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Vitenskapsteori: Tekst til Vestnorsk nettverk - forskarutdanninga/SVT, hsten 2011.

Knut Magne Aanestad

Intersubjectivity and Corporeality: A Phenomenological Approach

This essay discusses theoretical issues of importance to a planned study of empowerment
1
in
a group of disabled persons engaging into challenging physical activity.
In the planned study the main objective is the investigation of corporeally funded
empowerment within a phenomenological framework. Concerning bodily agency as a source
of empowerment, the departure point is the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty -
the so-called phenomenology of perception. As elaborated in Phenomenology of Perception
(1996), the body is viewed as constituting the fundamental epistemological principle of the
human being-in-the-world
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.
Following this initiation, a central task in the study will be the providing of a methodical
procedure - that is, a way of adapting the phenomenological framework to the empirical
investigation of processes of empowerment. The methodical procedure will be heavily
inspired by the phenomenological methodology of Alfred Schtz. Arguably, Schtz is the one
within the phenomenological tradition providing the most elaborate ways of applying
phenomenological theory to social scientific (empirical) studies (Fay 2003, Hekman 1980). In
the methodical procedure, Schtz main conceptual tool - the so-called ideal types - will be
applied.
Since the theories of Merleau-Ponty and Schtz are set to correspond to each other in the
study, they will have to be compared regarding the main themes of what is referred to as
corporeally funded empowerment. In this essay, two such themes are chosen and discussed.
The main objective of the essay is the investigation of whether the phenomenological
stances of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Alfred Schtz are mutually consistent when it comes
to the themes intersubjective meaning and the role of the body.

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The making-able and self-improvement in individuals and minorities through mental determination, or/and
as an active and constructive shaping of identity.
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This special use of hyphens is common within the phenomenological tradition, and will also be used
occasionally in this text. The intention is to overcome divisions imposed by the formal procedures of written
language upon meanings in need of other ways of expression. E.g. being-in-the-world denotes the whole
expression as an entity, hence not as being as something different from the world, in which the being
happens to find itself. This use of hyphens usually points to experiences of immediate and non-reflective
character.
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The investigation will take form of a comparison of Schtz before mentioned concept of
ideal types, and Merleau-Pontys concept body schema.
The text starts out with a short introduction to the main traditions of phenomenology, in
order to present the theoretical backdrop on which the phenomenologies of Merleau-Ponty
and Schtz have been developed. This is followed by a presentation of Merleau-Pontys
theory on corporeality. The discussions will be commenced in the subsequent presentation
of the social phenomenology of Alfred Schtz, before culminating in a separate segment in
the end.

The Phenomenological Tradition
As initiated by Edmund Husserl, phenomenology is the study of the transcendental and
constituting features of human consciousness. At stake are the essential characteristics
being present in every act of consciousness, regardless of the actual content of the act.
Hence phenomenology is, in its traditional sense, fundamentally essentialistic, distancing
itself from psychologism and historicist explanations of human inner life.
On these Cartesian

premises, phenomenology is from the outset a purely theoretical and
metaphysical approach. Investigating structures of human existence beyond (hence at the
same time constituting) every actual experience, phenomenology has nevertheless inspired
empirically oriented social scientific conduct (Husserl 1964, Fay 2003).
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Whereas the term transcendental phenomenology designates the initial approach as
developed by Husserl, the generation succeeding him is generally associated with the so-
called existential phenomenology. The turn consists of a strengthened attention towards
what is held as the essential characteristics of the actual and immediate experience of the
being-in-the-world. Heidegger, being the most influential figure within phenomenology after
Husserl, stresses the material existence in space and time and the perceiving body as
inseparable from the main structures of being. For Heidegger, practical engagement is of
uttermost importance. Following this, Heidegger regards Husserls transcendental terms as
being beside the point when it comes to the basic characterization of human existence as a
fundamentally lived experience (Fay 2003).

