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Vitenskapsteori: Tekst til Vestnorsk nettverk - forskarutdanninga/SVT, hsten 2011.

Knut Magne Aanestad

Intersubjectivity and Corporeality: A Phenomenological Approach

This essay discusses theoretical issues of importance to a planned study of empowerment1in

a group of disabled persons engaging into challenging physical activity.

In the planned study the main objective is the investigation of corporeally funded

empowermentwithin a phenomenological framework. Concerning bodily agency as a source

of empowerment, the departure point is the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty -the so-calledphenomenology of perception. As elaborated in Phenomenologyof Perception

(1996), the body is viewed as constituting thefundamental epistemological principle of the

human being-in-the-world2.

Following this initiation, a central task in the study will be the providing of a methodical

procedure - that is, a way of adapting the phenomenological framework to the empirical

investigation of processes of empowerment. The methodical procedure will be heavily

inspired by the phenomenological methodology of Alfred Schtz. Arguably, Schtz is the one

within the phenomenological tradition providing the most elaborate ways of applying

phenomenological theory to social scientific (empirical) studies (Fay 2003, Hekman 1980). In

the methodical procedure, Schtzmain conceptual tool - the so-called ideal types- will be

applied.

Since the theories of Merleau-Ponty and Schtz are set to correspond to each other in the

study, they will have to be compared regarding the main themes of what is referred to as

corporeally funded empowerment. In this essay, two such themes are chosen and discussed.

The main objective of the essay is the investigation of whether the phenomenological

stances of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Alfred Schtz are mutually consistent when it comesto the themes intersubjective meaningand the role of the body.

1The making-able and self-improvement in individuals and minorities through mental determination, or/and

as an active and constructive shaping of identity.2This special use of hyphens is common within the phenomenological tradition, and will also be used

occasionally in this text. The intention is to overcome divisions imposed by the formal procedures of written

language upon meanings in need of other ways of expression. E.g. being-in-the-worlddenotes the whole

expression as an entity, hence not as beingas something different from the world, in which the beinghappens to find itself. This use of hyphens usually points to experiences of immediate and non-reflective

character.

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The investigation will take form of a comparison of Schtz before mentioned concept of

ideal types, and Merleau-Pontys concept body schema.

The text starts out with a short introduction to the main traditions of phenomenology, in

order to present the theoretical backdrop on which the phenomenologies of Merleau-Ponty

and Schtz have been developed. This is followed by a presentation of Merleau-Pontys

theory on corporeality. The discussions will be commenced in the subsequent presentation

of the social phenomenology of Alfred Schtz, before culminating in a separate segment in

the end.

The Phenomenological Tradition

As initiated by Edmund Husserl, phenomenology is the study of the transcendental and

constituting features of human consciousness. At stake are the essential characteristics

being present in every act of consciousness, regardless of the actual content of the act.

Hence phenomenology is, in its traditional sense, fundamentally essentialistic, distancing

itself from psychologism and historicist explanations of human inner life.

On these Cartesianpremises, phenomenology is from the outset a purely theoretical and

metaphysical approach. Investigating structures of human existence beyond(hence at the

same time constituting) every actualexperience, phenomenology has nevertheless inspired

empirically oriented social scientific conduct (Husserl 1964, Fay 2003).3

Whereas the term transcendental phenomenologydesignates the initial approach as

developed by Husserl, the generation succeeding him is generally associated with the so-

called existential phenomenology. The turn consists of a strengthened attention towards

what is held as the essential characteristics of the actual and immediate experience of the

being-in-the-world. Heidegger, being the most influential figure within phenomenology after

Husserl, stresses the material existence in space and time and the perceiving body as

inseparable from the main structures of being. For Heidegger,practical engagementis of

uttermost importance. Following this, Heidegger regards Husserls transcendental terms as

being beside the point when it comes to the basic characterization of human existence as afundamentally livedexperience (Fay 2003).

Maurice Merleau-Ponty and the Phenomenology of Perception

With Maurice Merleau-Ponty, the phenomenological attention towards corporeality comes

to its uttermost expression. For Merleau-Ponty, being in its fundamental existential sense is

3

The transmission of phenomenology into a social scientific procedure is in itself a controversial issue, due tothe points mentioned (essentialism versus empirical and contingent information). That discussion is not to be

taken in this text, however.

