The phenomenology of social institutions in the Schutzian tradition

Abstract

Tere is a broad consensus that the study of social institutions is one of the fundamental concerns of the social sciences. Te idea that phenomenology has ignored this topic is also widely accepted. As against this view, the present paper aims at demonstrating that especially Schutzian phenomenology—that is, the social-phenomenological tradition started by Alfred Schutz and continued by Tomas Luckmann and Peter Berger, among others—provides rich insights on the nature and workings of social institutions that could contribute to enriching the current social-scientifc debate on the issue. In order to show this, the authors attempt to unearth and systematically reconstruct Schutz’s and Berger and Luckmann’s insights on social institutions and to confront them with current approaches.