Human Acts, the Relevancy Matrix, and Systems of Relevancy

Human Acts, the Relevancy Matrix, and Systems of RelevancyAuthor(s): Sherman M. StanageSource: Human Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Apr., 1979), pp. 131-158Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20008718 .

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HUMAN STUDIES 2, (1979) 131-158

Human Acts, the Relevancy Matrix, and Systems of Relevancy

Sherman M. Stanage

Northern Illinois University

I. INTRODUCTION

Nothing is more ubiquitous within the human worlds than human activity,

yet few of the constitutions of everyday living in these worlds are so rarely understood as what it means for a person to act.l The activities of persons within worlds-as-taken-for-granted, and the meanings these have for oneself

and for other persons, are founding enactings through2 which the

constitutions of the structures of the social worlds of everyday life arise.

Any social science, therefore, must have in its foundation a theory (or

theories) of human action; but each one of these sciences largely lacks this at

present. One of the principal tasks of any philosophy of the social sciences at

this stage is to construct theories of human action which may be employed

fruitfully by the social sciences. It is within the context of these problems that

I focus in this essay upon the phenomenon of relevance as a fundamental

problem in any theory of human action.

In due course I shall make certain distinctions between human action and a

theory of human action; point to some of the major problems which have to

be treated by any philosophy of human action;3 discuss certain views of

The immensely important and distinct problem of the embodiment of all human action and

acts through the constitutions of the human body are acknowledged, but deliberately, although

regretfully, left unexplored in this discussion. That is, I am not offering a theory of the body in

this discussion.

^Through" is a preposition, adverb, and adjective. As a preposition, it is used to suggest

something going into one side, end, or point, and out the other, or to present during the period of, as in the sense of "from the first through the last." As an adverb, it presents continuity from one

end, side, surfact, etc., to or beyond another, or from beginning to the end: "He is wet through and through, or "He pulled through." As an adjective it bespeaks going from beginning to the end

without stops, or with very few stops, as in the phrases, "a through train," or a "through road." I

intend all of these senses when speaking of any action which is through. 3I shall be concerned here only with the phenomena of human action and acts, and not with

kinds of activities other than those which have been found to constitute activities of persons.

Many of these other kinds of activities deserve thorough phenomenological investigation on

other occasions: the "activities" of animals generally (and of plants, perhaps), of the smallest

through the largest spatial-temporal bodies such as particles, planets or stars, and of such

"happenings" or "events" as earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, and the like.

131



132 STANAGE

Alfred Schutz and J. L. Austin on the phenomenological structures of human

act, human action, and the special problems concerning relevance; offer a

sketch of a theory of relevance which distinguishes both what I shall call the

relevancy matrix of all systems of relevance, and several possible kinds of

relevancy systems for use toward an understanding of human action and

acts.4 I conclude with a few suggestions as to how the phenomonological

descriptions and distinctions I have provided hopefully may be employed

additionally in the construction of models for use in empirical investigation of

human acts and action within the disciplines of the social sciences.

II. HUMAN ACTION AND THEORIES OF HUMAN ACTION

Certain distinctions must be made between human action and theories of

human action which may be provided by a phenomenology of the social

sciences. An immediate problem which arises is that anything said or written

about human action (and even saying it or writing it out is a human action) is

the consequence of some theory of action. Even so, I believe that certain large distinctions can be offered provisionally.

We are born into an already social world. We already coexist.5 In fact, we

are born to a world of persons and discover ourselves as persons among

persons. We are already within an actional and active structuring of

relationships from our birth onward. Our sensings in the world, our activities

which come to give the world its structuring forms have from the first a

pretypal character of action. We feel, we experience. We build a stock of

activities, the sedimentations of our lives, our life activities. We begin to build

a range of feelings and of the having-felt; of the acting and of the having acted, and of the enacted within the world. These grow into a range of subtle

distinctions of typical activities, acts, and ercactings. We move through sedimenting layers of experiences. These are products of

the ways through which we have actively tested our situations (see footnote 16) toward the end of defining and redefining our placements in the world. We

come to have a biography. Our lives tell a story, the telling of which is fused in

various degrees with those of our predecessors and contemporaries. It is our

story, but partly their story as well. We gather in a "stock of experience"

4And only this for now. I make no claims at the present time regarding other possible uses of

these relevancy systems.

5We stand out among, toward to, for, within other persons from the first stirrings of our lives

(cf. Schutz, 1962, esp. p. 168; Schutz, 1964, pp. 20 -21; Collingwood, 1938, pp. 241-252, andesp.

p. 317; Ortega y Gasset, 1961, p. 135, and passim; This volume contains in pp. 71-274, inclusive,

El hombre y la gente, first published in 1957, English trans, by W. Trask as Man and People, New

York: Norton, 1959). "Coexistence" is an especially important concept in Ortega's phenomenological philosophy, a

fact evidenced in many passages throughout the eleven volumes of the Obras Completas.



HUMAN ACTS AND RELEVANCE 133

drawing upon it through every action. From time to time, most often when

pressured by problems, when facing crises, and when in the midst of kinds and

degrees of anxiety which the existentialists have explored fully, we reflect

upon our feelings, our experiencings, and upon what we have come to know

along the pathways of the everyday world. We have begun to gather a "stock

of knowledge" which has already served us with varying degrees of success.

All the while we have projected ourselves in and through the world, which has

always constituted "a possible field of action for us all." For the most part, unless we have been born as a member among geniuses, kings and princes, or

with special infirmities, our actions within the possible field of action have

defined for us our mundane world, typicalities?but never the sameness?

which we share with others.

Our stock of experience, our stock of knowledge, our biography, all within

the mundanity of possible fields of action within the everyday work of the

social are the foundations upon which we enact our activities through the

courses of our human acts. Although persons can and often do transcend the

mundane, most of our actions take place within it. Schutz (1962) often

defined action in such terms as

... human conduct devised by the actor in advance, that is, conduct based upon a

preconceived project. The term "act" shall designate the outcome of this ongoing process, that is, the accomplished action. Action may be covert (for example, the attempt to solve a

scientific problem mentally) or overt, gearing into the outer world; it may take place by commission or omission. Purposive abstention from acting being considered an action in

itself, (p. 19).*

This serves adequately for the present purposes, I believe, to suggest what human action is and to point to the grounds of its origins. Its structure will be

my subject in Section III below.

Any theory of human action would have to be a more or less integrated grouping of fundamental principles which are used to investigate system?

atically the kind of phenomena I have described above. If it were to offer itself as a tightly knit theory of human action, it would have to be a reasoned set of

principles and propositions derived from, and supported by, establishable

and established evidence and intended to serve as a model for understanding

and/or explaining very many (and preferably most or all) of the phenomena of human acts and human action. This mandate to provide a theory or

theories of human action is also one of the special tasks of contemporary

philosophy of action, or "action theory."

6Cf. also pp. 67,214; Schutz, 1964, p. 11, my emphasis. And, of course, the importance of this

characterization is clear, as stated in Schutz (1966): "A theory of projected action and decision in

the life-world requires an analysis of the underlying systems of relevancy. Without such a theory no foundation of a science of human action is possible. The theory of relevancies is therefore of

fundamental importance for the theory of the social sciences" (p. 131).



134 STANAGE

There are a number of special problems to which a theory of action would have to speak. For example, it would have to provide descriptions and

analyses of the concepts of "activity," "action," and "act" in consistent, usable

ways. It would have to offer some way of resolving, for its special purposes, the very old questions of the relationships of the subject and subjectivity (the actor's understanding of his action) and the object and objectivity (the observer's understanding, and perhaps explanation of the .same activity).7 A

philosophy of action would also have to offer an account of what it means to

be a person, in and through situations?orientations toward and through circumstances in terms of spatiality and temporality. And, of course, it would

have to present a view of the human body. Finally (at least for the present purposes), a philosophy of action ought to

have some human uses in addition to the often playful ones to which it is put

by many philosophers. One of the reasons for the current cirsis within the

theories and the practices of the social sciences is that too many philosophers have failed to concern themselves with possible further human applications of

their work; surely the mandate to work on these matters applies fully and

clearly to philosophy of action within the social sciences. Hopefully, the

presently widening influence of the work of Alfred Schutz among communities of scholars within all of the social sciences will lead toward

corrections of this situation.

III. THE STRUCTURES OF ACT AND ACTION

Although Schutz termed action "human conduct based upon a pre? conceived project," this does not yet reveal the structures of action and act.