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corporeal being. Not that he stresses the other half of the mind/body distinction: when it

comes to the basic principles of human being-in-the-world, Merleau-Ponty considers this

distinction a remnant of the Western academic as well as cultural traditions having led to an

overall misrecognition of the constituting principles of human life. Inherent in his philosophy

is a suspension of the mind/body distinction altogether, as well as of the more generalconceptual dividing (especially in a positivist sense) of subjective and objective reality.

Merleau-Ponty understands corporeal and perceptual dimensions as being defining of every

meaningful experience. Not as thought of, but as constitutional, in the sense that the

experience is given in and with these dimensions. Corporeality is at the same time part of

and background for every meaningful act, and even contributes to the whole context

encompassing it. Albeit being a constituting principle, corporeality cannot be reduced to

transcendental principles in a Husserlian sense (Merleau-Ponty 1996, Crossley 2001).

Merleau-Ponty argues for the primacy of practical over reflective forms of being. Our

primary relation to the world is not as much a matter of reflective thought, as it is of

practical involvement and mastery. As Crossley (2001:100) puts it: We have a grip upon

our world before we come to know it.

Human beings experience meaning through coping activitiestowards and engagements in

the world. Strictly speaking, meaningful experience - like e.g. an experience of

empowerment in relation to physical activity - is not rooted in the relationbetween

consciousness and the body, as the mere expression relation initiates a false distinction.

Drawing on the important Husserlian concept intentionality,which can be explained asconsciousness-about, Merleau-Ponty elaborates the concept intentional arc, denoting a

constant circulardirectedness. The intentional arc can be defined as a wholeness of

immediate experience, where aspects of mind, body, past, present, and anticipated future

are all one in a single meaningful experience: The life of consciousness cognitive life, the

life of desire or perceptual lifeis subtended by an intentional arc which projects round

about us our past, our future, [and] our human setting. (Merleau-Ponty 1996:157).

Hence, the body and corporeality cannot be reduced to a domain which is merely given

meaning through e.g. processes of empowerment. Empowerment will have to beunderstood as perceptually rooted in the pre-cognitive world. Merleau-Ponty develops the

concept body schemato explain how human beings interact with the world in meaningful

ways. The body schema constitutes our being-in-the-world, at the same time giving and

being given contexts of relevance. Merleau Ponty associates body schema with a global

awareness or marginal consciousness of the body. (Gallagher 2005:75).

The boarders between the object perceived and the perceiving subject are somewhat

repealed; we somehow are the structure of attention towards the world. Things and

happenings, as well as other persons, are given meaning relative to their contextual

positions within the body schema (Merleau-Ponty 1996, Ellis 2006).

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Towards a Social Phenomenology: Alfred Schtz

Although inspired by Husserls search for the transcendental structures grounding human

consciousness, as well as Heideggers focus on lived experience, Alfred Schtz implements a

fundamental shift with his own use of the term phenomenology. Often referred to as social

phenomenologyorphenomenological methodology, he leaves behind most of the partly

ontological and essentialist features of the two phenomenological generations preceding

him (Hekman 1980). Schtz point of departure is a quest for establishing a throughout

methodology for the social sciences, based upon the grounding social-philosophical

definitions presented by Max Weber in his Grundbegriffe. Instead of perceiving

phenomenology as a purely epistemological and philosophical approach, Schtz sets forth

the ambition of adapting it to the development of a social scientific methodology: that is, as

preparation for the methodical handling of empirical information (Schtz 1997, 2005).

If this project is to make any sense, the basic defining of the phenomenological approach, as

initially presented by Husserl and later modified by Heidegger, must be altered. Social

science is about contingent, contextual, and historically situated phenomenaexactly the

area of knowledge with which phenomenology has very little to do, at least in its traditional

sense.4 It is also a fundamental re-defining of the phenomenological point of departure

which makes Schtz able to adapt this approach to empirical research. In a sense similar to

that of the symbolic interactionism within sociology, Schtz sets the everyday knowledge

andlived worldas analytical point of departure. Instead of the transcendental structures of

consciousness or the Heideggerian existentials5, what is searched for is meaning as it is

constructed through social interaction.

