Alfred Schutz’s notion of cultural science in Lester Embree’s view

Abstract

The article is a presentation of Embree’s interpretation and development of Alfred ideas on the cultural sciences. It deals first with the general characteristics of all cultural sciences in their task of analyzing the lifeworld as an intersubjective and historical world structured according to consociates, contemporaries, predecessors, and successors. Then it examines the three main constituent parts that Embree highlights in each of them: the definition of the discipline, its basic concepts, and its rules of procedure. Finally, Embree’s views on the relationship between methodology and philosophy are considered. His thesis is that scientists and philosophers can meet in a mutual interplay in the realm of a theory of science that can be both philosophic and scientific.