The aim of this brief note is to identify three principles of subjectivism. The principles are an adaptation of the writings of Alfred Schuetz's on the method of social science. Schuetz was a participant in Ludwig von Mises's seminars in Vienna in the 1920s. (See Mises, Notes and Recollections, 1978, Chapter Nine.) He is today regarded as a founder of a branch of professional sociology called phenomenology. He wrote a paper for F. A. Hayek's journal Economica in 1943 entitled "The Problem of Rationality in the Social World." One issue that concerned Schuetz in his 1943 paper was the fact that economists and other students of human action did not often discuss methodology. They merely went about doing their work. He pointed out that there is nothing wrong with this so long as their work is governed by principles. His concluding paragraph begins as follows:
The social scientist, therefore, governed by the postulates mentioned, give him the assurance that he will never lose contact with the world of daily life. And as long as he uses with success methods which have stood this test and still do so, he is quite right in continuing without worrying about methodological problems...(p. 149)
More comprehensive treatments of the methodology of social science are his later paper in 1953 and his collective works in Schuetz, 1973.
Scheutz identified what he called (1) the postulate of subjective interpretation, (2) the postulate of adequacy, and (3) the principle of relevance. We discuss each in turn.
The principle of subjective interpretation sets out the range of phenomena that we can legitimately call subjective. Scheutz described the principle as follows:
...In order to explain human actions the scientist has to ask what model of an individual mind can be constructed and what typical contents must be attributed to it in order to explain the observed facts as the result of the activity of such a mind in an understandable relation. The compliance with this postulate warrants the possibility of referring all kinds of human action or their result to the subjective meaning such action or result of such action had for the actor.(1953, p. 34, italics added)
The meaning of a given event refers to the particular "location" of the event in the framework of a particular actor's means and ends. To describe a social phenomenon, a subjectivist must construct images of the frameworks of actors' means and ends. When the subjectivist refers to a social event, he always assumes or hypothesizes that the event is important to some actor in his use of means to achieve ends. More fundamentally, all the terms that the social scientist uses in her craft ultimately refer to the means and ends of the interactors themselves. For example, the economist uses the term "market" to refer to the simultaneous perceptions of the possible gains (meeting of ends) from exchange (the means) by the prospective buyers and sellers.
The second principle is the principle of adequacy. (Scheutz called this a "postulate" rather than a principle.) This principle describes a rule that the subjectivist must follow in constructing her images of the frameworks of means and ends. Her images must be reasonable and understandable to the actor himself and to other subjects. Schuetz says:
...Each term in a scientific model of human action must be constructed in such a way that a human act performed within the life world by an individual actor in the way indicated by the typical construct would be [reasonable and] understandable for the actor himself as well as for his fellow-men...Compliance with this postulate warrants the consistency of the constructs of the social scientist with the constructs of common-sense experience of the social reality."(Schuetz, 1953, p. 34) "What makes it possible for a social science to refer at all to events in the life world is the fact that the interpretation of any human act by the social scientist might be the same as that by the actor or by his partner."(1943, p. 147)
The principle of adequacy rules out images of an actor's means and ends assumed to be unknown to him and images that we know he could never have constructed.
Schuetz does not tell us what is ruled in. Reasonableness and the capacity to be understood are not easy to define. What seems reasonable and understandable to one person may not be so to a different person. Moreover, what seems unreasonable and incapable of being understood at one time may, to the same individual, seem reasonable and understandable at a different time. A proper application of the principle of adequacy would seem to require an appreciation of the nature of cognitive faculties.
The third principle is the principle of relevance. This principle says that the social scientist's image of the particular means-ends frameworks of actors must be logically consistent with his purpose.(1943, p. 145). For a social scientist to know whether he is following this principle, he must (1) know his purpose and (2) assure himself that his images are consistent with the achievement of his purpose. For one social scientist to decide whether the image of another social scientist is relevant, he must know the latter's purpose. If two social scientists disagree over the purpose of constructing an image, they are unlikely to agree on the relevance of an image.
The principle of relevance may be used as a basis for establishing a professional standard. Each social scientist, in his communication with his professional colleagues regarding his studies of interaction, should state his purpose. Otherwise it will not be possible for the colleagues to judge whether his work violates the principle of relevance.
Schuetz, Alfred, "The Problem of Rationality in the Social World," Economica, V. 10, p. 130-149, May, 1943.
Schuetz, Alfred, "Common-Sense and the Scientific Interpretation of Human Action," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, V. 14, p. 1-38, September, 1953.
Schuetz, Alfred, Collected Papers, edited by Maurice Natanson, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973.
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