We might be told, for example, that the structures of action as phenomena are

totally different, varying according to individual persons, times, cir?

cumstances, situations, and projects. If this were in fact true of all of the

structures of human acts, there could be no social sciences, inasmuch as the

phenomena could not be investigated according to the scientific guidelines of

replication or repeatability of investigation and experimentation. These

guidelines require that investigations be made into the "same" phenomena and that logically consistent principles, established with the highest degree of

clarity and distinctness within a determinate conceptual framework,8 be

rigorously applied. Another extreme interpretation of what human act and action are is a

current behavioristic model based upon the remnants of a decayed logical

7But how can these distinguishable understandings, meanings (or explanations, perhaps) have

the same object? See Schutz (1970b, pp., 215-250, esp. 241-242; 1962, p. 96; 1964; 1970b, pp.

14-15, 27-28). 8See Schutz (1962, p. 43). Schutz, employing Husserl's concept of typicality, developed his

"system of typical constructs" to be used in this way.




positivism. This view argues that there are identical actions, or that all human

actions (at least in principle, and given the necessary rigorous and

sophisticated reductions) can be unitized and traced back to an irreducible

physical identity with all other human actions. This interpretation neces?

sitates the development of mathematical and statistical theories and methods

with measures of tolerance and margins of error built into the methods to

correct for the errors occasioned by contemporary ignorance of all of the

necessary facts.

Even these two points of view fail to offer accounts of the structures of

action and acts, however; in fact, both are best seen as disavowals of the need

to search, the need to know very much about the phenomena under

investigation. Therefore, not only these two, but, in fact, all approaches to the

careful study of the phenomena of human act and action require that

accounts of their structures be given. Any such account, however, necessarily is based upon acts as exemplars, or types, and upon actions as exemplars or as

types of one another. It is not the case that acts have no similarities

whatsoever, any more than it is true that they are irreducibly identical. But

what are the degrees and kinds of exemplarities? For Schutz this is the)

problem of typification (See Schutz, 1970b, pp. 176-250; 1962, 1964, I960 passim).9

9See also Schutz (1962)

From the outset the object is an object within a horizon of familiarity and pre

acquaintanceship which is, as such, just taken for granted until further notice as the

unquestioned, though at any time questionable stock of knowledge at hand. The

unquestioned pre-experiences are, however, also from the outset, at hand as typical, that

is, as carrying open horizons of anticipated similar experiences. For example, the outer

world is not experienced as an arrangement of individual unique objects, dispersed in

space and time, but as "mountains," "trees," "animals," "fellow-man." I may have never

seen an Irish setter but if I see one, I know that it is an animal and in particular a dog, showing all the familiar features and the typical behavior of a dog and not, say, of a cat. I

may reasonably ask: "What kind of dog is this?" The question presupposes that the

dissimilarity of this particular dog from all other kinds of dogs which I know stands out and becomes questionable merely by reference to the similarity it has to my unquestioned experiences of typical dogs. In the more technical language of Husserl, whose analysis of the typicality of the world of daily life we have tried to sum up, what is experienced in the actual perception of an object is apperceptively transferred to any other similar object, perceived merely as to its type. Actual experience will or will not confirm my anticipation of the typical conformity with other objects. If confirmed, the content of the anticipated type will be enlarged; at the same time the type will be split up into sub-types; on the other hand the concrete real object will prove to have its individual characteristics, which, nevertheless, have a form of typically.

Now, and this seems to be of special importance, I may take the typically apperceived objects as an exemplar of the general type and allow myself to be led to this concept of the

type, but I do not need by any means to think of the concrete dog as an exemplar of the

general concept of "dog." "In general" my Irish setter Rover shows all the characteristics which the type "dog," according to my previous experience, implies, (p. 7-8).



136 STANAGE

Human action and human act are two species of phenomena within the

generic phenomena of human activity. They are two kinds of phenomena which manifest themselves within the everyday world of the social, and they have structures which can be described. They are overlapping species, not

coordinate or mutually exclusive species, of human activity. To describe the

ways in which their structures are manifested is to describe distinctions

without differences. Human action and human act are not individuations, but inseparable distincts.

The phrase "to act" is the paradigm for the widest possible range of a special kind of word in any language. To list all of these words would be to inventory the full repertoire of languages in presenting what a human being does10

Consider some examples (and only some examples; see Austin, 1961, esp. p.

130) which would be included in any such list and for which "to act" would be

a stand-in: feeling, touching, hearing, seeing, tasting, smelling, running,

walking, sleeping, eating, laughing, crying, perceiving, conceiving, reflecting,

observing, considering, supposing, presupposing, reacting, assuming, cogi?

tating, reasoning, arguing, judging, guessing, contemplating, etc. "An act"

and "an action" are instantiations and manifestations of "to act." Thus, each

of the examples may also be "an act" or "an action."

Now what does "to act" really mean? And what do "an action" and "an act"

really intend. These are the fundamental questions of any philosophy of

action. These questions present serious problems, and challenges which must

be resolved through the forging of sharpened and sharpening tools for the

exploration and the investigation of the everyday life of persons. A

phenomenological description and interpretation of persons' actions in their

everyday worlds must stand under any theory of human action. Some

philosophy of action is always present in any kind of analysis of the human

being from any perspective of any one of the social sciences. However, it is

usually only implicit, unexplored, unexamined, and all theories of the social

world of persons necessarily suffer as a tragic consequence. It remains to

explicitize a philosophy of action.

In his paper, "A Plea for Excuses," Austin (1961) asks

... what is an or the action? For we can generally split up what might be named as one

action in several distinct ways, into different stretches or phases or stages, (p. 140).n

There is for example the stage at which we have actually to carry out some action upon

which we embark?perhaps we have to make certain bodily movements or to make a

speech. In the course of actually doing these things (getting weaving) we have to pay

10The translation of other languages with respect to this concept offers a variety of special

challenges to any phenomenology of human action which investigates language conventions as

important dimensions of the everyday world.

nCf. Schutz (1970a): "In order to analyze [the concept of "Intended meaning"] we examined

the series of polythetically constructed Acts, which according to a fundamental principle of

phenomenology, can be taken in by a single glance of attention" (p. 216).




(some) attention to what we are doing and to take (some) care to guard against (likely)

dangers: we may need to use judgment or tact: we must exercise sufficient control over cur

bodily parts: and so on. Inattention, carelessness, errors of judgment, tactlessness,

clumsiness, all of these and other ills (with attendant excuses) which affect one specific

stage in the machinery of action, the executive stage, the stage where we muff it. But there

are many other departments in the business too, each of which is to be traced and mapped

through its cluster of appropriate verbs and adverbs. Obviously there are departments of

intelligence and planning, of decision and resolve, and so forth: but I shall mention one in

particular, too often overlooked, where troubles and excuses abound... One way in

which [we can have excellent information and still plan a course of action which leads to

disaster] is through failure at the stage of appreciation of the situation, that is at the stage where we are required to cast our excellent intelligence into such a form, under such heads

and with such weights attached, that our equally excellent principles can be brought to

bear on it properly in a way to yield the right answer. So too... in moral or practical

affairs, we can know the facts and yet look at them mistakenly or perversely, or not fully realize or appreciate something, or even be under a total misconception. Many

expressions of excuse indicate failure at this particularly tricky stage: even thought?

lessness, inconsiderateness, lack of imagination, are perhaps less matters of failure in

[information] or planning than might be supposed, and more matters of failure to

appreciate the situation, (pp. 141-142)

Stages have already been mentioned: we can dismantle the machinery of the act, and

describe (and excuse) separately the intelligence, the appreciation, the planning, the

execution and so forth. Phases are rather different: we can say that he painted a picture or

fought a campaign, or else we can say that first he laid on this stroke of paint and then that,

first he fought this action and then that. Stretches are different again: a single term

descriptive of what he did may be made to cover either a smaller or a larger stretch of

events, those excluded by the narrower description being then called "consequences" or

"results" or "effects" or the like of his act. So here we can describe Finney's act either as

turning on the hot tap, which he did by mistake, with the result that Watkins was scalded, or as scalding Watkins, which he did not do by mistake, (p. 149).12

Surely Austin presents the problems with that signal clarity and precision

always found in his philosophical works. But just as surely, Schutz gives us

the clearest phenomenological account of the structures of act and action

anywhere in the literature of the philosophy of the social sciences or within the

writings of the social scientists themselves. Both, moreover, invoke questions of relevancy in their accounts, and this is the most important point here.13

,2In a previous passage Austin discussed the classic case of Regina vs. Finney (Shrewsbury

Assizes, 1873, cited in 12 Cox 625) in which Finney, an attendant in a mental institution, was on

trial for manslaughter in the death of Thomas Watkins, a patient in the institution. Finney was

not found guilty, but there were many questions concerning which of Finney's action(s), if any, killed Watkins, and Finney's responsibilities, if any in the death.

