Introduction

pp. 1-32

in: Ronald Cox, Schutz's theory of relevance, Berlin, Springer, 1978

Abstract

Relevance was one of the most important concerns in the philosophy of Alfred Schutz. In a sequence of articles dealing with a number of problems related to the themes of the social world, social reality, and the foundations of the social sciences, Schutz came upon the phenomenon of relevance time and again.¹ In an initial manuscript not released in his own lifetime, ²he attempted to present a phenomenological explication of the workings of relevance, thereby showing the effect and centrality of relevance to the problem of defining the nature of the social world. The work was considered incomplete by Schutz himself, and the problems discussed in it were not resolved to his satisfaction.