Alfred Schutz's postulates of social science

clarification and ammendments

Jonathan Tuckett

pp. 469-488

in: Human Studies 37 (4), 2014.

Abstract

It is the contention of this paper that the majority of scholars deal with a simplified notion of Schutz's understanding of social science. Specifically they tend to view Schutz's understanding of social science as containing only three postulates: logical consistency, subjective interpretation, and adequacy. However, such considerations tend to focus primarily upon "Common-Sense and Scientific Interpretation of Human Action" (1953) and only engage with Schutz's other essays in a tertiary manner. This paper argues that only by giving due attention to Schutz's other work does it become clear what his full understanding social science is. A full picture must necessarily take into account the postulate of relevance or disinterestedness, postulate of clarity, and postulate of compatibility or tested observation. This paper will clarify the relationship of all these postulates which will necessarily require a number of amendments in order to achieve the greatest clarity possible.