13And beside them both, rarely surpassed in his own language, stands Ortega y Gasset, whose

phenomenological philosophy (from as early as 1914) should be carefully investigated in close

relationship with the views of both Austin, Collingwood, and Schutz. The following concepts should be investigated especially: action, act, circumstance, coexistence, culture, importance,

person, perspective, point of view, situation, usage, and above all for our purposes, relevance.

Ortega and Schutz referred to one another in their works. See Ortega y Gasset (1961, pp. 187

and 196); Schutz (1962, pp. 142-143; 1966, p. 133).



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Austin's paper is a discussion of the function of a form of adverb in a

language, that function which excuses some action because it turned out not

to be a natural successful act. (Austin, 1961, p. 128).14 How indeed do we

divide "an," "one," or "the" action? And what "stretch," "phase," or "stage" of

an, one, or the action do we mean? How much attention is some attention?

When, where, and by whom? How much care is some care and what is a

"likely" danger on what occasion? "Inattention," "carelessness," "errors of

judgment," "tactlessness," or "clumsiness" in whose eyes? The actor's or the

observer's? And surely in either case, these are questions of degrees and nuances of convention and acceptable conduct. When we collect our

information, our intelligence, and must decide how, when, where, and with

whom, to use this information, how are we to interpret situations and

circumstances with sufficient "appreciation" of the information to act with

plausible degrees of probable success (if actor) or understanding of the action

(if observer)? These all raise, in my judgment, questions of relevance. They all

attest relationships of the appropriate, the fitting, the pertinent, the apt.

A Phenomenology of Action

Human activity is a happening, an event going on at the human level. It is a

putting forth of power, the exertion of power, or a doing of some kind, all at the human level (Pf?nder, 1967, pp. 12-40).l5 In moving into structuring form, the action begins to take place, or literally to take a place. A temporal stretch begins. Placings of the action begin. It already begins to take a place and a time. An action is thus forming, in-forming, in the very midst of its

being performed. Actions are structurings and projects. The "situation"16 is the everyday, the taken for granted, the mundane, the

practical world within which we begin to feel that certain actions have

14Here Austin brought the functions of adverbs squarely into phenomenological focus.

Nouns, verbs, and adjectives have long received philosophical and phenomenological attention.

Phenomenologists had also rendered the study of prepositions significant philosophically. It

seems to me that the notion of the natural successful act functions as a kind of paradigm in

Austin's philosophy of action and act. I return to this important point in Section V below.

I5See Pfander (1967): "Certain objects, or states of affairs, or events which are felt, perceived,

remembered, represented, or merely thought by a human individual arouse in him certain

strivings or counterstrivings" (p. 16). But activity at the human level is not limited to these kinds

of question either. There can be simpler human issues, like the activities of my body organs without one or more of which I should be in a lesser state of health, and also the activities of the

component parts and systems interacting which make up the organism, etc.

,6I discuss "situation" in Section V below. There are important similarities between the views

of Husserl, James, Dewey, Collingwood, Ortega y Gasset, and Schutz on the phenomena we call

"situation" and "situations." These similarities should be investigated.




meaning and value.17 These are prime ingredients of all present environments, the milieu within which the acting subject generates objects of his action from

the stuff at hand (cf. the discussion ofsubject andobject in Stanage, 1973, pp.

81-97). Resisting us, these ingredients and elements function in limiting the

sphere within which our volitions can be realized. Actions are placings,

situatings, but more.

They are placings, situatings, orientings, within circumstances.18 Actings have their special character, and the special phases, stretches, stages

(borrowing from Austin) partially because of what stands around them, and

of course from what stands before, during, and following any stretch of the

action short of its identifiable termination. Moreover, the content of the

action is also related to the circumstances surrounding it at its termination.

Already a person must be feeling, experiencing, and thinking?with some of

these ingredients, elements, etc., as similar to, like, or as resembling others.

The content of the action is being brought into concreteness. Its ingredients are growing together, and the fullness of the action is unfolding. The content

thus comes to a level of the understanding or understandable, although not

necessarily yet to the level of the understood. Perhaps provisional naming of

the acts within the action can begin. At least some spans, stages, and phases have become identifiable through a stretch or passage of time. The willing (see footnote 15) of this content on its various levels takes a place, and we move

from our plan of the act as if it were terminated and accomplished, and back

again from intention through purpose, deliberation, and projects to

decision.19

Then we move through to the stage of the "willing of the action itself, for

example, in the case of "outer "action, the innervation of the members of the

body (Schutz, 1966, p. 165) bringing all of the appropriate powers, forces, and

strengths to work or into play for gearing the body into a given time and place in the world. The structures of the states of feeling,20 and sensations

accompanying these in the specific action become identifiable as we move

17In a paper entitled "Max Sender's Epistemology and Ethics," Schutz (1966, pp. 145-178,

esp. p. 165) discusses Sender's phenomeological explorations of the "complicated structure of

'action'" with what is obvious approval. I make use of this discussion of the building-up of action

in the following passages, augmenting it a good deal.

18From circum, around, and stare, to stand. See Schutz (1966, pp. 18-19, 41); Austin (1965,

pp. 8, 26, 76-77 and passim); Austin (1961). The concept of "circumstance" is one of the most

important concepts in Ortega's phenomenology of culture, and is frequently employed

throughout the eleven volumes of his Obras Completas. See esp. Orgeta y Gasset (1961, p. 322): "I

am I and my circumstances." (This volume constains, in pp. 309-400, Meditaciones del Quijote, first published in 1914 English trans, by E. Rugg and D. Martin as Meditations on Quixote, New

York: Norton, 1961; see also p. 319-320.) ,9Cf. this statement with Austin's (1961) words concerning the "machinery of action" (pp. 141

and 148). 20And how are these feeling structures explored? See Stanage (1973, esp. pp. 88-89).



140 STANAGE

through to the realization of the action and the experiencing of this

realization, or the "execution."21

These are the further touches to the concreteness of what has been done, now understood with greater clarity, no longer plausibly to be engaged in; it is

done, and felt as done, primarily on the basis of the temporal span. It is

temporally done. My action has been actualized, exacted. Its consummation, its realization, has become its actuality. What could only be presented as

action in the present tense now can only be presented in the past tense.22 Time

has passed. I have grown a little older with my contemporaries, and perhaps I

could do it again. But now, the action is fulfilled. I am through.

Any phase, stretch, or stage of action, however, will be influenced in what it is to be by the actor's choices of topics and themes, by his interpretations of

circumstances and what counts as evidence, and by the ways and means

chosen to reach his goal through action, namely, by prime elements of

relevancy systems.

A Phenomenology of the Act

Human acts are a species of phenomena within the generic phenomena of

human activity. Some of the phenomenologically different kinds of acts can

be described, and explorations of four of these now will be helpful to this

discussion.

1. In English, "act" and "action" often are used interchangeably. Although this is permissible, a phenomenology of the act must take note that there is a

tendency for "action" more often to be used in reference to present, ongoing activity, whereas "act" tends to be used in reference to completed, terminated

21"Execution" is following through to the end (from ex, throughout, and sequi, to follow). Austin used the same terminology, namely, in speaking of the "executive stage" of an action.

22See Schutz (1962):

While I lived in my acting in progress it was an element of my vivid present. Now this

present has turned into past, and the vivid experience of my acting in progress has given

place to my recollection of having acted or to the retention of having been acting. Seen

from the actual present in which I adopt the reflective attitude, my past or present perfect

acting is conceivable only in terms of acts performed by me.

Thuse I may either live in the ongoing process of my acting, directed toward its object, and experience my acting in the Present Tense (modo presenti), or I may, so to speak, step out of the ongoing flux and look by a reflective glance at the acts performed in previous

processes of acting in the Past Tense or Present Perfect Tense (modo praeterito). This

does not mean that?according to what was stated in a previous section?merely the

performed acts are meaningful but not the ongoing actions. We have to keep in mind that,

by definition, action is always based upon a preconceived project, and it is this reference to

the preceding project that makes both the acting and the act meaningful, (p. 214; cf. also

Schutz, 1964, pp. 289-90)




activity. Thus, the structure of this kind of "act" is that of the temporally past. These distinctions often manifested in the language are not in themselves

sufficient to establish normatively the mutually exclusively uses of these

terms. But although the distinctions are built into the language use, and

although a phenomenology of the act must take cognizance of this fact, it is

not necessary to establish that the two either do not or should not overlap. 2. Another structure of act, the "act that will have been accomplished," has

been described by Schutz as follows:

The project is... related to the stock of knowledge at hand. This becomes clear when we

examine whether it is the future ongoing process of action, as it will roll on phase by phase, or the outcome of this future action, the act as having been accomplished, which is

anticipated in phantasying or projecting. // can easily be seen that the latter, the act that

will have been accomplished, is the starting point of all of our projecting. I have to

visualize the state of affairs to be brought about by my future action before I can draft the

single steps of my future acting from which that state of affairs will result. Metaphorically

speaking, I have to have some idea of the structure to be erected before I can draft the

blueprints. Thus in order to project my future action as it willroll on I have to place myself in my phantasy at a future time when this action will already have been materialized. Only then may I reconstruct the single steps that will have brought forth this future act. What is

thus anticipated in the project is, in the terminology proposed, not the future action, but

the future act, and it is anticipated in the future perfect tense, modo futuri exacti. (See

Schutz, 1962, pp. 69, 87, et passim.)