Meaning is, in all its varieties and complexities, the basic feature of social life. To start with

the overall perspective: Schtz shares the interactionist view that the types of meaning most

relevant to social science are those constituted by social actors during interaction. Further, it

is the social establishing of meaning embedded in the social contexts of the everyday world

that should be held as the object of social phenomenology (Ibid.).

Already at this point, it is obvious that Schtz and Merleau-Ponty have some quite different

agendas when it comes to the concept of meaning. Even if they share interest in meaning inits deeper sense, the latter does not have the additional ambitions to elaborating a

methodology. Hence, Merleau-Ponty does not intend to elaborate his theory in a way which

makes it methodologically adaptable to the type of social meaning relevant to social science

(social contexts, like e.g. contingent cultural and historical phenomena). However, as will be

shown further on, this does not necessarily imply that the views of these theorists are

mutually inconsistent regarding intersubjective meaning. The reason is that social meaning,

4Heideggers distinction between the ontologicaland the onticalcan be mentioned, though. Where the former

denotes the structure of being, the latter concerns the actual appearance of the being, i.e. the exactentity/happening/phenomenon bearing the structure.5The main structures of the being-in-the-world (Dasein).

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in the sense noted above, does not necessarily exhaust the intersubjective meaning

constituting it, thought in a deeper sense. As it will also be argued later on, the

understandings of intersubjective meaning underlying the ideal types, and Merleau-Pontys

understandings of intersubjective meaning according to the body schema, can be regarded

mutually consistent.

In order to establish a throughout methodology, it is necessary for Schtz to identify

different dimensions of the meaning sought for, as well as elaborating the principles on

which the researcher is given the possibility of accessing these. First, there are the different

levels of meaning embedded in everyday life, that is, in the common senseworld, or the life-

world. Second, there are the meanings appearing for the researcher, constructed through

his/her scientific endeavor towards this everyday world. And third, one could add, there is

the mere communication between these two different worlds of internal relevancies- that

of the informants studied, and that of the researcher.6

During his analyses of Webers basic sociological terminology, Schtz considers it necessary

to further specify the latters use of the concept subjective meaning. Following Schtz,

Weber synthesizes two aspects of meaning under this concept which, however, have to be

understood as two separate (though interrelated) domains if meant to contribute in the

developing of a coherent social methodology. Following Schtz, Webers subjective

meaning encompassestwo levels of meaning within the everyday world: the meaning

which is constituted within the consciousness of the individual actor, and the meaning

constituted through social interaction.

The first level of meaning, Schtz defines as meaning in its primordial sense. On this level

there exists an essentially subjective component not accessible to other individuals, even if

this is also constituted within an intersubjective context. The important point here is,

however, that due to its intersubjective origin, there are also some features by this

primordial type of meaning which arealways accessible to other individuals.

The implications of this highlight the important difference between social phenomenology

and the earlier phenomenology: all meaning is fundamentally socialand embedded in an

eternally ongoing process of establishing and changing of meaning. Hence, all types ofmeaning ...are established in aframe of reference (meaning context) which is common to

the social actors rather than in a private realm inaccessible to the observer. (Hekman

1980: 344)7

6In his phenomenological methodology, Schtz thoughts on the role of the researcher is of severe importance.

Fundamental is the distinction between the natural attitude within the common sense world and the

scientific attitude within the realm of social scientific conduct. However, these methodological aspects are

not to be issued further in this essay.7

Regarding this point, Schtz views is often compared to those of Ludwig Wittgenstein in PhilosophicalInvestigations(language games).

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On a general level, this fundamental intersubjectivity is the principal reason why participants

in the everyday world can have some common understanding at all in the first place. It also

explains how it is possible for the researcher qua researcher to access the shared meanings

of that world.

