EXISTENTIAL SOCIOLOGY FOR THE 21ST CENTURY, 2015 Dept of Sociology, University of Copenhagen
BACKGROUND AND PROBLEM Background: The human way of being (existence) in the social world has become an arena for new challenges in the 21st century, affecting vulnerability and life-unfolding. After poststructuralism, postmodernism etc. it is relevant to investigate human being: As a decentred/extatic self/subject who is an active agent in the social world and in a process of becoming And which at the same time experience itself as embedded in an (uncontrolled and opaque) world that affects its existence And is included in and formed by common sense, public discourse, cultural experience of existence and social power structures Problem: How can we develop a theoretical and methodological approach to sociology that is able to explore the human experience of existential vulnerability and life-unfolding in the 21st century society?
GOAL Goal: To clarify the theoretical and methodological basis for a further development of existential sociology, i.e. an approach to sociology based in existential philosophy and phenomenology. This sociological approach, which today is found in fragmented form, must among other things be able to describe the social experience of existential vulnerability and the possibilities of existential life unfolding in a global society, characterized by increasing opacity and lack of control.
PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS A. What is the potentials and limitations of current existential theories on sociality, and how might they be integrated? B. How is it possible to actialize the existential perspective on sociology, and what can this perspective bring sociology? C. Which empirical opportunities will the existential perspective on sociology provide? For example, within mental suffering, school and work life?
A1. EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Albert Camus, Rollo May etc. The individual (the total person) Authenticity Existence Community of autnomonous Active and creative Freedom, responsibility and choice The collective/mass Conformity and rationality Essence Technology, state, institutions, church Passive and rigid Unfreedom, escape, control Problem: The human being is no longer primarily an arena for a conflict/tension bewteen the individual and society (as a cage), and many existential categories are exhausted
A2. PHENOMENOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY AND SOCIOLOGY Edmund Husserl, Alfred Schutz, Peter Berger & Thomas Luckmann etc. The common lifeworld of subjects is the intersubjective system of meanings constituting their common language (Husserl 1936); the subject of sociology is conscious subjects who experience and form the social reality in their everyday intersubjective life-world (Schutz 1962/66); society and social order are solely products of human activity and social reality is constructured through language (Berger & Luckmann 1966) Social being is navigated by intentionality (Husserl) common sense / practical know-how (Schutz) Our everyday experience is led by socially accepted conventions and expectations of normality (Schutz 1962/1964) Normality is defined and sanctioned by social structures in order to maintain social order and avoid deviations (Berger & Luckmann 1966) Problem: Phenomenology lacks an understanding of existential fragility and search for meaning and a critical dimension that can identify the barriers to human unfolding of life
A3. EXISTENTIAL PHENOMENOLOGY Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Martin Buber, Emmanuel Levinas, Ludwig Binswanger, Ronald D. Laing, Alice Holzhey-Kunz etc. Human self/body/consciousness/practice as locus of experience, totally enmeshed in the world, which is fundamentally social (Being-with, Being-for-others etc.) Openness Otherness, meeting, dialogue Generosity, freedom Eigentlichkeit Gelassenheit, ethics and art Personal Physical Social Closedness Totality, ego, monologue Conflict, dominance Uneigentlichkeit, normality, anonymity Control, technology and science Problem: Existential phenomenology is not based on systematic and controlled observation and it tends to centre on the individual
A4. AMERICAN SCHOOL OF EXISTENTIAL SOCIOLOGY Tiryakian (1962), Douglas & Johnson (1977), Kotarba & Fontana (1984), Johnson & Kotarba (2002) Human beings must be studied in their natural setting, the everyday world in which they live. The existential self as an active process of becoming through an experience of society (Kotorba & Fontana 1984; Johnson & Kotorba 2002) How individuals construct their selves and self-identity within social/cultural contexts (Kotorba & Fontana 1984) How feelings/emotions play a key role in everyday social life (Johnson & Kotorba 2002) Microsociological studies, e.g. self-identity in techno/rave, church communities etc. Problem: Existential sociology has an individual/mircosociological focus and lacks a proper grasp of macro phenomena such as power, politics and culture
Michel Foucault (& Nikolas Rose etc.) A5. GENEALOGY/ HISTORICAL ONTOLOGY Collective experience of human beings and transformation of human beings into subjects are related to social and political power relations that both produce and control freedom (Foucault, 1970-1979). Philosophy (and sociology) must keep watch over the excessive powers of institutional and political rationality; suggest points of resistance to social power; and inspire the struggle for a new subjectivity thorugh self-practice of freedom as ethics of existence (Foucault, 1979-1984) Problem: Missing integration of emotional dimension as well as everyday life
B. FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF EXISTENTIAL SOCIOLOGY The existential categories must be rethought from a sociological horizon. An existential sociology for the 21 st century must be able to combine: A description of social existence in 21st century society A critique of the social limitations for human life-unfolding (e.g. Kant & Foucault) A constructive agenda for the good life in the good society (e.g. Aristotle) C. Empirical areas Mental suffering School Work life