3. A third kind of structure of act, the "act as having been accomplished," can also be described. When the actor investigates his own act as the

terminating stage of his action, he is doing so within the context, situation,

circumstance, and temporal span of his action now complete. But he looks back to his having done it. The ways of looking back through the temporal span and the stretches of the actor's felt time are very important to the

constitutions of this structure of act as well.

4. Some of the action is done by human beings, persons, qua investigators, aware that they are doing it, and aware of what it is they are doing. As

investigator a person is performing two activities: (a) He is a person acting, aware that he is doing something, and aware of what he is doing, etc., but, (b)

part of what he is doing is observing and describing the activity of someone

else. Although the investigator himself is acting and knows his own actions, his investigation of the "act as having been accomplished" by another person is a different order of activity. I suggest that the term first order activity be

given to the action each person qua investigator engages in as activity that he

is aware of doing himself,23 and the term second order activity be given to his

activities of observing and describing the acts of others.

23The term could also be used to include all activity which is related within his body to the

activity of which he is aware. Thus, he may not be aware of internal bodily organ activity (or

proper function of his body organs), although these are certainly related to those activities of

which he is aware.



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Second order activity of the investigator observing and describing an act

within the action is always a process of focusing upon some spans, stretches, or phases (but not unitized parts) of an action and describing the structure of

these acts. They are taken from, for a span of time, or abstracted from

context, circumstance, situation, and temporal span. But to be understood

they must be placed back into a context (how would it be possible to be the

context?) i.e., as acts related to other spans, stretches, or stages (considered as

acts) of the action. The structure of an act in this third sense always has the

character of a construction, or of a restructuring. They can also be called

reenactments.

This important constitution of one of the structures of act makes historical

knowledge and the study of history possible, for example, according to

Collingwood (1956):

Every act of thought, as it actually happens, happens in a context out of which it arises and

in which it lives, like any other experience, as an organic part of the thinker's life. Its

relations with its context are not those of an item in a collection, but those of a special function in the total activity of an organism... But an act of thought, in addition to

actually happening, is capable of sustaining itself and being revived or repeated without

loss of its identity... This double character of thought provides the solution of a logical

puzzle that has a close connexion with the theory of history.

What is required, if I am to know Plato's philosophy, is both to rethink it in my own mind

and also to think other things in the light of which I can judge it. (pp. 300, 301)

This character of acts of thinking through time makes possible the

reenactment of acts of thinking previously enacted. It is important to cite this

example, I believe, for any phenomenological exploration of this kind of

structure of an act involves an historical study in some degree. The stretch of

time, the historical span, of course, may be very short or very long, e.g., an

investigator's study of a phase of some course of action I pursued a few

minutes ago, or an investigation of a passage in Plato's writings which

followed from an act of Plato's thought. There are no doubt other structures of an act.24 These descriptions, however,

are sufficient for the purposes of this paper. The investigation of each of these

structures of act invokes differing relevancy structures and systems. The

24See Schutz (1970a) Our next step was to formulate a preliminary definition of meaning

applicable to every kind of lived experience. We said that the "meaning" of a lived experience can

be reduced to a turning of the attention to an already elapsed experience, in the course of which

the latter is lifted out of the stream of consciousness and identified as an experience constituted in

such and such a way and in no other. Meaning in this initial sense is prepredicative and pertains to

prephenomenal experience. We found it necessary to enlarge upon and enrich the concept in

order to make it coincide with the object of our investigation, namely, the specific meaning which

the actor "attaches" to his experience when he acts. It is this which is meant by "intended




topics or themes, the interpretational schemes and the motivations

meaningful to either the actor or to the investigator may be quite different, and both descriptive and hermeneutical accounts of particular actions and

particular acts will be determined by the relevancy systems which appear to be

functioning.

IV. SCHUTZ ON THE PROBLEM OF RELEVANCE

When Schutz argues that a person takes up, or shifts into, a different system of relevance from one which is operating in the everyday world where the

social scientist becomes the social scientist (or when one becomes a specialist in any discipline) (see Schutz, 1970a, pp. 220-221; Schutz, 1962, esp. pp.

38-39, 95; Schutz, 1964; Schutz, 1966)25, Schutz must grant that he himself

did so. And what system(s) did Schutz move away from? Not only did he shift

into a different system of relevance; as a philosopher of the social sciences, he

found it necessary to consider a variety of systems of relevance.26 Moreover,

meaning." In order to analyze this concept of meaning, we examined the series of polythetically constructed Acts, which according to a fundamental principle of phemonology, can be taken in

by a single glance of attention. We saw that every such series stands in a context of meaning, and

we analyzed the constitution of the world of experience (Erfahrungswelt) as a total structure

made up of different arrangements of such meaning-contexts, (pp. 215-216)

25Cf. Kuhn (1970): Having isolated a particular community of specialists by techniques like

those just discussed, one may usefully ask: What do its members share that accounts for the

relative fullness of their professional communication and the relative unanimity of their

professional judgments? To that question my original text licenses the answer, a paradigm or set

of paradigms... Until the term can be freed from its current implications, it will avoid confusion

to adopt another. For present purposes I suggest "disciplinary matrix": "disciplinary" because it

refers to the common possession of the practitioners of a particular discipline; "matrix" because

it is composed of ordered elements of various sorts, each requiring further specification, (p. 182) 26Zaner points out, in Schutz (1970b, p. viii), that the manuscript which has been published as

Reflections on the Problem of Relevance "was conceived as Part I of a five-part study and was to

be entitled The World as Taken-For-Granted: Toward a PHenomenology of the Natural

Attitude. Part I bore the title, 'Preliminary Notes on the Problem of Relevance'." See Zaner's

comments about the "numerous important convergences" between Schutz and Ortega which

could be studied, e.g., Schutz's view of the "social" and Orgeta's view of pragmata (Schutz,

1970b, p. xviii). It seems to me that there is no theory of relevance in Schutz's published writings, although

there are many starts toward a theory. I may be in error, of course. If there is indeed such a theory built into his writings, then it appears to be suffering from a fate similar to that of Thomas Kuhn's

theory of paradigms. Cf. Kuhn (1970, pp. 174-210) and Lakatos and Musgrave (1970) esp. the

paper by Margaret Masterman, pp. 59-89. Citing this parallel is no unkind criticism of Schutz's

work, for although Kuhn's major published reflections on the nature of a paradigm were initially unclear and ambiguous by his own admission, his work has succeeded in generating major revisions in contemporary understanding of the philosophy and the history of science. I believe

that the same judgment may be made of Schutz's work in the philosophy and the history of the

social sciences.



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as a philosopher he also reflected upon the problems of a general theory of

relevance to be used toward the further understanding of human action in the

social world.27

His reflections on the problem of relevance, brilliant in insight and detail, but incomplete, may be employed in the construction of a philosophical

theory of relevance toward the clarification of the foundations of action

theory in the social sciences. The insights and the markings along the way must be taken up again, the journey recommenced. I believe that it is possible to show how his views on relevance may be employed in construction of a

theory of relevance which can be used (1) toward the understanding of human

actions and acts, and (2) which can be used to develop models for use toward

this goal within the social sciences.

Several passages provide clearly the focal differentiations which Schutz

(1970b) made between the three kinds of relevance in his earlier writings on

relevance:

1. Topical (or Thematic) Relevance

This is the first form of relevance: namely that by virtue of which something is constituted

as a problematic in the midst of the unstructuralized field of unproblematic familiarity? and therewith the field of theme and horizon. We shall call this kind topical relevance. It is

worthwhile to note parenthetically the fact that the Greek root of the term "problem" is

equivalent in its meaning to the Latin root of the term "object." The original meaning of

both is "that which is thrown before one." (p. 26)

2. Interpretative Relevance

Within the context of one's previous experiences (of any kind) as preserved by memory and arranged by previous interpretations into his stock of knowledge actually at hand,

there are many which have nothing to do with the interpretation of the object before him,

which are entirely irrelevant for interpreting this new object. On the other hand, there are

a few coherent types of previous experiences with which the present object might be

compared?that is, interrelated by sameness, likeness, similarity, and so on. We may call

the latter relevant elements for his interpretation of the new set of perceptions; but it is

perfectly obvious that this kind of relevance is quite different from that studied thus far

27The most sustained discussions of the problem of relevance which I have been able to find in

Schutz's published writings include: Schutz, 1970b, "Language, Language Disturbances, and the

Texture of Consciousness," Section III ("Relevance and Typification"), included in 1962, pp.

