Phenomenology and Sociology (Modern Sociological Readings)

The physical and social sciences both split away from philosophy as an encompassing theory of human life. However, the 20th century development of phenomenology and its radical new perspective illuminates the human world and reinstates human experience in its place at the center of thinking about the world. Phenomenology, then, has just recently become an obvious candidate as a philosophical and theoretical lens through which the social sciences could begin seeing the world with a fresh (and arguably, more accurate) analysis. The readings in this volume are designed to illustrate from various viewpoints the relations between methods, domains, and goals of the two disciplines - sociology and phenomenology - and also to clear up some of the confusions that have dogged phenomenology.