Daily life world

 In the field of sociology, early theorists such as Simmel and Mead did not lack attention to daily life, but their research failed to promote mainstream sociology to focus on daily life, and for contemporary sociology In terms of daily life, their influence is mostly indirect and vague (Goffman's sociological theory may be an exception). In contrast, the phenomenological tradition has a completely different meaning for this turn. It either constitutes an important source of thought in the sociology of daily life, or becomes an object of attack, but more often it is both. Yes. The reason for this is largely due to Husserl’s elucidation of the concept of the life world, as well as the enrichment and development of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty’s concept, and Schütz became the concept of An important starting point for introducing sociology.

Although Husserl put life-world as a core concept in his transcendental phenomenology very late, his early developments under the headings of intentional function and intentional object are related to the style of existence. The discussion of the characteristics of beliefs has already implied the dimension of the life world. The meaning of the objective existence of things is just an intentional structure, that is, the belief structure of its objective existence, and the self-evident natural attitude of this belief is positive. It is the attitude of the life world. Husserl wrote: "For those of us who live soberly in it, the world of life is always there. It is pre-existing for us, and it is all practice (whether it is theoretical practice or theoretical practice). The “foundation” of other practices).” [German] Husserl: "The Crisis of European Science and the Phenomenology of Transcendence", translated by Wang Bingwen, The Commercial Press, 2001, No. 172, 151～154, 176 , 565 pages. It provides all practices with self-evident beliefs as the prerequisites, and is a field of basic, pre-theoretical, subjectively relative, intuitive, and reliable truth. ②However, we do not intend to elaborate or even criticize Husserl's concept of life world here. The limitations of its transcendental phenomenology are not the issue we are concerned about at this moment. What we want to point out is that Husserl, out of reflection on Descartes’ objectivism and its modern variant positivism, and even more out of his own transcendental phenomenological needs, put forward the theory of the world of daily life. A new understanding of human existence and its meaning opened an important path. No matter what prejudices and misunderstandings it contains, no matter how much it is still troubled by Cartesianism, but its blind objectivism requirements for subverting positivism, for exploring the social and historical existence of human subjects, and for redefining daily life The socio-historical status of life is undoubtedly of great significance (although these consequences deviate from Husserl's original intention in some ways).

　　 It must be pointed out that without the important development of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty's two phenomenologists on the theory of the life world, the concept of the life world would hardly enjoy its future prestige. Both Heidegger's "Being and Time" or Merleau-Ponty's "Phenomena of Perception" can be regarded as a broad and in-depth discussion of the life world in a sense. But they are far from the reduction of Husserl's transcendental phenomenology and abandon the ideal of philosophy as a strict science. If in "Being and Time", what Heidegger is talking about is only the existence and meaning of Dasein in the world, the world is nothing but the structure of the a priori possibility of Dasein's existence, it is the existence of Dasein. The unfolded state, so the world is not an being. "The'world' is not an ontological way of describing the characteristics of beings who are not essentially Dasein; it is rather a feature of Dasein itself." Heidegger M ., Being and Time, SCM Press Ltd., 1999, p.92. So in "Phenomenology of Perception", the body exists and functions in the system of the meaning of the world and the sum of this meaningful thing. It Exist in the world in the form of body image, ③ Merleau-Ponty M., Phenomenology of Perception, London, New York: Routledge, 2002, p.115, 149. In a pre-theoretical sense Grasp the meaning of the world. Just as Heidegger's "being" primarily exists in the world in a non-thematic way, the body maintains a certain internal connection with the world in a non-thematic way. In Merleau-Ponty’s view, the pre-logical level of meaning given to objects by the body is the same as the true presentation of the meaning of the object in perception. He attempts to use this ambiguity to reveal "existence in the world "For the ontological meaning of the human subject transcending the dualism of subject and object, the subject or body does not exist in an alien, objectified external world. On the contrary, "the actual subject must first have a world or exist in the world. It is to maintain a system of meaning around it, whose reciprocity, relationship and involvement can be used without being clarified.” Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty endow the life world with the basic status of human existence, and they go beyond Husserl’s reliance on the philosophy of consciousness rejected Husserl’s unconditional transcendental subject and advocated understanding the basics of the life world at a non-thematic preconscious level. This world that cannot be completely surpassed is even Husserl’s Searle’s transcendental phenomenology is no exception, but Husserl imagines such an exception.

