Don Quixote and the problem of reality (I)

Why should you read this (and the soon to follow part II)?

"Don Quixote", the novel written by Cervantes and first published in 1605, is one of the best books and best stories ever written. If you are looking for a beach book for your summer 2016 vacation, don't look no further (and bring this essay as well). To understand what makes Don Quixote such a great book it is worth our time to look into the concept of reality. And to compare it with the reality of Don Quixote, the master of chivalry. By doing so, we venture out into the sphere of philosophy and try to understand what reality actually means. For you and for me. 

by Axel Weber 

The matrix of daily life

In reality (yours, Don Quixote's and mine), there are multiple realities existing in parallel. These are connected through what Alfred Schütz calls the paramount reality. Alfred Schütz is one of the most prominent social scientists. He became famous for combining sociological and phenomenological traditions and forming them into a social phenomenology. Schütz is thereby applying the methods of Husserl's phenomenological philosophy to Max Weber's interpretive sociology. 

I will explain the philosophy of Alfred Schütz, the paramount reality of common-sense life and the common-sense world. Core to this is the philosophy of mundane reality, or, in other words, the phenomenology of natural attitude.

Maurice Natanson, in his introduction to the work of Alfred Schütz, draws parallels to Bergson’s statement, that a philosopher will only be able to make one statement during a lifetime as he is only able to create one real contact with the outside world  -- and the one central thesis of Schütz, the complete discovery of the conditions, the structure as well as the meaning of the common-sense world: Alfred Schütz’s central undertaking of his intellectual life consisted of recognising and understanding the structure of daily life, into which each and everyone of us (you, me and Don Quixote) has been born, and in which our fates are unfolding. We are only able to leave this structure when we die.

As Alfred Schütz’s methodology is philosophical, we can question and put in doubt that which normally would not be questioned and put in doubt. By being born into our daily lives we accept, as “citizens of the republic of daily life”, that what surrounds us and what makes our lives with our fellow human beings social and communicative without putting in doubt the central assumption of life itself. And exactly this common-sense world is the starting point for all other levels of human realities and it is hence of central meaning. Alfred Schütz takes this common-sense world as starting point of his inquiries.

The common-sense world: our daily home

Before we dive into the a priori existing conditions of the common-sense world, we have to understand the meaning of the phrase “common-sense world” itself. The phrases “common-sense world”, “paramount reality”, “world of daily life” and “every-day world” refer to the same thing: the world of intersubjectivity which, according to Husserl, we experience in the natural attitude. Schütz defines daily life:

“ ‘The world of daily life’ shall mean the intersubjective world which existed long before our birth, experienced and interpreted by Others, our predecessors, as an organised world. Now it is given to our experience and interpretation.”

By doing so the individual avoids using the phenomenological reduction, the epoché, but each individual, analog to the skepticism of the antique, avoids the evaluation of his environment and its objects in themselves. In the natural attitude however we permanently pass judgement over objects in themselves (belief of being or Seinsglaube) and hence believe that the world has a history, presence and future. For that very reason we not only act in this world, but influence her. In the same argument it is not our goal to understand this world, but to optimise and dominate her according to our own wishes: “This world is to our natural attitude in the first place not an object of our thought but a field of domination”. And for this reason is the common-sense world (or paramount reality) the playing field of social interaction between human beings who try to understand themselves as well as each other. “World, in this sense, is something that we have to modify by our own actions or that modifies our actions.”

Alfred Schütz makes the paramount reality (or common-sense world) and its conditions the objects of his philosophical investigation. The following criteria are the cornerstones of this inquiry.

The biographical situation and the stock of knowledge at hand

Biographical situation, according to Schütz, means an individual’s relationship to his field of influence, the interpretation of his abilities and the resulting challenges. During a lifetime each individual collects a sediment of experiences. This sediment defines the way each individual sees and perceives the world.

Individual knowledge is assembled from typifications of the common-sense world, equalling the accumulation of personal knowledge. Against this background each individual defines situations and problems according to his own stockpile of knowledge:

“The thousands of concrete problematic situations that arise in the course of daily affairs and have to be handled in some form are perceived and even initially formulated in terms of the individual’s stock of knowledge at hand.”

Hence it is clear that for certain situations some individuals are better equipped than others. But improvisation in difficult situations leads to extension of knowledge and afterwards as a broader base of knowledge for the future. It is important to keep in mind that this kind of knowledge is always “socially rooted, socially distributed and socially informed.”

The coordinates of the social matrix

The problem of the coordinates of the social matrix is directly related to the problem of the social reality. On the one hand, the subjective coordinates of each individual are of central meaning for the experience of the common-sense world, meaning that the personal situation in space and time will directly influence each individual's thinking and acting: “ To say, as we have, that ‘the’ world is transposed in common-sense experience into ‘my’ world would mean here that the standardised space and time of natural science is not the basis for the typifications of spatial and temporal location utilised by man in daily life.” This fact is emphasised by the biographical situation as well as the stock of knowledge at hand that are primarily a result out of each individual's situation.

But of course, this is only half the truth. Each individual experiences and increases their knowledge individually, while at the same it is in its completeness a social being, whose primary identification is rooted in the intersubjective reality, the paramount reality.  

To understand the problem of the social matrix and our situation within the social matrix as well as the intersubjectivity and its meaning, we need to understand these concepts themselves.

Intersubjectivity

We have just seen why intersubjectivity plays such a crucial role for the phenomenon of paramount reality. In addition, it needs to be pointed out that the question of the possibility of knowledge in the brains of other people is never seriously questioned in the common-sense world. Schütz is taking up this flaw and puts it into the center of his inquiries.

The “here” and “there” of the ego and the concept of normalcy

“The interchangeability of Here and There between egos is the necessary condition for a shared reality.” This is the central thesis of this point in the investigation. Even though an individual moving from here to there in space is changing its overall objective positioning, it is only partly changing its subjective positioning as a third there remains a third there. In any given case of exchanging two here-positions of two individuals with two new here-positions or two there-positions the concept of reciprocity is clearly distinguishable; reciprocity, i.e. the exchangeability of the viewpoints of two individuals and, as a corollary, the resulting understanding of the respective other enable the concept of normalcy. Normalcy again is the possibility of understanding the other individual by grasping a situation or the ability to move an experience of a here into a new here and into the here and there of the alter ego.

A similar concept is valid for the reciprocity not only in space but also in time.

The alter ego

Simultaneity of experience is the essence of intersubjectivity to the extent that I can understand a different individual and myself at the same time in my stream of consciousness. On the basis of this thesis Alfred Schütz defines the alter ego as the subjective stream of consciousness which can be realised in my vivid present. Due to this reciprocal understanding of the individual is it possible that “we” exist at the same time in the common-sense world. The alter ego is a human being for whom exists a world, and the perception and understanding of this world is similar to that of mine. The aforementioned vivid present is “a series of events in outer and inner time, unifying both dimensions into a single flux.”

On a side note I would like to mention that there (obviously) exist different types of human beings, as well in space as in time, depending on how far they are sharing a span of life with us or not, are living in the same locality of the common-sense world or not. A true “us-relationship” can only take place between humans sharing the same time as well as space coordinates.

Individuals conduct themselves to influence their environment - but what exactly constitutes an action?

To be continued in part II. 

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A complete list of references as well as sources of quotes can be obtained from the author.