260-286; "Symbol, Reality, and Society," 1962, pp. 287-356; "The Well-informed Citizen"

(1964, pp. 120-134); "Some Structures of the Life-World" (1966, pp. 116-132). However, it

should also be noted that almost every page of his published work offers some evidence of

Schutz's great and continuing explicit concern over the problem of relevance.

By far the most significant presentation of Schutz's view on relevance is found in the most

recent publication of these in Schutz and Luckman (1973, esp. pp. 183-241). If there is in fact a

theory of relevance in Schutz's work, the evidence for such is most likely to be found in this rich

work.




and which we have called the topical relevances. We therefore suggest that this new

category be termed the interpretative relevances, (p. 36)

This kind of relevance reveals, however, a curious double function. Not only is it

interpretatively relevant that part of our stock of knowledge at hand has "something to

do" with the thematic object now given to our interpretation; but, uno actu certain

particular moments of the object perceived obtain the character of major or minor

interpretative relevance for the task of recognizing and interpreting the actually

experienced segment of the world, (pp. 36-37)

3. Motivational Relevance

[Whenever a person chooses one among possible interpretations of a situation] he will...

base his decision concerning how to act on the interpretation and thus the latter will

determine the former. The importance of interpreting correctly (and this means here to a

satisfactorily plausible degree) consists in the fact that not only the means to be chosen but

even the ends to be attained will depend upon such a diagnosis. The satisfactorily plausible

degree of interpretation opens a relatively high subjective chance of meeting the situation

efficiently by appropriate countermeasures?or at least it shows the risk of any if no

appropriate (i.e., efficient) countermeasures can be taken. We shall call this type of

relevance the motivational relevances, (p. 46)

Motivational relevances... are of two kinds. On the one hand are the in-order-to type, which are arranged (if not integrated) with one another into what is commonly called a

"plan": plan for thought and for action, for work and for leisure, or the present hour or for

the week, and so on. Each of these, in turn, are interrelated (but not necessarily integrated) into a general, paramount plan: the plan for a life. These in-order-to motivations,

however, are founded on a set of genuine because motives sedimented in the

biographically determined situation of the self at a particular moment. Psychologists have

various names for this set of because motives: attitudes, personality traits, and given character. We prefer the term motivational relevances, keeping in mind that the term

covers manifold but interrelated features, (pp. 65-66, my emphasis)28

There are a number of major problems involved in his accounts of these three kinds of relevance. I wish to discuss several very briefly.

1. A good deal of mystery surrounds Schutz's notion of topical relevance.

What is "that by virtue of which something is constituted as a problematic in

the midst of the unstructuralized field of unproblematic familiarity?and therewith the field of theme and horizon?" Schutz is concerned with what is

relevant. But what about cases of irrelevance? Consider: I feel cold, I catch

28Schutz's analysis of these two kinds of motives is of immense phenomenological significance to any phenomenology of act and action. It is also one of his most lasting contributions to

philosophy of the social sciences. I leave the topic unexplored in this discussion, because it would

require a good deal more space than presently available. I take it for granted, for my purposes, that readers familiar with Schutz's writings will already have examined his view on these two

kinds of motives and will see their obvious relationships to the understanding of human act and

action.



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sight of something not noticed before. I smell an odor. I taste something different. I do this very often, but sometimes, just sometimes, there is some?

thing "by virtue of which" the seeing, the smelling, the tasting" is con?

stituted as problematic..." But something seems not to fit. Thus, its not being relevant itself raises the question of relevance of something. Irrelevance as well

as relevance raises the problem of relevance. Can Schutz account for this

phenomenon? Is thinking about just anything at all topical relevance per se?

2. Consider the passage on interpretive relevance above. The object is not

related to another because it is the same, like or similar to one another, because they are already related to one another, namely, because some system

of relevance is already at work or at play. This is not what Schutz is saying, of

course. He is saying that sameness, likeness, and similarity are "relevant

elements for his interpretation of the new set of perceptions." And thus he is

led to identify another kind and system of relevance.

But "relevant elements" in this context can only mean certain elements

which have already been adjudged (through whatever degrees of plausibility,

clarity, etc.) the specific products, the specific relationships within a system of

relevance. Hence the parlous question: Is interpretative relevance really a

system of relevance, or is it the process of articulating relevance or

manifestations of relevance, whatever the system of relevance at work?

3. Even in some of the clearest passages he provided on the question of

relevance, Schutz frequently reverted to what seems to be psychologistic terminology, e.g., in employing the terms, "attention,""interest,"for topical

or thematic relevancy, and "motivation" for the descriptive label of another

system. And in the case of interpretational relevancy, he merely employs the

term which tells us what we always have to do whenever we really think about

the world, namely, "interpret" it. But what kind of interpretation? And when, etc.?

Although the insights are almost always fundamental, and the subtle moves

in the argument traductive, the psychologistic labels tend to lessen the impact, I believe, of the phenomenological account of the problem of relevance; in

fact, their use is almsot tantamount to handing over the problem or relevance

to the psychologists (who no doubt already understand it reductionistically to

be their problem). Still, are the concepts of "interest," "attention," and

"motivation" well settled in contemporary psychologies? If one argues that

they are, then according to what relevancy systems? 4. Sometimes the three kinds of relvance are described as "totally

different" categories,29 and on other occasions as overlapping.30 Are these

29Cf. Schutz (1964) for example: "This relevancy [thematic relevancy], so founded upon

motivational relevancy, still differs totally from it" (p. 124, my emphasis). ^See Schutz 1970b, passim, esp. p. 66: "All these types are concretely experienced as

inseparable, or at least as an undivided unity; and their dissection from experience into three

types is the result of an analysis of their constitutive origin" (my emphasis).




really mutually exclusive categories? Or are they really intended to be

distinguishable but inseparable overlapping conceptual systems and schemes?

I conclude that we cannot really decide on the basis of the evidence of what

Schutz has said. We might cite a great many passages from various periods in

his writing, but all of this would still give us conflicting evidence in varying

degrees for offering more or less plausible accounts of what he really believed

relevance to be.

5. Schutz does not resolve the problem of how we are to understand, via a

theory of relevance (the shifting relevance systems of a growing child, for

example) and how one gives way to another during the growth. It is one thing to offer an account of thematic relevancy giving way in some sense to

interpretational relevancy, to motivational relevancy. (Schutz, 1970b, esp.

pp. 68-71). But it is a much different process to describe precisely how this is

occurring, when each of the three kinds of relevancy carries with it much of

the baggage of other kinds of relevancy. There are shifts and shiftings going on. But I conclude that there are two

distinct kinds of shiftings of relevancy which I believe Schutz has recognized

(see Schutz, 1970b,. esp. pp. 68-71) and explored, but left relatively unmined

in his accounts. One kind of shift is between relevance systems; but, as I argue in Section V below, the three kinds which Schutz discussed are not really

relevancy systems at all.31 The other kind of shift is a shifting not between

relevancy systems per se, but between various distinguishable and explorable dimensions within any given relevancy system. These dimensions together constitute what I call the matrix of relevance and discuss in Section V below.

A crucial problem which must be investigated there is the question of what Schutz intends by "situation."

6. Schutz discusses the problem of relevance through the use of a great

variety of qualifications of the term "relevance." For example, he uses such

phases as: the problem ofrelevance Judgment of relevance, typically relevant,

system of relevancy, structure of relevancies, perspectives of relevance,

typification and systems of relevance, system of typical relevance, set of

relevant typifications, relevance system, relevant elements, principle of relevance, scope of relevance, contour lines of relevance, stratum of

relevance, zones of relevance, regions of relevance, intrinsic and extrinsic

relevance, imposed relevances, domains, of relevance, pro?/em-relevance, motivational relevancy, thematic relevancy, and interpretational relevancy,

(my emphasis, except the last 3 examples; in Schutz, 1970b, pp. 193,212,228;

1962, pp. 36, 39, 286, 3.27, 349, 351, pp. 9, 84, 99, 102, 125, 228,235; 1966, pp.

31I underscore the important point that, although I agree with Schutz that there may be a

shifting back and forth between relevancy systems within a situation, I do not agree that this shift

is between what he has identified as the three systems, namely, thematic, interpretational, and

motivational relelvancy systems.