So far, it is not difficult to see that phenomenology clearly points out the foundation of the world of daily life. It is the foundation of all theoretical and non-theoretical activities. It provides self-evident premises or preconceived ideas for human practice. People inherently exist in the world of their daily lives in a pre-theoretical way. This is the world of beliefs in which our existence is rooted. However, both Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty still only work in the field of philosophy (even the relativistic concept of existence of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty is still in the same Zheng Zhen unfolding in the framework of a priori possibility: "Body Picture", China Encyclopedia Press, 2009, p. 103.). However, Schütz’s phenomenological sociology directly reveals the meaning of the life world in the field of sociology, thus directly pushing the perspective of phenomenology into the field of sociology. Like Husserl, Schütz clearly pointed out that the world of daily life is a fundamental world, ⑥⑦⑧[奥] Schütz: "Social Reality Problems", translated by Huo Guihuan, Zhejiang University Press, 2011, Nos. 350, 246, 367 ~Page 368, 334. He further pointed out that compared with the world of dreams, fantasy, art, science, etc., the world of daily life is the ultimate reality or the highest reality from which all other forms of reality originate. ⑥ It is through our body to move in this external world, we encounter obstacles from things in this world, we can change this world, and only in this world can we communicate with our companions, Thereby establishing a "common understanding environment" in the Husserl sense. ⑦ Therefore, Schütz also refers to the world of daily life as the world of intersubjectivity, the world of culture, and the world of common sense. This world is the cultural or common sense world that we are familiar with, a structure of the meaning we are familiar with, or the most basic domain of meaning, all other domains of meaning can be regarded as its variants. The reality of the daily life world is constructed by the meaning of our historical cultural experience. It is the accumulation of human daily practice activities. Therefore, this is not a world of lonely individuals. Like Merleau-Ponty, subjectivity has always been inter-subjectivity to Schütz. My daily life world has been an inter-subjective world from the beginning, ⑧ is a I share a common world of common sense knowledge with others. I live in a world that has been experienced and explained by others. This is a world given to me from a historical perspective. Compared to my creation, most of this world is historical The legacy is passed on to me. Therefore, the life situation of an individual in daily life is always a historical situation, which is a construction of social history and culture. [Ao] Xu Ci: "Social Problems", translated by Huo Guihuan, Zhejiang University Press, 2011, p.374. This is similar to Merleau-Ponty's point of view. The subject of history is not an individual. There is a social atmosphere in the individual's life. Merleau-Ponty M., Phenomenology of Perception, London, New York: Routledge, 2002, p.425. Obviously, Schütz overcomes Husserl’s uniqueness in intersubjectivity by transcending individual social and historical culture. The embarrassment of my theory, this ontologically eliminates the possibility of starting from a lonely me (for Husserl, the transcendental me without the world) to restore the existence of others and even the existence of the life world. However, although the introduction of a social subject overcomes the subjective bias of individualism (which makes Schütz’s concept of subject far away from Husserl’s transcendental self and even Heidegger’s authentic Dasein), it does not mean It completely subverts the subjective perspective of phenomenology. The change of this perspective in Schutz’s phenomenological sociology is: the subjective emphasis on the meaning of the life world; the over-optimistic estimation of the actors’ actions towards themselves The level of understanding; the analysis of actors is focused on the level of philosophy of consciousness; the overemphasis of the foundation and importance of face-to-face relationships; the lack of critical thinking about the self-evident world of daily life, etc. This lack of criticality makes Schütz fall into the trap of phenomenological conservatism like Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. Perhaps Heidegger is an exception. He expressed his critical attitude towards modern daily life with the inauthenticity of ordinary human existence, but this is based on his absurd individualistic beliefs (Chen Jiaying: "An Introduction to Heidegger's Philosophy" , Sanlian Bookstore, 1995, p. 94).

　　 In addition to the phenomenological tradition, Nietzsche’s philosophy and later Wittgenstein’s practical theories have also contributed to the discovery of the world of daily life, but their influence is not as significant and extensive as the phenomenological tradition. In addition, the Western Marxist philosopher and social theorist Lefebvre played an important role in discovering the world of daily life and promoting the transformation of sociological daily life. Zheng Zhen: "The Sociological Significance of Lefebvre’s Critical Theory of Daily Life ――Towards a Sociology of Daily Life," Sociological Research, Issue 3, 2011. He not only affirmed the basic status of the world of daily life, but also regarded daily life as a total critical perspective. He is not only one of the discoverers of the world of daily life (this discovery certainly benefited from the influence of Dadaism and Surrealism, [English] Heimer: "Introduction to the Theory of Daily Life and Culture", translated by Wang Zhihong, Commercial Seal Shuguan, 2008, p. 195. The influence of phenomenology, especially Heidegger's phenomenology, cannot be ruled out), and he is one of the important theorists of the daily life of contemporary western sociology.