ABSTRACT
Schutz takes as his project explaining the intentional character of everyday social life in terms of the intentional acts of the individual. Public meaning-
contexts are created out of essentially private individual meaning-contexts. He hopes to combine an individualistic conception of meaning and intentionality with a commitment to a communal world of shared meanings. Schutz’s account of meaning and intentionality is significant because it highlights inescapable difficulties for any attempt at grounding intersubjectivity on a radical individualism. Indeed Schutz himself acknowledges more than once that he can give no adequate account of how the intentional acts and meaning-conferring acts of the individual make possible a direct face-to-face relationship with another person (cf. Schutz 1967: pp. 97-8 and 165).