Maurice Merleau-Ponty and the Phenomenology of Perception
With Maurice Merleau-Ponty, the phenomenological attention towards corporeality comes
to its uttermost expression. For Merleau-Ponty, being in its fundamental existential sense is

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The transmission of phenomenology into a social scientific procedure is in itself a controversial issue, due to
the points mentioned (essentialism versus empirical and contingent information). That discussion is not to be
taken in this text, however.
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corporeal being. Not that he stresses the other half of the mind/body distinction: when it
comes to the basic principles of human being-in-the-world, Merleau-Ponty considers this
distinction a remnant of the Western academic as well as cultural traditions having led to an
overall misrecognition of the constituting principles of human life. Inherent in his philosophy
is a suspension of the mind/body distinction altogether, as well as of the more general
conceptual dividing (especially in a positivist sense) of subjective and objective reality.
Merleau-Ponty understands corporeal and perceptual dimensions as being defining of every
meaningful experience. Not as thought of, but as constitutional, in the sense that the
experience is given in and with these dimensions. Corporeality is at the same time part of
and background for every meaningful act, and even contributes to the whole context
encompassing it. Albeit being a constituting principle, corporeality cannot be reduced to
transcendental principles in a Husserlian sense (Merleau-Ponty 1996, Crossley 2001).
Merleau-Ponty argues for the primacy of practical over reflective forms of being. Our
primary relation to the world is not as much a matter of reflective thought, as it is of
practical involvement and mastery. As Crossley (2001:100) puts it: We have a grip upon
our world before we come to know it.
Human beings experience meaning through coping activities towards and engagements in
the world. Strictly speaking, meaningful experience - like e.g. an experience of
empowerment in relation to physical activity - is not rooted in the relation between
consciousness and the body, as the mere expression relation initiates a false distinction.
Drawing on the important Husserlian concept intentionality, which can be explained as
consciousness-about, Merleau-Ponty elaborates the concept intentional arc, denoting a
constant circular directedness. The intentional arc can be defined as a wholeness of
immediate experience, where aspects of mind, body, past, present, and anticipated future
are all one in a single meaningful experience: The life of consciousness cognitive life, the
life of desire or perceptual life is subtended by an intentional arc which projects round
about us our past, our future, [and] our human setting. (Merleau-Ponty 1996:157).
Hence, the body and corporeality cannot be reduced to a domain which is merely given
meaning through e.g. processes of empowerment. Empowerment will have to be
understood as perceptually rooted in the pre-cognitive world. Merleau-Ponty develops the
concept body schema to explain how human beings interact with the world in meaningful
ways. The body schema constitutes our being-in-the-world, at the same time giving and
being given contexts of relevance. Merleau Ponty associates body schema with a global
awareness or marginal consciousness of the body. (Gallagher 2005:75).
The boarders between the object perceived and the perceiving subject are somewhat
repealed; we somehow are the structure of attention towards the world. Things and
happenings, as well as other persons, are given meaning relative to their contextual
positions within the body schema (Merleau-Ponty 1996, Ellis 2006).
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Towards a Social Phenomenology: Alfred Schtz
Although inspired by Husserls search for the transcendental structures grounding human
consciousness, as well as Heideggers focus on lived experience, Alfred Schtz implements a
fundamental shift with his own use of the term phenomenology. Often referred to as social
phenomenology or phenomenological methodology, he leaves behind most of the partly
ontological and essentialist features of the two phenomenological generations preceding
him (Hekman 1980). Schtz point of departure is a quest for establishing a throughout
methodology for the social sciences, based upon the grounding social-philosophical
definitions presented by Max Weber in his Grundbegriffe. Instead of perceiving
phenomenology as a purely epistemological and philosophical approach, Schtz sets forth
the ambition of adapting it to the development of a social scientific methodology: that is, as
preparation for the methodical handling of empirical information (Schtz 1997, 2005).
If this project is to make any sense, the basic defining of the phenomenological approach, as
initially presented by Husserl and later modified by Heidegger, must be altered. Social
science is about contingent, contextual, and historically situated phenomena exactly the
area of knowledge with which phenomenology has very little to do, at least in its traditional
sense.
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It is also a fundamental re-defining of the phenomenological point of departure
which makes Schtz able to adapt this approach to empirical research. In a sense similar to
that of the symbolic interactionism within sociology, Schtz sets the everyday knowledge
and lived world as analytical point of departure. Instead of the transcendental structures of
consciousness or the Heideggerian existentials
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, what is searched for is meaning as it is
constructed through social interaction.
Meaning is, in all its varieties and complexities, the basic feature of social life. To start with
the overall perspective: Schtz shares the interactionist view that the types of meaning most
relevant to social science are those constituted by social actors during interaction. Further, it
is the social establishing of meaning embedded in the social contexts of the everyday world
that should be held as the object of social phenomenology (Ibid.).
Already at this point, it is obvious that Schtz and Merleau-Ponty have some quite different
agendas when it comes to the concept of meaning. Even if they share interest in meaning in
its deeper sense, the latter does not have the additional ambitions to elaborating a
methodology. Hence, Merleau-Ponty does not intend to elaborate his theory in a way which
makes it methodologically adaptable to the type of social meaning relevant to social science
(social contexts, like e.g. contingent cultural and historical phenomena). However, as will be
shown further on, this does not necessarily imply that the views of these theorists are
mutually inconsistent regarding intersubjective meaning. The reason is that social meaning,