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123, 124, 127). This proliferation of qualifying terms generates an essential

unclarity in Schutz's reflections on the problem of relevance.

There are problems with what Schutz has said, but I agree with him that

there are systems of relevancy operating throughout the actions of persons, and in all attempts to understand these action. I do not agree, however, that

these systems are the three which Schutz has investigated. The topical

interpretative, and motivational constitutions are not kinds of relevancy.

They are three of the several dimensions within any system of relevancy

(Schutz, 1970b, pp. 68-71). A system of relevancy articulates a matrix within which, and in terms of

which, problematics become constituted, questions rise up, and themes build; a matrix within which the structures of the evidentiary elements attaching to

the themes take form through our use of these elements in action; a matrix

within which we come to tell the story of how we define our situation(s)

through the contours of end-seeking, performative actions, and make it

possible for us to understand how we are doing this.

These are three of the constitutions within what I shall call the relevancy matrix of any system of relevancy. As we shall see, however, there are other

constitutions of the relevancy matrix.

V. SKETCH OF A THEORY OF RELEVANCE

In this section I wish to sketch out the rudiments of a philosophical theory of relevance for use in investigating human actions and human acts.32 If it

were fleshed out in systematic detail, I believe that it would not be too

dissimilar to Schutz's position as I understand it, although it would augment his view considerably.

Relevance is perspective in,33 of, and through the world (see footnote 2,

remembering that at, for, to, with, etc., may also be used in presenting a

phenomenological exploration of relevance). It is literally a looking-through the world taking place and time, and constituted in terms of the relative and

ordering importance of the ingredients or "stuff of the world. A system34 of

32Again, I must emphasize that I make no firm claims in this discussion about the other

possible uses of these rudiments of a philosophical theory of relevance outside of applications to

the phenomena of human acts and action.

33From/?er, through,and specere, to look. "Perspective" is one of the most important concepts

in Ortega's phenomenological philosophy. His philosophy, in fact, has often been referred to as

"perspectivism." Thus, Ortega's usage involves a wider connotation than I intend here, but it

would be valuable to study fully the relationships between Ortega's notion of perspectivism and a

phenomenology of relevance.

^From syn, together, and histanai, to stand, set up. Thus, a system is a standing-up-together. In the strong or full sense, a system is an orderly combination or arrangement of parts, elements,

etc., into a whole, especially such a combination according to some principle(s). Any group of




relevance is a way through which are presented the relative and ordering

importance of the ingredients of the world from a point of view.35 This way is

through the medium of a matrix of relatings manifesting themselves in

degrees and kinds of phenomena from the most tacit through the most

explicit constitutions. I call this matrix the relevancy matrix of human action, and its contents are constituted as:

(1) presenting any theme, topic, or question which becomes a problem within the familiar life-structuring situations of the everyday world, or within

the world-as-taken-for-granted, and through the terms of which one acts or

could act;

(2) presenting the interpretational data which have been located and

situated by the theme, topic, or question which has become the unfamiliar, or

the problematic within the world as otherwise taken-for-granted. These data

become evidence toward the construction of actual or possible ^?actings within the world;

(3) placing a person, or persons, within the world spatially ("here" or

"there") and temporally ("now" or "then") within situations and circum?

stances; and

(4) presenting a way among ways whereby a person, or persons with a

point, or points, of view may define situations and act within them, given the

circumstances (cf. Schutz, 1974, p. 178). Before I move on to a discussion of several kinds of relevancy systems, it is

necessary to explore the relationships between the relevancy matrix,

"situation," and relevancy systems. "The course of life is a series of

situations," (Schutz, 1974, p. 113). But a situation always has two

"dimensions": (1) it is inevitably partly defined for the person, and (2) it is

partly feasible for the person. How are these "dimensions" related?

To be able to act in the situation I must determine it. The situation is... already

determined?through knowledge of the limitation of the situation, knowledge of the

structuring of subjective experience in it, and knowledge of the biographical articulation

of the situation. All this belongs to the basic elements of the stock of knowledge and

"automatically" enters into the determination of every situation. The situation is also

"open." How are the "open" elements determinable? (Schutz, 1974, p. 114)

phenomena, concepts, or facts described and regarded as constituting a whole for purposes of

philosophical or scientific investigation may be a system. Finally, a system is the state or quality of something as being in order. Orderliness and method articulate system. This is what may be

termed a strong sense of system. (See footnote 40 for a description of a weak sense of system.) Cf.

the discussion of "system" in Collingwood (1933, pp. 176-198).

350rtega argued frequently that every person constitutes a point of view of the world. See, for

example, Ortega y Gasset (1961b, pp. 18, 100-101).



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As a prelude to writings these words, I climed the stairs to my study, sat

down, placed a lapboard across my chair, readied pencil and paper, reflected

for awhile, and began to write. I was situated, in a situation?placed?and these acts became the instantiating determinations which bounded, limited, and defined this situation for me. None of this was necessitated or determined to be in precisely this fashion in an ontological sense (or at least, with Husserl one can say that any assumption or presupposition that these aspects within

the "prelude" must be causal necessitations in some sense may be held in

abeyance, or put aside for the moment). I was seated comfortably, although I could have been standing at a writing

desk. I acted with pencil in hand. It could have been a pen, or I might have

elected to type these words. The typewriter was at hand, to my right. These

also were definitions and determinations within my situation.

Even within these determinations, and definitions within my situation, my "then" and "there" placement (as distinguished from my "here" and "now"

placement in preparing another draft of this passage), and the reader's

placement at the moment of reading a "final" draft of this passage, however, I

planned (and had planned earlier) to write a draft of a few passages. I have now done this, but I planned it "then," within an earlier defined situation. The

openness, the "feasibility" within that situation was both what I further could

do and what I actually did do. Some of what I did was routine, and some of it

was an attempt to solve a problem or two. But the more explicit meaning of what I attempted to do was to "master" that situation, to carry some acts

through to their further realization (always a mattern of degree, and never

finally "complete") within that temporal and spatialplacedness, or situation.

My plan was carried through. From the moment when I began to climb the stairs to that moment when I

rested my pencil to my right for awhile there was a situation. Of course, other

situations overlapped it, and the beginning as a climbing of the stairs, was an

arbitrary movement into that situation which is my present theme. I might have gone downstairs, but I planned the one and not the other act.

Every flow of experience into different dimensions and every situation in its different

aspects demonstrates an intertwining and an interplay of imposed and motivated

moments. This is the case in general not only for thematic relevance, but for relevance

structures as such. (Schutz, 1974, p. 192; my emphasis)

Through acts of characterizable types I place myself in a situation. This is

made feasible, and is effected through the articulation of the relevancy matrix

of human action which I explored above. With this clarification of what a

situation is, it is now possible to move to a discussion of several kinds of

relevancy systems. These are different from those presented by Schutz (1970,

1974), but the core of each is the relevancy matrix of human action whose

essential ingredients are thematizing, interpreting, and motivating acts which




Schutz wrongly (in my judgment) had distinguished as relevancy systems per se. Therefore, what Schutz had distinguished as relevancy systems I place

within the matrix of any relevancy system, and this is rather different from

Schutz's analysis.

Syntactical Relevance

This is a system of relevance, a perspective in and of the world in terms of

which are cast the appropriateness and pertinence of: the appearance and

presentation of the thematic issues as problematic; the adducing and

presentation of evidentiary bases of possible interpretations which have been

located; the descriptive reasons of how persons place themselves in situations; and why persons may meet the situations within which they find themselves

within their circumstances.36

It would be inordinately difficult (impossible?) to define one's situation, and to act meaningfully within it, without the use of language in some sense.

The system of syntactical relevancy articulates its relevancy matrix

fundamentally and primarily through the constitutions of the words and

syntactical structures of the language (or languages), or by way of

emphasizing the arrangement and interrelationships of phrases and sentences

of the language(s) which persons use. Different examples of this kind of

relevancy system include all language activities and usages including the

learning of any language from the most vernacular stages through the most

technical phases, structural grammar, descriptive grammar, "ordinary

language," philosophies, "linguistic philosophies," ideal language philoso?

phies, and almost all (all?) approaches to deductive and inductive logic. These

differing expressions of this kind of relevance express the ideas of different

degrees and kinds of completeness and completability of linguistically

meaningful situations in which we act. An excellent specific example of the functioning of syntactical relevance is

to be found, I believe in J. L. Austin (1961):

First, words are our tools, and as a minimum, we should use clean tools; we should know

what we mean and we do not, and we must forearm ourselves against the traps language sets us. Secondly, words are not (except in their own little corner) facts or things: we need

therefore to prise them off the world, to hold them apart from and against it, so that we

can realize their inadequacies and arbitrariness, and can relook at the world without

blinkers. Thirdly, and most hopefully, our common stock of words embodies all the

distinctions men have found worth drawing, and the connections they have found worth

making, in the lifetimes of many generations: these surely are likely to be more numerous,

more sound, since they have stood up to the long test of the survival of the fittest, and more

36This first paragraph presents the relevancy matrix for a system of relevancy; it also does so

for each of the other systems of relevancy discussed below. This first paragraph should be

referred to at the beginning of the discussion of each of the four systems of relevancy discussed

below.



