Alfred Schütz: biography of this Austrian sociologist and philosopher.

A summary of the life of Alfred Schütz, influential thinker and sociologist of the 20th century.

During the 20th century, different authors contributed to the growth of the scope of sociology. One of them was Alfred Schütz.

In the following paragraphs we will summarize the most significant events in the life of this author in order to understand in greater depth the contributions he was later able to make, throughout a prolific career in which he was able to publish several works. Let's see, then, a biography of Alfred Schütz as a summary of his career.

Brief biography of Alfred Schütz

Alfred Schütz was born in the year 1899 in Vienna, capital of Austria and at that time belonging to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.. His family had Jewish origins, and was well-to-do, so he did not experience any difficulties during his childhood. After receiving his primary and secondary education, he was forced to serve in the army, due to the outbreak of the First World War.

After fighting on the Italian front, he returned home and was able to resume his education. He studied law at the University of Vienna and international law at the Vienna Academy of International Trade. Vienna, thus completing higher studies at these prestigious institutions.

It was during his time as a student that he had the opportunity to meet Max Weber, one of the fathers of sociology, thanks to a series of lectures he gave at his university and which Alfred Schütz was able to attend, which was a turning point for the direction his career would take from then on.

As a result of this encounter, he considered that Weber, in his postulates, left the question of meaning unanswered. Therefore, he focused on giving a philosophical foundation to this theory, in order to complete the categories of sociology that this author proposed, as well as his methodology.

Marriage, work and exile

In 1926, Alfred Schütz married Ilse Heim, who would be his wife for the rest of his life. for the rest of his life. After completing his studies at university, and initially being unable to obtain an academic position that would allow him to work as a professor, he turned his career in another direction, that of international banking.

In fact, he began working at Reitler and Company, in financial management, a prestigious position. However, he did not give up his passion, which was study. In fact, author and friend Edmund Husserl captured in a quote a perfect description of Alfred Schütz's situation throughout this period. He said that during the day he was a banker and at night he became a philosopher.

The year 1933 saw the coming to power of the Nazi regime in Germany and Austria, which posed an imminent danger to all Jewish people, due to the coming racial laws. Aware of this, like so many other individuals, Alfred decided that the best option was, sadly, to leave his country in search of safety.. In this case, he chose Paris at first.

In the French capital he continued to serve as financial director of Reitler and Company, but this activity would not last long, and only a year later, in 1939, and with the outbreak of World War II, Alfred Schütz went into exile in the United States..

Career in the USA and final years

Paradoxically, this move to the U.S. allowed him to finally become an academic at the New School for Social Research. At the New School for Social Research he was able to teach both philosophy and sociology, as well as running his own department of the former..

Alfred Schütz's work was made possible, in part, by the invaluable assistance of his wife, who served as his companion, helping him with transcriptions and other tasks that facilitated his work. It was in this way that he was able to develop some of the important theories for which he is recognized today.

In this way, Schütz was able to continue working at the university for almost two more decades, until he finally passed away in 1959, when he was 60 years old. His death took place in New York City, where the university where he worked was located.

Alfred Schütz's work: main factors

Throughout his career, Alfred Schütz worked on a number of concepts that enriched the discipline of sociology. His primary goal was to provide this science with a philosophical basis.. His first work was "The Phenomenology of the Social World", published in 1932. For this author, there were a number of fundamental concepts, which we will review below.

1. Social reality

The first of the central elements of Alfred Schütz's theories is that of social reality. This concept refers to the totality of the components and facts that take place in the world from the perspective of different individuals, interacting with each other, and the social reality of the world..

In this sense, any of the elements of social reality will be real insofar as it is part of these interactions, i.e., it means something to the person. Therefore, if something has no meaning or remains outside the set of interactions, it is not within the social reality of that individual.

2. The lifeworld

Another of the pillars of Alfred Schütz's work is the concept of the lifeworld. Within the social reality of which we spoke in the previous point, all people interact in specific ways. Through these interactions, they can modify their own environment. All the part of reality that the person can alter in some way, is what is encompassed in the social reality.is what would be encompassed within the concept of the lifeworld.

3. The biographical situation

The biographical situation would complete the trio of fundamental components of Alfred Schütz's sociological theories. This element refers to the scenario in which each person finds himself, within which he has a specific place and fulfills a role according to which he interacts in a specific way with the rest of the individuals..

Issues related to ideology or moral factors would be included within the biographical situation, since they would be modulating that position and that way of acting of each subject. Within this environment, variables can be found that are controlled by the person, others that are not but could be controlled by the person in some circumstances, and others that are not controlled at all.

The question of the subject

A primary question in Alfred Schütz's studies was that of the concept of the subject. It refers to each individual, within the context we saw of the social world. The limits of this element will be those given by past and present life experience, so that each individual will be unique and different from the rest.

The subject, moreover, for Alfred Schütz, is an entity that cannot be static, but is in continuous change, since with each interaction with the world, it modifies itself, so that it ceases to be what it was to become something new.It is therefore ceasing to be what it was and becoming something new, in a constant and endless process. Therefore, it can never be known in its totality, because it is never reached.

For this reason, Schütz distinguishes between the "I", which would be the subject according to his history of previous experiences, and the "me", which is subtly different, since it would still be the individual himself, but taking into account his most recent experience, which is the one that is modifying his own being in real time. Both elements are two dimensions of the same element.

Moreover, the subject is not an isolated element, but is in continuous interaction with the rest of the subjects, which introduces the concept of intersubjectivity, being able to observe these other individuals and put oneself in their place. Moreover, if the subject is here, by extension the concept of there also appears, where others are situated, establishing different dimensions.

Going a step further in this theory, Alfred Schütz adds the temporal dimension, to establish the difference between the subjects with whom we can interact, since they are in the same moment as we are, which would be our contemporaries. that we are, which would be the contemporaries, and those of a past moment who are therefore alien to the interactions, and who would be known as the predecessors.

Within the contemporaries, he establishes a group that refers to those subjects with whom interaction is more frequent and with whom it is common to share experiences.. This subgroup would be the associated subjects.

This would be a small summary of some of the main concepts of the theories of the author Alfred Schütz.