University of Victoria

New Dimensions in Phenomenological Sociology

This panel offers new dimensions of the long tradition of phenomenology and phenomenological research within sociology and social theory. This panel specifically draws on the temporal and historicist aspect of phenomenology and translates temporal sensibilities and historicist approach into sociological research. The session offers not only cutting-edge theories of phenomenological sociology, it also presents various methodological components that make the new, temporal phenomenological sociology applicable.

Session Chair and Discussant: Payman Vahabzadeh, University of Victoria

Session Organizer: Peyman Vahabzadeh, University of Victoria, peymanv@uvic.ca

Bio-Sociality: World, Cosmos, and Inter-Specie Ethics

Dustin Zielke, University of Victoria, dustinzielke@gmail.com

Unlike contemporary trends that seek to undermine the distinction between nature and human society (e.g., Bruno Latour), this paper argues that social theory needs to retain the, however problematic, distinction between nature and human culture for inter-specie ethical claims to be made. To this end, I attempt to begin to develop an idea of the social that is constituted by two different objective realms: that of the inter-human world and that of the extra-human cosmos. The human world is constituted by human care (Sorge) and purpose or significance (Bedeutsamkeit), while the cosmos is constituted both by 1) the ‘care’ and purposes of non-human, living beings and 2) the material indifference of matter to all purposive activity. From out of these two different realms, the social can be understood from two differing perspectives: first, as a sociality between humans and, second, as a sociality between human beings and non-human others, both of which occur on the background of a cosmic indifference to life in general. Experiencing the contrast between human purposes and other living being’s purposes against the indifferent background of cosmic matter can then be the phenomenological ground for a bio-sociality. This bio-sociality can be the ontological region in which an inter-specie ethics can open up, which is neither blind to the sometimes tragic conditions of inter-specie relationality, nor blind to the ethical claims that other living things, despite these tragic conditions, nevertheless place upon us.

Tuesday June 4, 2013 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM Building: Elliott Building, Room: E-160

Time As The Subject And The Subject As Time: Merleau-Ponty's Temporality

Dom Cerisano, University of Victoria, dcerisano2@gmail.com

As the body continues to emerge as an important area of research, Merleau-Ponty becomes more and more prevalent in sociology. While most engage with Merleau-Ponty solely for his insight into the body, it is important to remember that the body is a wholly temporal being. This paper is an attempt to elucidate Merleau-Ponty’s concept of temporality by defending his position from the critique of Richard Zaner. Zaner states that Merleau-Ponty’s concept of temporality requires a synthesis of identification in order to unify the temporal flux of consciousness. I argue that Zaner’s position ignores the intimate relation between the body and the world, misunderstands Merleau-Ponty’s diagram of time consciousness, and ultimately reduces time to something for the subject instead of being true to Merleau-Ponty’s radical contention that we must understand time as the subject and the subject as time.

Tuesday June 4, 2013 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM Building: Elliott Building, Room: E-160

How to Understand the Concept Experience in a Sociological Research on Architecture

David Builes, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, debuilesm@unal.edu.co

Experience in theoretical architecture has been used to make references to problems of perception, particularly, visual perception. This has led to a state in which experience for architectural research seems to be trapped inside a psychologistic perspective. However, experience is a concept that makes reference to a wider set of objects, among those it is possible to count the ones related to what is experienced (lived) in the process of producing an edifice: designing, constructing and even using it.

This work has to, as goal, show how it would be useful for sociologists to understand experience in researches on architecture. The argument has been developed in five parts: firstly, it shows why phenomenology offers a working-route in solving the problem; secondly, some reasons to make fixes in that way are presented; thirdly, a set of solutions developed by social sciences appear, as well as its difficulties; also, some reasons are exposed to consider Alfred Schutz’s sociology as a solution to the problem mentioned; finally, in conclusion, it has shown what a research on characteristic sociological problems would be about, from Schutz and his disciples’ sociology.

Tuesday June 4, 2013 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM Building: Elliott Building, Room: E-160

Technology and Technique: Ontology and Typology

Michaelangelo Anastasiou, University of Victoria, anastasiouma@gmail.com

The current exposition relies on the following ontological assumption: that nature possesses an immanent logic that furnishes humans’ perception of time and space by enabling a fundamental perceptive modality. Modernity—understood as the objectification of technique in a material entity that mediates the relationship between humans and nature, on a semi-autonomous basis—is defined as the proliferation of the rational-purposive domain of action beyond the confines of the lifeworld. The management of technical capacities thus requires the institutionalization of 2^nd order techniques (e.g., bureaucracy, management, standardized time, mass transportation etc.) that are oriented toward its own contextual logic and that attempt to bridge this disparity. This compels the introduction of third-, fourth-, fifth- etc., order techniques that attempt to manage the scope of the technical modality that preceded them. This furnishes a structural framework whereby the rational-purposive domain of action, being oriented toward the contextual logic of the machine, can no longer be contained by the lifeworld and thus “assumes a life of its own”. Social change is thus understood as the disparity between the rate of: (a) humans’ “natural” relationship with nature; and (b) modern technology’s relationship with nature. The disparity proliferates as the machine increasingly displaces the body as the mediator between society and nature, and as it becomes increasingly efficient.

Tuesday June 4, 2013 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM Building: Elliott Building, Room: E-160