The Phenomenon of Common Sense and the Thinking of Alfred Schutz

Abstract

This article deconstructs Alfred Schutz’s thinking to its ownmost (Wesen) meaning: the rendition of the phenomenon of common sense. It discerns the exposition of the meaning of common sense as the foundational movement (ἀρχὴ κινήσεως) that runs through the course of Schutz’s constitutive phenomenology of the natural attitude. It predicates this thesis on Schutz’s elucidation of the phenomena of the life-world (Lebenswelt), typification and common sense as a single phenomenon: κοινἠ πρᾶξῐς (common praxis). The analysis includes hermeneutic-phenomenological considerations. It proposes to enhance the interpretability of Schutz’s thinking and its availability to the human sciences.