«Nothing is reality in itself». A conversation between Thomas Luckmann, Hans-Georg Soeffner and Georg Vobruba

Abstract

Thomas Luckmann and Hans-Georg Soeffner never shared a direct teacher-scholar-relationship. But both represent a sociological approach, rooted in phenomenology, and both treat everyday life, Religion and knowledge (among others) as their research subjects. In contrast my interests focus on political and economic problems, on European integration, social security and things like that. We found a broad common ground for our debate anyway, much more than we are able to document in this protocol. Perhaps this is because we tacitly agree in the following: In order to explain the development of institutions, one has to understand the way people act. And in order to understand peoples’ actions one has to observe how people observe social reality.  But perhaps another thing matters as well. It quickly turned out that we three are heavily inclined to irony and – yes – nonsense. Thus, to me the debate with Thomas Luckmann and Hans-Georg Soeffner was impressive and fun. I really hope the protocol reveals this.