Social acts and communities

Walther between Husserl and Reinach

Alessandro Salice

Genki Uemura

Okayama University

pp. 27-46

in: Antonio Calcagno (ed), Gerda Walther's phenomenology of sociality, psychology, and religion, Berlin, Springer, 2018

Abstract

The chapter contextualizes and reconstructs Walther’s theory of social acts. In her view a given act qualifies as social if it is performed in the name of or on behalf of a community. Interestingly, Walther’s understanding of that notion is patently at odds with the idea of a social act originally propounded by Reinach. According to Reinach, an act is social if it “addresses” other persons and if it, for its success, requires them to grasp it. We claim that to explain Walther’s reconfiguration of this concept, one has to look into the use that Husserl makes of it. Husserl adopts this idea from Reinach to tackle a problem that is not discussed by the latter. This is the problem of how communities, by means of social acts, are “constituted” in consciousness. Walther shares with Husserl the concern about the constitution of communities and her radical revision of Reinach’s idea is presented as an attempt to offer an alternative solution to Husserl’s problem.

Cited authors

Husserl Edmund

Reinach Adolf

Walther Gerda