Regarding intersubjective meaning, a point can be mentioned regarding Merleau-Pontys

understanding of the other, with whom meaning is shared. The body schema is to a high

degree developed and structured during encounters with other persons. Certain aspects of

social conduct are repeated and established as part of an overall structure of meaning

common to the persons involved, thereby finding their ways into the body schemas. This

implies a kind of intersubjective meaning understood as cognitive premises for all other

understanding. This regards the mere possibility of shared meaning in the sense of e.g.

ideological or cultural understandingsthe latter being closer to the more general

understanding of social meaning, as referred to earlier.

Returning to Schtz: In the ordinary everyday world (the life-world) the variety of things,

incidents, sensory impressions etc. must be categorized in order to be understood.

Cognitively, this has to do with the amount of information - it would simply be impossible to

get hold of the world if everything had to be taken in and defined as singularities.

For Schtz, then, typificationis a most fundamental mechanism. We make sense of the

world through types, and they are also constituting for language: the founding relations

are such that the structure of language presupposes typification but not vice versa. (Schtz

1974: 233)

Some types must be prioritized before others in the everyday situations, if any meaningful

conduct is to be possible at all. At the same time building on and transcending purely

cognitive categories, the world is also constructed as meaningful in different ways according

to various experiences, like feelings or daydreaming. Again, these will have to be adapted to

various types, consciously or - which is most often the case - unconsciously. How the types

operate in accordance to each other depends on the actual situation: Every type in the

lifewordly stock of knowledge is a meaning-context established in lifewordly experiences.

Otherwise expressed, the type is a uniform relation of determination sedimented in priorexperiences.(Ibid: 230).

The ideal typeis a concept of crucial importance to Schtz, as it was also for its inventor,

Weber. An ideal type can be conceived of as the point of sameness common to all entities

falling under the category, outlined in a pure form; that is, the main characteristics of

these entities, relative to the actual meaning which serves to define the category within the

actual context. An ideal type is therefore an abstraction, though functioning as a highly

pragmatic (and also highly necessary) cognitive mechanism within the everyday world.

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On this point one can catch a glimpse of some similarity between the concepts ideal type

and body schema when it comes to their categorizingfunctions: The body schema provides

cognitive and sensory (which are interrelated) possibilities of meaningful experience, in that

it constitutes the area of contact with the surroundings. Also, encounters with the world

will be experienced as meaningful insofar as they fit to the extended structure which isthe body schema. In other words, the body schema integrates and categorizes impressions

due to its own constitution.

The body schema provides a fundamental coordination of the self and the world. The

corporeal schema is an incorporated bodily know-how and practical sense; a perspectival

grasp upon the world from the point of view of the body. It is a point of view that may be

enlarged or diminished, moreover, through the corporation of alien elements. (Crossley

2001:102).

Similarly, the ideal types developed within the life world becomes markers and receptors

of meaning. Impressions which do not immediately fit to the ideal typical understandings,

will tend to be sorted out, or, if experienced as intrusive reality that is, impressions from

the world which cannot be ignoredthey will tend to be assimilated or adapted to the ideal

types.

Concluding remarks: Intersubjective Meaning and the Role of the Body - The Body Schema

and the Ideal Types

The concepts body schemaand ideal typescan now be analyzed further in relation to

intersubjective meaning and the role of the body.

To start with the role of the body: As shown, Merleau-Ponty operates with a fundamental

connection between body and world, expressed through his concept body schema. With his

focus upon the cognitive and existential realms, he tends to ignore ideologically and

culturally defined contents of bodily representation (even if, however, he might make use of

such contingent phenomena in order to highlight his theoretical understandings).

For Schtz, the role of the body is to be understood in connection to the ideal types. In a

cognitive sense, bodily aspects provide meaning for people in that they are being

categorized according to much the same principles as are constitutive for things and

happenings confronting human beings in the life world. E.g., certain bodily expressions tend

to occur regularly in given situations, hence are being typified to correspond to the same

context, and are thereby also given meaning as representativesof that context. In this way,

the body is also for Schtz very closely connected to intersubjective meaning, in that it is

part of the extended language system, so to speak.