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Heideggers distinction between the ontological and the ontical can be mentioned, though. Where the former
denotes the structure of being, the latter concerns the actual appearance of the being, i.e. the exact
entity/happening/phenomenon bearing the structure.
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The main structures of the being-in-the-world (Dasein).
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in the sense noted above, does not necessarily exhaust the intersubjective meaning
constituting it, thought in a deeper sense. As it will also be argued later on, the
understandings of intersubjective meaning underlying the ideal types, and Merleau-Pontys
understandings of intersubjective meaning according to the body schema, can be regarded
mutually consistent.
In order to establish a throughout methodology, it is necessary for Schtz to identify
different dimensions of the meaning sought for, as well as elaborating the principles on
which the researcher is given the possibility of accessing these. First, there are the different
levels of meaning embedded in everyday life, that is, in the common sense world, or the life-
world. Second, there are the meanings appearing for the researcher, constructed through
his/her scientific endeavor towards this everyday world. And third, one could add, there is
the mere communication between these two different worlds of internal relevancies - that
of the informants studied, and that of the researcher.
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During his analyses of Webers basic sociological terminology, Schtz considers it necessary
to further specify the latters use of the concept subjective meaning. Following Schtz,
Weber synthesizes two aspects of meaning under this concept which, however, have to be
understood as two separate (though interrelated) domains if meant to contribute in the
developing of a coherent social methodology. Following Schtz, Webers subjective
meaning encompasses two levels of meaning within the everyday world: the meaning
which is constituted within the consciousness of the individual actor, and the meaning
constituted through social interaction.
The first level of meaning, Schtz defines as meaning in its primordial sense. On this level
there exists an essentially subjective component not accessible to other individuals, even if
this is also constituted within an intersubjective context. The important point here is,
however, that due to its intersubjective origin, there are also some features by this
primordial type of meaning which are always accessible to other individuals.
The implications of this highlight the important difference between social phenomenology
and the earlier phenomenology: all meaning is fundamentally social and embedded in an
eternally ongoing process of establishing and changing of meaning. Hence, all types of
meaning ...are established in a frame of reference (meaning context) which is common to
the social actors rather than in a private realm inaccessible to the observer. (Hekman
1980: 344)
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In his phenomenological methodology, Schtz thoughts on the role of the researcher is of severe importance.
Fundamental is the distinction between the natural attitude within the common sense world and the
scientific attitude within the realm of social scientific conduct. However, these methodological aspects are
not to be issued further in this essay.
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Regarding this point, Schtz views is often compared to those of Ludwig Wittgenstein in Philosophical
Investigations (language games).
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On a general level, this fundamental intersubjectivity is the principal reason why participants
in the everyday world can have some common understanding at all in the first place. It also
explains how it is possible for the researcher qua researcher to access the shared meanings
of that world.
Regarding intersubjective meaning, a point can be mentioned regarding Merleau-Pontys
understanding of the other, with whom meaning is shared. The body schema is to a high
degree developed and structured during encounters with other persons. Certain aspects of
social conduct are repeated and established as part of an overall structure of meaning
common to the persons involved, thereby finding their ways into the body schemas. This
implies a kind of intersubjective meaning understood as cognitive premises for all other
understanding. This regards the mere possibility of shared meaning in the sense of e.g.
ideological or cultural understandings the latter being closer to the more general
understanding of social meaning, as referred to earlier.
Returning to Schtz: In the ordinary everyday world (the life-world) the variety of things,
incidents, sensory impressions etc. must be categorized in order to be understood.
Cognitively, this has to do with the amount of information - it would simply be impossible to
get hold of the world if everything had to be taken in and defined as singularities.
For Schtz, then, typification is a most fundamental mechanism. We make sense of the
world through types, and they are also constituting for language: the founding relations
are such that the structure of language presupposes typification but not vice versa. (Schtz
1974: 233)
Some types must be prioritized before others in the everyday situations, if any meaningful
conduct is to be possible at all. At the same time building on and transcending purely
cognitive categories, the world is also constructed as meaningful in different ways according
to various experiences, like feelings or daydreaming. Again, these will have to be adapted to
various types, consciously or - which is most often the case - unconsciously. How the types
operate in accordance to each other depends on the actual situation: Every type in the
lifewordly stock of knowledge is a meaning-context established in lifewordly experiences.
Otherwise expressed, the type is a uniform relation of determination sedimented in prior
experiences. (Ibid: 230).
The ideal type is a concept of crucial importance to Schtz, as it was also for its inventor,
Weber. An ideal type can be conceived of as the point of sameness common to all entities
falling under the category, outlined in a pure form; that is, the main characteristics of
these entities, relative to the actual meaning which serves to define the category within the
actual context. An ideal type is therefore an abstraction, though functioning as a highly
pragmatic (and also highly necessary) cognitive mechanism within the everyday world.


