CFS Lecture by Kenneth Liberman: "What can the human sciences contribute to phenomenology."

Lecture by Kenneth Lieberman, Department of Sociology, University of Oregon, Eugene, USA

Abstract:

"Liberman will review the uses to which social phenomenology and ethnomethodology have put the central themes of Edmund Husserl, and he will offer a summary of the theoretical developments of Alfred Schutz, Aron Gurwitzsch, and their student Harold Garfinkel (who was Liberman's professor) and discuss their relations to Husserl. Following this theoretical summary, Liberman will offer two brief case studies of phenomenological research from an ethnomethodological perspective: games-with-rules and the efforts of professional coffee tasters to specify objectively the taste of coffee. Liberman's thesis is that Husserl's fundamental themes can be advanced productively by undertaking detailed studies of the organization of sense and order of in vivo ordinary activities. Interested persons can read the Conclusion to his recent book, More Studies in Ethnomethodology (SUNY Press, 2013), which is entitled, "Respecifying Husserl's Phenomenology as Situated Worldly Inquiries." 

Kenneth Liberman is Professor Emeritus at the University of Oregon and is currently the Hans Christian Anderson Visiting Professor at Syddansk Universitet. He is also Research Scholar at the Universi tà di Trento in Italy. His books include Understanding Interaction in Central Australia (Routledge 1985), Dialectical Practice in Tibetan Philosophical Culture (Rowman & Littlefield 2004), Husserl's Criticism of Reason (Lexington Books, 2007), and More Studies in Ethnomethodology (SUNY Press, 2013). He is past Chair of the Society for Phenomenology and the Human Sciences.