Abstract
Erving Goffman (1922–1982) was one of the foremost American sociologists in the development of qualitative approaches to the study of everyday life. He was widely read and was familiar with all contemporaneous approaches to the study of everyday life from Schutz, Garfinkel, Sacks, the symbolic interactionists, Chicago School sociologists, and others who used qualitative perspectives. In advancing his own approach he would often comment on the approaches of others, if not directly then in a subtle manner which could be understood by those concerned. As one example, I will focus on his examination of Alfred Schutz in one of his books, Frame Analysis (1974), where he critiques Schutz’s notion of multiple realities. This was one of the rare occasions when he wrote about Schutz. This paper addresses the differences between Schutz and Goffman, why they never seem to have directly encountered each other, and the kinds of alternatives Goffman offers to the study of the world of everyday life in contrast to Schutz.
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Notes
- 1.
He defines the interaction order primarily in his last paper (1983) but throughout his writings it appears to have the following characteristics (G.P.): two (or more) persons share time and space, are engaged in a mutual activity generally involving verbal communication; are mutually aware of one another and aware of each others’ awareness; are already socialized; can be described from an observer’s perspective; the meanings of their actions can be decided/inferred by an observer; and their activities, motives, intentions, etc. are those decided or seen by an outside observer using categories, conceptualizations, descriptions and terminologies which the observer has formed while also taking into account those used by the participants themselves.
- 2.
If we examine Goffman’s writings we find that he does not include a references section or index in any of his books except for Relations in Public (1971) and Forms of Talk (1981a). The latter also provides a References section. Hence, all of his footnotes and texts would have to be examined carefully to see if he has cited or mentioned any particular author.
- 3.
In an interview with Verhoeven (1980: 232), Goffman answers the question of whether Schutz was an influence on him in the following exchange:
JV: “I have two other questions, to conclude. The first one – you mention at a certain moment [Alfred] Schutz. What is the meaning of Schutz for your work?”
EG: “Well, again it was a late sort of thing, but the last book on Frame Analysis (1974), was influenced by him. (Gregory) Bateson quite a bit, but Schutz’s 1967 paper on multiple realities was an influence. (This is a later edition of “On Multiple Realities,” most likely an edition of Collected Papers, Vol. 1 which Goffman acquired. The publication of the first edition of the Collected Papers was in 1962; the original publication date of the article is 1945 when it appeared in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research which Goffman also cites in Frame Analysis. G.P.) Schutz is continuing to be something of an influence. His stuff on the corpus of experience and that sort of thing. There are some ways in which he impinges upon sociolinguistic concerns, but I can’t profess to be a close student.”
“Again I think Schutz has wonderful leads, but that Schutz himself doesn’t carry one very far in any one direction. I part strict company with scholars who take one book as central and then see all other books, all other writings, as not as – as falling short upon the basic treatment. This has recently become very strong in American Sociology. [Ludwig] Wittgenstein gets to be a writer whose writings are held up as the touchstone for what ought to be done. It seems to me there is no way that Wittgenstein could know anything about the organization of an occupation, or things like that. Schutz has come to have something of that status, of course, for ethnomethodologists….
“But this tenor of analysis of where the whole analysis consists of showing how a current writing departs from and falls short of what, say Schutz said, well I don’t think Schutz said enough to inform any particular study sufficiently. That is, it’s just a set of leads, of possibilities. So also with William James, or anybody else you can go back to, or Gregory Bateson. I think that’s plain bad hero worship…”
- 4.
- 5.
We can note here some of the ways that Goffman resembles Simmel; for example, he writes essays; his essays are not cumulative and deal with different topics; his books are generally collections of previously published essays; he is formalistic in the sense that he stipulates a form and offers an ideal-typical description of it; finds forms that are ‘in the world’, there, not constructed or created by individuals; he is not explanatory; he does not infer or deduce from forms; he doesn’t claim forms are exhaustive; he proposes types and subtypes after using forms to identify the shape of an activity; he is critical of society and offers descriptions and/or concepts as criticism; and uses a perspective by incongruity (presumably acquired from Kenneth Burke while Simmel’s approach is identified as (als ob) or “as if”) which can provide an ironic twist to some of his analyses. Simmel, however, had a much broader range over ethics, metaphysics, arts, religion, logic and social psychology, was “truly eclectic” and was a philosopher primarily. Smith (1989) They both seemed willing to “extract universally valid principles from the most insignificant phenomena. As Goffman said in his final paper (Goffman 1983: 17). (“F) or myself, I believe that human social life is ours to study naturalistically, sub specie aeternitatis.” (i.e. under the aspect/appearance of eternity)
- 6.