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On this point one can catch a glimpse of some similarity between the concepts ideal type
and body schema when it comes to their categorizing functions: The body schema provides
cognitive and sensory (which are interrelated) possibilities of meaningful experience, in that
it constitutes the area of contact with the surroundings. Also, encounters with the world
will be experienced as meaningful insofar as they fit to the extended structure which is
the body schema. In other words, the body schema integrates and categorizes impressions
due to its own constitution.
The body schema provides a fundamental coordination of the self and the world. The
corporeal schema is an incorporated bodily know-how and practical sense; a perspectival
grasp upon the world from the point of view of the body. It is a point of view that may be
enlarged or diminished, moreover, through the corporation of alien elements. (Crossley
2001:102).
Similarly, the ideal types developed within the life world becomes markers and receptors
of meaning. Impressions which do not immediately fit to the ideal typical understandings,
will tend to be sorted out, or, if experienced as intrusive reality that is, impressions from
the world which cannot be ignored they will tend to be assimilated or adapted to the ideal
types.

Concluding remarks: Intersubjective Meaning and the Role of the Body - The Body Schema
and the Ideal Types
The concepts body schema and ideal types can now be analyzed further in relation to
intersubjective meaning and the role of the body.
To start with the role of the body: As shown, Merleau-Ponty operates with a fundamental
connection between body and world, expressed through his concept body schema. With his
focus upon the cognitive and existential realms, he tends to ignore ideologically and
culturally defined contents of bodily representation (even if, however, he might make use of
such contingent phenomena in order to highlight his theoretical understandings).
For Schtz, the role of the body is to be understood in connection to the ideal types. In a
cognitive sense, bodily aspects provide meaning for people in that they are being
categorized according to much the same principles as are constitutive for things and
happenings confronting human beings in the life world. E.g., certain bodily expressions tend
to occur regularly in given situations, hence are being typified to correspond to the same
context, and are thereby also given meaning as representatives of that context. In this way,
the body is also for Schtz very closely connected to intersubjective meaning, in that it is
part of the extended language system, so to speak.
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I immediately perceive another man only when he shares a sector of the life-worlds space
and of world time in common with me. Only under those conditions does the Other appear
to me in his live corporeality: his body is for me a perceivable and explicable field of
expression which makes his conscious life accessible to me. It is possible only then for my
stream of consciousness and his to flow in true simultaneity: he and I grow older together.
(Schtz 1974: 62)
For both theorists, then, the body plays a central role in the basic intersubjective
understandings of the world, even if Merleau-Ponty is more fundamental on this point. For
him, the body and corporeality constitute the main epistemological principle of the being-in-
the-world. For Schtz, the body is more of an advanced tool which is used in expression, and
which makes it possible for human beings to understand each others intentions. For Schtz,
the body and corporeality are part of the overall system of symbols and language making
communication between persons possible. Merleau-Ponty, on the other hand, does not
conceive the body and corporeality as mediums in the same way: they are rather, as
stated earlier, the fundamental structures of being.
When it comes to intersubjective meaning, Merleau-Ponty sees it as inseparable from the
