The Meaning-Genesis Of Everyday Life--Implications Of The Phenomenological Concept Of “horizon”for The Sociology Of Everyday Life

This thesis focuses on the development of western sociological theory from the theoretical perspective of phenomenology,and examines how the phenomenological concept of “horizon” has influenced and inspired the development of contemporary sociological theory,as well as how it has complemented the problematic concept of“meaning” in traditional sociological theory.Although phenomenological sociology as a school of thought has almost disappeared since the 1960 s,phenomenology still has a great influence on sociological theory especially that of Schutz,Garfinkel,Giddens and Bourdieu.Traditional sociology neglected the unreflective meaning-constitution and routine actions of everyday life.Sociologists such as Durkheim paid little attention to questions of meaning because of the limitations of their naturalistic and positivist perspective.Although Weber and Mead were concerned with the problem of meaning,they were negligent in their examination of the meaning-genesis process.In addition,they were both influenced by rationalism,which made reflective rational action the main focus and thus neglected conventional action and affective action or confused them with reflex activity and physiological impulses.By analyzing Merleau-Ponty and Schutz's distinction between “concrete attitude / movement” and “abstract attitude / movement,” I would like to show that non-reflective,non-objective,routine action is the dominant type of action in everyday life.Routine action deserves the necessary attention,and the analysis of routine action relies on phenomenological resources.Thus,I examine Husserl's concept of “horizon” and its development in post-Husserlian phenomenology(the phenomenology of Heidegger,Schutz,and Merleau-Ponty),and analyze the meaning-constitutive mechanisms of “abstract attitude / movement” as well as “concrete attitude / movement”.The contemporary sociological focus on routine actions in everyday life relies on the introduction of phenomenological resources.Because of the self-contradictions in Husserlian transcendental phenomenology and his problems of foundationalism,essentialism,nonhistoricism and transcendentalism,his transcendental phenomenology is not suitable to serve as the direct source for sociological theory,so the influence of phenomenology on sociology is mostly mediated through the post-Husserlian phenomenologists(such as Merleau-Ponty,Schutz and Heidegger).In contemporary sociological theory,Schutz,Garfinkel,Giddens,and Bourdieu have all been influenced by the phenomenological concept of “horizon”.Although they do not directly take “horizon” as their core concept,I argue that the concept of horizon is an appropriate concept to integrate this thesis' s exploration of contemporary sociology's reception of phenomenological resources.Then,I take the concepts of “trust” and “symbolic violence” as the themes to explore the impact and inspiration of the concept of “horizon” on contemporary sociological theory.It is the introduction of phenomenological resources into contemporary sociological theory that makes up for the traditional sociological neglect of the social meaning of the pre-thematic,pre-objective and pre-predicative aspects of everyday life.Finally,I analyze the historical background of the everyday life transformation of phenomenological and sociological theories.Both traditional sociology and Husserl's phenomenology were profoundly influenced by the Philosophy of Subjectivity /Consciousness initiated by Descartes,and thus despised prejudice and focuses on clear and distinct reflective reason alone.But as reason itself revealed its flaws,it led to a reflection on the inadequacy of Enlightenment ideals and turned the attention of theorists to the world of everyday life and the pre-objective,pre-predicative,and pre-reflective realm of consciousness-body.