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I immediately perceive another man only when he shares a sector of the life-worlds space

and of world time in common with me. Only under those conditions does the Other appear

to me in his live corporeality: his body is for me a perceivable and explicable field of

expression which makes his conscious life accessible to me. It is possible only then for my

stream of consciousness and his to flow in true simultaneity: he and I grow older together.(Schtz 1974: 62)

For both theorists, then, the body plays a central role in the basic intersubjective

understandings of the world, even if Merleau-Ponty is more fundamental on this point. For

him, the body and corporeality constitute the main epistemological principle of the being-in-

the-world. For Schtz, the body is more of an advanced tool which is used in expression, and

which makes it possible for human beings to understand each others intentions. For Schtz,

the body and corporeality are part of the overall system of symbols and language making

communication between persons possible. Merleau-Ponty, on the other hand, does not

conceive the body and corporeality as mediums in the same way: they are rather,as

stated earlier, the fundamental structures of being.

When it comes to intersubjective meaning, Merleau-Ponty sees it as inseparable from the

body schema through which the participants in the social world develop their

understandings and interact towards each other. Given that all meaning is at the same time

rooted in and expressed through the body schema, one could argue that for Merleau-Ponty,

there is an intersubjective component in all meaning, as it is also for Schtz, though on

different premises (c.f. meaning in its primordial sense).

For Schtz, intersubjective meaning is a basic constituent in human life. As shown, even the

subjective meaning in its primordial sense contains a component of intersubjectivity, hence

making all subjective intentions accessible to other individuals (in principle). On this point,

the difference opposite Merleau-Ponty does not seem to be striking, as the body schema

may also to some extent encompass the realm of the other. Also when Schtz applies the

ideal types to the understanding of intersubjective meaning on the cognitive level, there

seems to be a strong similarity in the ways the body schema and the ideal types seem to

categorizeand integrateimpressions from the world.

On this point, however, it is important to notice a distinction between two ways of

conceiving intersubjective meaning according to the phenomenology of Alfred Schtz. On

the cognitive level just mentioned, the claim of similarity between the body schema and the

ideal types towards the theme intersubjective meaning may be legitimized. However, Schtz

also considers intersubjective meaning on the level of ideologically and culturally defined

social life (which is also part of the reason why his theoretical stance is given the term social

phenomenology). Schtz writes: The language is a system of typifying schemata of

experience, which rests on idealizations and anonymizations of immediate subjective

experience. These typifications of experience detached from subjectivity are socially

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objectivated, whereby they become a component of the social a priori previously given to

the subject. (Schtz 1974: 234)8

With this entering of the socially constructed world, one has to leave Merleau-Ponty behind.

For Schtz, studying intersubjective meaning within actual social life means investigating

how certain culturally specific expressions of meaning are constructed by the social actors

during interaction within a certain social context. This is a kind of intersubjective meaning

owing its mere possibility to the more cognitive and constitutive mechanisms of

intersubjectivity discussed earlier.

8At this level one starts converging towards the so-called sociological phenomenology, for which Peter Berger

and Thomas Luckmann are famous proponents.

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Literature:

Crossley, Nick (2001) The Phenomenological Habitus and its Construction. Theory and Society

30, Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Ellis, Ralph D. (2006) Phenomenology-Friendly Neuroscience: The Return To Merleau-Ponty

As Psychologist. Human Studies, Vol. 29.

Fay, Brian (2003) Phenomenology and Social Inquiry: From Consciousness to Culture and

Critique. In Turner & Roth (Ed.): The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of the Social

Sciences. Wiley-Blackwell.

Gallagher, Shaun (2005) How the Body Shapes the Mind. Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Hekman, Susan (1980) Phenomenology, Ordinary Language, and the Methodology of the

Social Sciences. The Western Political Quarterly Vol. 33 No. 3

Husserl, Edmund (1964) The Idea of Phenomenology.Martinus Nijhoff, Haag.

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1996) Phenomenology of Perception. Routledge Classics.

Schtz, Alfred (2005) Hverdagslivets sociologi: en tekstsamling. Hans Reitzel, Kbenhavn.

Schtz, Alfred (1997) The Phenomenology of the Social World. Evanston, Northwestern

University Press.

Schtz, Alfred (1974) Structures of the Life World. Heinemann, London.