ABSTRACT
This chapter develops the concept of symbol and symbolic forms and their relationship to social structure and social reality. The chapter describes the special role that the symbol relation plays in Schutz’s social theory. In conceiving ordinary experience as shot through by the transcendencies of symbols, Schutz establishes a direct line of engagement with Ernst Cassirer’s concept of symbolic forms. The discussion deepens this engagement by highlighting the implications for social analysis, as well as the limitations that Schutz addresses by furnishing Cassirer’s grand philosophy of culture with a pragmatic grounding in the lifeworld. By highlighting the multivalent nature of symbols in structuring the experience of social reality, the chapter illustrates their importance in both the “enchantment” of the social order and the violence (symbolic and bodily) that such an order exercises against socially excluded others. In doing so, it highlights the connection that the radicalized Schutzian frame suggests between power, politics, and symbolic representations of society.
