Constitution of social reality: from “lebenswelt” of Husserl to Garfinkel’s “practical thinking”

Abstract

The issue is devoted to the possibilities of social reality’s interpretations. Edmund Husserl’s and Alfred Schutz’s conceptions of “lifeworld” are analyzed as well as a place of common life in Harold Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology. The author highlights the exceptional role of social order constitution in social phenomenology. Social reality, its definitions and characteristics play a crucial role in development of humanitarian science. Understanding of social reality is fundamental for social and phenomenological directions of modern philosophy; nevertheless the issue has not had sufficient theoretical considerations in Ukraine. The aim of the issue was to determine the ways of social reality’s constitution within the works of Husserl, Schutz and Garfinkel. The constitutional ways of social reality were systematically analyzed for the first time at the work form Husserl’s conception through Schutz’s philosophy to Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology. As a result the characteristics of social reality were determined in phenomenological and ethnomethodological studies. Moreover, it was pioneering to demonstrate history and transformational changes in social reality understanding from “lifeworld” in phenomenology to “practical thinking” in ethnomethodology. The presented work, based on Ukrainian and Western scientific studies and original sources, offers the main conclusions about characteristics of social reality in the abovementioned works. Theoretical value of a study refers to the further scientific thought development about phenomenology, ethnomethodology as well as to the fundamental meaning of social reality for these spheres. Practical value of a study affects the opportunities to apply the defined features of social reality and its constitution to practical activity.

Keywords

• society
• phenomenology
• social order
• constitution
• lifeworld
• ethnomethodology
• pre scientific knowledge