body schema through which the participants in the social world develop their
understandings and interact towards each other. Given that all meaning is at the same time
rooted in and expressed through the body schema, one could argue that for Merleau-Ponty,
there is an intersubjective component in all meaning, as it is also for Schtz, though on
different premises (c.f. meaning in its primordial sense).
For Schtz, intersubjective meaning is a basic constituent in human life. As shown, even the
subjective meaning in its primordial sense contains a component of intersubjectivity, hence
making all subjective intentions accessible to other individuals (in principle). On this point,
the difference opposite Merleau-Ponty does not seem to be striking, as the body schema
may also to some extent encompass the realm of the other. Also when Schtz applies the
ideal types to the understanding of intersubjective meaning on the cognitive level, there
seems to be a strong similarity in the ways the body schema and the ideal types seem to
categorize and integrate impressions from the world.
On this point, however, it is important to notice a distinction between two ways of
conceiving intersubjective meaning according to the phenomenology of Alfred Schtz. On
the cognitive level just mentioned, the claim of similarity between the body schema and the
ideal types towards the theme intersubjective meaning may be legitimized. However, Schtz
also considers intersubjective meaning on the level of ideologically and culturally defined
social life (which is also part of the reason why his theoretical stance is given the term social
phenomenology). Schtz writes: The language is a system of typifying schemata of
experience, which rests on idealizations and anonymizations of immediate subjective
experience. These typifications of experience detached from subjectivity are socially
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objectivated, whereby they become a component of the social a priori previously given to
the subject. (Schtz 1974: 234)
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With this entering of the socially constructed world, one has to leave Merleau-Ponty behind.
For Schtz, studying intersubjective meaning within actual social life means investigating
how certain culturally specific expressions of meaning are constructed by the social actors
during interaction within a certain social context. This is a kind of intersubjective meaning
owing its mere possibility to the more cognitive and constitutive mechanisms of
intersubjectivity discussed earlier.



















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At this level one starts converging towards the so-called sociological phenomenology, for which Peter Berger
and Thomas Luckmann are famous proponents.

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Literature:

Crossley, Nick (2001) The Phenomenological Habitus and its Construction. Theory and Society
30, Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Ellis, Ralph D. (2006) Phenomenology-Friendly Neuroscience: The Return To Merleau-Ponty
As Psychologist. Human Studies, Vol. 29.
Fay, Brian (2003) Phenomenology and Social Inquiry: From Consciousness to Culture and
Critique. In Turner & Roth (Ed.): The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of the Social
Sciences. Wiley-Blackwell.
Gallagher, Shaun (2005) How the Body Shapes the Mind. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Hekman, Susan (1980) Phenomenology, Ordinary Language, and the Methodology of the
Social Sciences. The Western Political Quarterly Vol. 33 No. 3
Husserl, Edmund (1964) The Idea of Phenomenology. Martinus Nijhoff, Haag.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1996) Phenomenology of Perception. Routledge Classics.
Schtz, Alfred (2005) Hverdagslivets sociologi: en tekstsamling. Hans Reitzel, Kbenhavn.
Schtz, Alfred (1997) The Phenomenology of the Social World. Evanston, Northwestern
University Press.
Schtz, Alfred (1974) Structures of the Life World. Heinemann, London.