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subtle, at least in all ordinary and reasonably practical matters, than any that you or I are

likely to think up in our arm-chairs of an afternoon?the most favoured alternative

method, (pp. 129-130, my emphasis; see also, pp. 126, 127, 133)

This is one expression of the social structurings and systematizings of

language. There is no question that the full repertoire of words within

syntactical structures of given languages fashion the perspectives which its users have within, and of, the world; nor is there any question that this

shaping occurs throughout one's life. The only issue is the degree to which this occurs within a given situation. To ascertain this degree would be one goal of

the investigation of syntactical relevance within a given situation. Surely, for

example, the recent history of English and American philosophy (say, from

1900 to the present) suggests that this system of relevancy has been operative in it.37

Descriptive Relevance

The system of descriptive relevancy articulates its relevancy matrix

fundamentally and primarily through tracing out the contours of the world

through descriptions of the phenomena of human activities, of human actions

and acts. Examples of this kind of relevancy would be any of the scientific

disciplines which seek to present information concerning the nature and

description of human activities, e.g., basic biology and physiology, many medical sciences, and jurisprudence. Perhaps the best example is the

descriptive phenomenology38 presented in Husserl's (1970) Logical Investi?

gations.

Herbert Spiegelberg (1959) has set forth the function of phenomenological

description in brief terms as follows:

A description... presupposes a framework of class names, and all it can do is to determine

the location of the phenomenon with regard to an already developed system of classes.

This may be adequate for the more familiar phenomena. But as soon as we want to

describe new phenomena or new aspects of old phenomena, we can do little more than

assign them places within the wider framework of classes with whose other members they show at least some similarity or structural resemblance, being unable to indicate their

distinguishing features. Of course it is possible and necessary to refine the system of

coordinates for these phenomena by stipulating new class names; but these will be of little

help before full acquaintance with the new phenomena has been established and

communicated. In the meantime description by negation is usually the simplest way to at

least indicate the uniqueness and irreducibility of such phenomena. The only other way is

by metaphor and analogy, which are often suggestive, but not without dangers,

37This is an example of a relevancy shift of a special kind, according to Schutz, namely, one in

which a more technical or specialistic, i.e., in this case a philosophical use, of the language is

invoked. See Schutz (1962, pp. 39, 249; 1964, pp. 18, 83, 248). 38I do not intend here merely a descriptive philosophy or a form of philosophizing to which

phenomenology frequently has been reduced, both by some who have practiced the latter and by

some critics.




particularly if presented without the necessary cautions. What must be borne in mind is

that the main function of a phenomenological description is to serve as a reliable guide to

the listener's own actual or potential experience of the phenomena. It is in this sense never

more than ostensive, or better, directive. Its essential function is to provide unmistakable

guideposts to the phenomena themselves.

Another feature of description which deserves mentioning in this context is that

description, and phenomenological description in particular, can never be more than

selective: it is impossible to exhaust all the properties, especially the relational properties, of any object or phenomenon. But selection may be a virtue as well as a necessity. It forces

us to concentrate on the central or decisive characteristics of the phenomenon and to

abstract from its accidentals. To this extent description already involves a consideration

of essences... (p. 673)

Typal Relevance

This relevancy system is articulated fundamentally and primarily through the structures of types, classes, categories, and kinds, and activities of

thinking which formulate the similarities, likeliness, resemblances, and

exemplars of phenomena of human action. Many examples include primarily

nonsystematic thinking within the everyday world of the taken-for-granted, in that world in whch Husserl said so many of our acts are governed by the

idealities (thinkings) "and so forth and so on" and "I can do it again" (see

Schutz, 1962, pp. 20-21, 29,146, 224, 308; 1964, pp. 285,292; 1966, p. 116)39

39Two important points about Schutz's view of typicality must be made: (1) There are several

passages in his writings which suggest that typicality is best understood as an ingredient in what I

have termed the relevancy matrix of any system of relevancy. See, for example, contexts in which

he uses such phrases as "typically relevant" (1970b, p. 228; 1962, pp. 69,237; 1962, pp. 284-286,

349; 1964, pp. 11, 18, 226, 228, 234-236). ("...different systems of relevance and therewith

different types... ") YEAR??, pp. 237, 239, 244, and 1966, pp. 111, 125 ("What Husserl has not

explained in his published writings, however, is that this typification takes place according to

particular structures of relevancy.")

(2) But the issue of typicality, on the other hand, occupies so much of Schutz's concern, and is

such a pervasive aspect of his views on relevance, that I have raised typicality to a more prominent

position as a system of relevance perse. This means, for example, that touching, hearing, seeing,

smelling, and tasting likenesses are fundamental to our thinking or knowing them to be

likenesses, or resemblances and exemplars. But here, as with other systems of relevance I have

tried to identify, it is not a question of how we come to identify likenesses, but that we all do so.

(And then we may ask in what ways.) In fact, as I now reconsider my discussion in the text, I believe that a crucial question for

investigation in Schutz's reflections on relevance is the distinction (although not separation) between two phenomena: (1) "that a person is doing such and such," and (2) "how a person is

doing such and such." Both are the province of constitutive phenomenology, although exploring the former phenomenon focusses upon the presence (or absence) of systems of relevancy per se

whereas exploring the latter articulates the contents of the matrices of relevancy systems.

Therefore, since I understand the formation and development of structures of typicality

primarily to be actions that persons do (perform), rather than questions of how they do so, I am

led to conclude that we may identify typal relevance as a system rather than as an ingredient of

any system of relevance. It is, as are all of the other systems, always present, or in effect, whether

in more tacit or in more explicit degree.



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Examples also include the classifying operations which are important to all

scientific disciplines, including both the history and the philosophy of science.

Typal relevance with its structures of typicalities, is the perspective of

phenomena within human action (activities of thinking, and acts of having

thought such and such) and may be explored as self-reflective. A prime

example of this form of relevance, I believe, is the discipline of history (and

perhaps the historical side of any discipline in the context of human acts and

action), surely so in the case of the philosophy of history of R. G.

Collingwood. Collingwood (1956) writes:

How, or on what conditions, can the historian know the past?... My historical review of

the idea of history has resulted in the emergence of an answer to this question: namely, that the historian must re-enact the past in his own mind. (p. 282; cf. also, pp. 282-302)

... If a mind is nothing but its own activities, and if to know the mind of a person in the

past?say Thomas Becket?is to re-enact his thought, surely insofar as I, the historian, do

this, I simply become Becket, which seems absurd... I do not "simply" become Becket, for

a thinking mind is never "simply" anything: It is its own activities of thought, and it is not

these "simply" (which, if it means "immediately"), for thought is not mere immediate

experience but always relflection or self-knowledge, the knowledge of oneself as living in

these activities... An act of thought is certainly a part of the thinker's experience. It

occurs at a certain time, and in a certain context of other acts of thought, emotions,

sensations, and so forth. Its presence in this context I call its immediacy; for although

thought is not mere immediacy, it is not devoid of immediacy. The peculiarity of thought is that, in addition to occurring here and now in this context it can sustain itself through a

change of context and revive in a different one. This power to sustain and revive itself is

what makes an act of thought more than a mere "event" or "situation," to quote words

that have been applied to it, for example by Whitehead. It is because, and so far as, the act

of thought is misconceived as a mere event that the idea of re-enacting it seems

paradoxical and a perverse way of describing the occurrence of another, similar, event.

