Founding Phenomenological Sociology with Alfred Schütz and Max Scheler

In this paper we want to re-examine the traditional belief that phenomenological sociology owes its pedigree primarily to Alfred Schütz. More specifically, we will try to show that Max Scheler is equally worthy of the title of founder of phenomenological sociology. Our argument has three interlocking themes. First of all, we will recognize, like many others before us, the undoubtedly essential contribution made by Schütz, who is generally viewed as the father of phenomenological sociology. Our second step, however, will be to return to the foundations of this approach and to show that it throws up certain difficulties. As is widely known, Schütz’s project is nothing less than to apply the Husserlian transcendental to the empirical. But, we will show that because Schütz remains caught in a king of egologic sociology, reducing intersubjectivity—and the social—to a face-to-face relationship, he fails to give to phenomenology a real sociological dimension. Nevertheless this does not mean that phenomenology does not have a powerful sociological dimension. By exploring concepts insufficiently explored by Schütz in a third step, such as Husserl’s notion of intentionality and its equivalent in Max Scheler’s thought (the frame of mind), we will explore the empirical potential of phenomenology. Scheler, considering a social environment independent (and even constitutive) of the subject, gives the final form to a phenomenological sociology, a sociology which gives us even the mean to think a sympathetic relationship with the natural world, critical of capitalism and prefiguring ecology.