Blackwell Reference Online

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Alfred Schutz was best known for his work on the sociological approach known as phenomenology. His first book provided a critique of Max Weber's interpretive sociology of meaningful action. He subsequently wrote a series of phenomenologically inspired essays as well as a second book, Structures of the Lifeworld , with Thomas Luckmann. Over the years of his life and beyond, Schutz influenced diverse sociologists. Social phenomenology remains an important stream of sociology and Schutz's insights and the analysis that he advanced have percolated through wider currents. The discipline as a whole has become more “phenomenological” as a result, most notably through the social constructionist approach and emphases on the concepts of lived action and embodiment. Born in Vienna as the only child of well-to-do Austrian Jewish parents, Schutz completed his gymnasium education there in 1917, and immediately served for a year and a half in the Austro-Hungarian Imperial Army on the Italian front. He returned to Vienna in 1918, where he pursued studies in law, the social sciences, and economics at the University of Vienna. He received a doctorate in law in 1921, and participated, both as a student and after, in intellectual circles that included economist Ludwig von Mises and Frederick von Hayek. He married Ilse Heim in 1926. In 1927 Schutz was appointed executive officer for Reitler, the ... log in or subscribe to read full text