books by Jan Strassheim