On surrender, death, and the sociology of knowledge
pp. 105-120
in: Kurt Wolff (ed), Alfred Schütz, Berlin, Springer, 1984Abstract
The sociology of knowledge and surrender-and-catch1 are, in Wolff's mind, complementary endeavors. Surrender is the experience which the sociologist of knowledge may put to use in order to break through the inescapable relativism that the social context presents in contrast to what is universal to all human beings. As a student of sociology but also of surrender, I was fascinated by those very words "universally human' (see the end of the quotation above). However, when I try to visualize their meaning I get only a blank image. Yet at the same time the last sentence of the quotation which ends with this term comforts me with a bright feeling of well being. Why not cherish for a moment the dream of becoming one day a social theorist informed by such a "catch!'