ABSTRACT
Certainly there is need for a systematic historical and structural delineation of the development of phenomenological sociology, along the lines of Herbert Spiegelberg’s excellent study of phenomenology and psychology.4 Such an assessment would have to go beyond a chronology and a categorization; it would need to clarify internal relations of phenomenological sociology. For example, what is the relation of today’s generation of phenomenological sociologists to those of the first generation, the contemporaries of Husserl such as Mannheim and Scheler? Is it the “Americanization” of phenomenological sociology in the post world war II period that accounts for the present micro-and ahistorical tendency, whereas the direction of phenomenological sociology in pre-war Europe under Scheler, Mannheim, and Gurvitch had a pronounced macro-historical emphasis? This seems to be the case, but if so, is phenomenological sociology itself a cultural phenomenon rather than a general methodology of cultural phenomena? At another level of assessment, how does phenomenological sociology relate to other stances in opposition to positivistic sociology, such as so-called “reflexive sociology” or even “critical” sociology (in the vein of Alvin Gouldner’s 1970 The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology)? where do they come together (is it again in Hegel?) and where do they part ways?
