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 (on this subject, see the recent collection edited by Michael Barber, 2022). 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 ask, is this attempt even sociologically admissible? And, if ultimately it is not, does this invalidate the possibility of a phenomenological sociology once and for all?
We will show that, while he rightly condemns Husserl’s “pure” transcendental position, Schütz’s attempt to use phenomenological reduction to conceptualise society fails, precisely because he persists in giving this form of reduction a typically subjectivist goal. Whatever he says, he continues to think about society through the lens of an egology, even if it is one rooted in intersubjectivity. Our article will then return to the following questions from a stronger position: what remains specifically phenomenological about a perspective that dispenses with the transcendental ego? Is there a phenomenological methodology that can be useful to sociology – one that does not involve a return to the subject? Is it ultimately phenomenologically possible to recognise the existence of society as independent and autonomous from the subject? In order to answer these questions, sociology must interrogate the notion of intentional relation to the world that belongs to the phenomenological method – a method that requires particular forms of both empirical description and formalisation. As we shall see when we turn to Max Scheler, this approach is more promising empirically.
In other words, it is not, in our opinion, only through its epistemological contribution, generally conceded to Schütz, that phenomenology is of relevance to sociology. While phenomenology may fail to conceptualise the social by applying the transcendental to the empirical, as Schütz would like to do, it still has a power that remains entirely unexploited for developing a method of sociological investigation. By exploring concepts insufficiently explored by Schütz, such as Husserl’s notion of intentionality and its equivalent in Max Scheler’s phenomenology (the frame of mind) – while recognising the considerable contribution Schütz makes by redefining the sociologist’s epistemological stance. We will thus see that it is precisely because Scheler opens himself more fully to the possibility of a social environment independent (and even constitutive) of the subject, that he also gives this form of sociology the means to think about the environment and thus ecology.