Time and Meaning in Alfred Schütz

Abstract

The essay analyses some aspects of the relationship between time and experience in Alfred Schütz. The first part highlights the role of time in the construction of the significant lived experience and of the subject's identity. It shows how the temporal structure determines the uniqueness of meaning: the latter is a function of lived-through time, of each individual's life-story. The structure of temporality seems to condemn the lived present to being excluded from the possibility of possessing meaning. In fact, the present is the privileged time frame for the construction of fundamental reality, of action, and of identity. The second part of the study investigates the ways in which time contributes to the constitution of sociality. The essay concludes by examining the main limitations of Schütz's theory.