Discussion of Wagner, Imber, and Rasmussen
pp. 27-33
in: Kurt Wolff (ed), Alfred Schütz, Berlin, Springer, 1984Abstract
Helmut Wagner has given us an impressive and attractive synopsis of his recent intellectual biography of Alfred Schutz. His skillful and devoted intertwining of Schutz's life and work makes his presentation instructive and readable. Helmut Wagner knew Schutz, he knew a number of Schutz's friends, students, and colleagues, and he also found in Schutz's work a surprising number of conceptions, such as "because motives' and "in-order-to motives,' "face-to-face relations,' "the biographical situation,' "relevances' "intrinsic' and "imposed,' "life plan,' and others, which could, to Wagner's own surprise, be used to set the frame for his conceptions of life history and biography. Wagner, of course, could not present his evidence in his short paper, nor even in his book,1 because even this book is a severe abridgement of a much larger work.