The immediate, as such, cannot be re-enacted. Consequently, those elements in

experience whose being is just their immediacy (sensations, feelings, etc., as such) cannot

be re-enacted in its immediacy. The first discovery of a truth, for example, differs from any

subsequent contemplation of it, not in that the truth contemplated is a different truth, nor

in that the act of contemplating it is a different act; but in that the immediacy of the first

occasion can never again be experienced: the shock of its novelty, the liberation from

perplexing problems, the triumph of achieving a desired result, perhaps the sense of

having vanquished opponents and achieved fame, and so forth, (p. 297)

Paradigmal Relevance

This relevancy system is articulated through the constitution of a model

action or the model act. An excellent example of this is what Austin has

termed the "natural successful act." Following a passage in which he asks

what an "action" is, Austin (1961) writes:

In two ways the study of excuses can throw light on these fundamental matters. First, to

examine excuses is to examine cases where there has been some abnormality or failure: and as so often, the abnormal will throw some light on the normal, will help us to




penetrate the blinding veil of ease and obviousness that hides the mechnisms of the natural

successful act. It rapidly becomes plain that the breakdowns signalized by the various

excuses are of radically different kinds, affecting different parts or stages of the

machinery, which excuses consequently pick out and sort out for us. (pp. 127-128, my

emphasis)

Not only do we come to know typical actions and acts. Many are

paradigmal actions and acts?if performed, the natural successful act. We

offer excuses for failing to perform them, and these acts of excusing provide a

plethora of examples. We understand that we have failed, and to offer an

excuse is to invoke a system of paradigmal relevancy. Of course, the other

person to whom the excuse is offered has also invoked a paradigmal relevancy

system. Are they the same? Sometimes. And when? More importantly, will he

excuse me?

The natural successful action and the natural successful act have become

models, or paradigms of actions and acts, and thus a system of relevance has

been imposed. It has been founded upon our stock of experience and our

stock of knowledge. The relevancy matrix of this system provides the media

for exploring phenomenologically the constitution of the structures of the

natural successful act, and deviations from these within the everyday world.

VI. CONCLUSION

Each system of relevancy has been laid out above in its more explicit expression, although each has its rootage within the primal, radical constitutions of the structures of the everyday life-world. They are at least

tacitly operative from the earliest moments of a person's acts. Therefore, each of them has both tacit and explicit constitutions of structures, and degrees within these ranges, which should be investigated phenomenologically. In order to do so, one would have to move through investigations of situations within which persons act.

These relevancy systems, each with its particularized matrix, are already imposed upon a person by the social system. They are already felt and

experienced by the person. They are systemlike, although not known by the

person to be systematic at first.40

^This is system in a weak sense. (See footnote 34 for a characterization of system in a strong

sense.) This is not a system in its more tacit dimensions, its nascent stages, the not-quite-explicit in a person's life. Thus the "social system" is already bringing order, method, routine, habit, etc., into our lives from the very first.

Ortega refers to many actions within the social system as usages, for example. Much fruitful

research could be pursued, I believe, on questions of the relationships between Ortega's concept of usage and Schutz's notion of typicality, and on the relationships between their philosophies of

the social sciences, philosophies of culture and sociologies. See footnote 6 above.



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Relevancy shifts, or shifting emphases within the particular matrix of a

relevancy system, occur. The movement from the more tacit to the more

explicit comes as nodal points within the matrix; first one swelling, so to

speak, and then another. These explicitizings of the nascent stages come to be

written in larger terms, and indelibly, within and through the acts of persons. And this biography carries with it the sedimenting layers of the stocks of

feeling, experiencing, and reflecting. It goes on again and again for the

person. The shifts occur within the everyday world at varying times for

various persons. Phenomenological descriptions of these shifts must be

obtained within a phenomenology of the social sciences.

Constitutive phenomenology,41 in the special sense of the explorations of

the relevancy systems of human action, takes two distinguishable but

inseparable forms, the reductive and the transcendive.

1. Reductive Investigation. Each ingredient within the matrix of a

relevancy system of human activity may be explored "backward" toward the more primal, radical stages (phrases, stretches?) of its constitution in a

situation. How did each come to be what it is? Reductive investigation is the

investigaton of the more tacit stages of its constitutions of these. I believe that

it was this kind of investigation which was the major thrust of Schutz's

reflections on the problem of relevance.

2. Transcendive Investigation. The contents of each relevancy system of

human action may be taken as basic phenomena to be investigated in

continuing minute detail, sharpening the exploratory tools at every eductive

stage. This is the investigation of the acts in their more explicit constitutions.42

"'Schutz (1966):

At the beginning of phenomenology, constitution meant clarification of the sense

structures of conscious life, inquiry into sediments in respect to their history, tracing back

all cogitata to intentional operations on the on-going conscious life. These discoveries of

phenomenology are of lasting value; their validity has, up to now, been unaffected by a

critque, and they are of the greatest importance to the foundation of the positive sciences,

especially those of the social world, (p. 83).

See also, Schutz (1962): "In summing up, we may say that the empirical social sciences will find

their true foundation not in transcendental phenomenology, but in the constitutive

phenomenology of the natural attitude" (p. 149).

42This twofold way might lead, with the development of the necessary empirical methods, to

what I call a reflexive experimentation in the social sciences. This would mean that every

experiment involving human action would have to test out hypotheses in a double sense, or state

two forms of the hypotheses, a reductive and a transcendive form. Perhaps the reductive form is a

model of experiment founded upon the because motives of persons, whereas the transcendive

form is a model of experiment based upon the in-order-to-motives of such persons. Some of this

experimentation could be done as public praxis, but much more remains to be the experience of a

thought experiment, or a variant of Husserl's method of free variation. And of course these are all

actions, and, under appropriate matrices of relevance, acts as well.




The writings of Edmund Husserl, Alfred Schutz, and J. L. Austin have

greatly influenced the development of my views on the questions of human

acts, action, and systems of relevance. The text also attests a good deal of

indebtedness to the views of R. G. Collingwood and Jos? Ortega y Gasset. All

five of these philosophers articualted, with vastly different phenomenological and philosophical styles, immensely significant views of human act, actions, and the problem of relevance. Moreover, each has structured, in varying ways, a concern for a clearer phenomenological understanding of everyday

feeling, experiencing, and thinking in a prominent place in his reflections. I

cite them, however, not to praise but to continue their work.

Challenged by their views, I have attempted to show how the problem of

relevance is indigenous to philosophy of human act and action and to the

better understanding of these in the social sciences. The rudiments of a

phenomenology of act and action have been offered toward the phenomen?

ological exploration of what I have called the relevancy matrix of any system of relevance constitutive of human act and action. I have discussed four of

these systems and their matrices: syntactical relevance, descriptive relevance,

typal relevance, and paradigmal relevance. There are many more.

Finally, I have tried to offer a few suggestions along the way as to how the

views I have expressed might be put to work, with the necessary empirical

development, within the social sciences. I close with the hope that continuing

phenomenological explorations and investigations along the contours I have

tried to identify may help to render somewhat more understandable the

phenomena of human act and action within the world, the world of the taken

for-granted, and also the world of the desperately routine. But what I have

tried to say also applies to our acts in our attempts to master the unfamiliar within a situation.

REFERENCES

Austin, J. Philosophical papers (J. O. Urmson & G. J. Warnock, Eds.). Oxford: Oxford Univ.

Press, 1961.

Austin, J. How to do things with words. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1965.

Collingwood, R. Essay on philosophical method. Oxford: Claredon Press, 1933.

Collingwood, R. The principles of art. Oxford: Claredon Press, 1938.

Collingwood, R. The idea of history. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1946, Galaxy Book, 1956.

Husserl, E. Logical investigations (J. Findlay, trans.) London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970.

Kuhn, T. The structures of scientific revolutions, Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1970.

Lakatos, I., & Musgrave A. (Eds.). Criticism and the growth of knowledge. Cambridge, England:

Cambridge Univ. Press, 1970.

Ortega y Gasset, J. Obras completas, Vol. I, S?ptima Edici?n. Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1961. (a)

Ortega y Gasset, J. Obras completas, Vol. 7, Tercera Edici?n. Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1961. (b)



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Pf?nder, A. Phenomenology of willing and motivation. (H. Spiegelberg, trans.). Evanston III:

Northwestern University Press, 1967.

Schutz, A. Collected papers, Vol. I: The problem of social reality. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1962.

Schutz, A. Collected papers, Vol. II: Studies in social theory. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1964.

Schutz, A. Collected papers Vol. Ill: Studies in phenomenological philosophy. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966.

Schutz, A. The phenomenology of the social world (F. Lehnert & G. Walsh, trans.). Evanston

111.: Northwestern Univ. Press, 1970 (German editions had appeared in 1932 and 1960). (a)

Schutz, A. Reflections on the problem of relevance ( R. Zaner, Ed.). New Haven: Yale Univ.

Press, 1970. (b)

Schutz, A., & T. Luckmann. Structures of the life-world (R. Zaner & T. Englehardt, Jr., trans.).

Evanston, III: Northwestern Univ. Press, 1974.

Spiegelberg, H. The phenomenological movement, 2nd ed. The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1959.

Stanage, S. Cojectivity and the human sciences. Zeitschrift f?r allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie.

Band IV, Heft 1, 1973, pp. 81-97.



Documents

Human Acts, the Relevancy Matrix, and Systems of Relevancy