I am grateful to Hisashi Nasu for searching the Schutz files to determine whether Schutz corresponded with Goffman or vice versa. As noted in Psathas (2004): “His various articles and papers could not become widely known in sociology. Though they eventually achieved widespread recognition and acclaim, they were originally published primarily in philosophical journals, e.g. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Review of Metaphysics, and the Journal of Philosophy, or the more eclectic New School journal, Social Research , which was oriented to social and political research (All of these papers were finally collected in the three volumes of his Collected Papers, Vols I, II, and III, edited and published posthumously, in 1962, 1964 and 1966.). Thus, of the total number of 26 articles he published between 1940 and 1959, only two (The Stranger in 1944 and The Homecomer in 1945) were published in a sociological journal – The American Journal of Sociology; 11 were published in philosophical journals; 7 were published in the journal published by the New School, Social Research, and 6 were published in edited books of contributed papers.”
- 7.
In his 1980 interview, particularly considering his experiences at Chicago, he says: “If I had to be labeled at all, it would have been as a Hughesian urban ethnographer.” The Chicago approach emphasized participant observation ethnography in real world activities and events without regard for political implications (though liberal and underdog in its main preconceptions).
- 8.
“Cop out” in Webster (1933) refers to backing out of an unwanted responsibility or to avoid or neglect problems, responsibilities, or commitments.
- 9.
This matter of ‘shock’ will be taken up explicitly by Goffman who sees the shift from one ‘reality’ to another as much more fluid and straightforward. See below.
- 10.
Here he attributes to Garfinkel, incorrectly, the desire to find the “rules” which underlie a particular form of activity. It is not clear, since there are no citations, which of Garfinkel’s works he had in mind but the major thrust of ethnomethodology is not a search for “rules.” It was Goffman, rather, who sought to find the ‘rules’ governing activities and the characterization of Goffman as a structural functionalist or Durkheimian is in part based on this aspect of his analysis. (Possibly it was Garfinkel’s (1963) paper which was, in part, on constitutive rules in games which proved a distraction for Goffman.)
- 11.
“Rules,” in Goffman’s view, are capable of being produced by routinized, machine-like processes.
- 12.
It seems to me that what Goffman is doing is setting aside the major thinkers/writers on “multiple realities” so that he can proceed to offer his own account; in other words, “frame” would replace “reality” in the course of his investigating/describing the world of everyday life. His schema would have to address some of the same issues that James/Schutz address, e.g. transitions involving “shocks” in going from one reality to another; the description of a “reality”; etc. But once set aside, he can proceed in his own way to delineate the different realities.
- 13.
In his interview with Verhoeven he offers this self-description of his approach and that of others in Chicago with whom he was associated: “It would be more accurate to call them sociologists of small scale entities like occupations, things like that, with a Hughesian, qualitative, ethnographic perspective. So if we had to choose a label, Hughesian sociology would be a more accurate one than symbolic interactionism. But it was all one group in terms of friendship links and origins at Chicago and that sort of thing.”
- 14.
Note that Schutz (1962: 231) says that “(the experiences of shock) show me that the world of working in standard time is not the sole finite province of meaning but only one of many others accessible to my intentional life.”
- 15.
Schutz (1962: 208) says: “The following considerations, fragmentary as they are, attempt to outline a first approach to some of them with the special aim of clarifying the relationship between the reality of the world of daily life and that of theoretical scientific contemplation.” His view is indeed tentative and initial.
- 16.
In our lengthy paper, we (Psathas and Waksler 1973) offer a number of criticisms of Goffman’s approach to the study of social interaction including his lack of an awareness of the relevance of Schutz.
- 17.
Thomas Koenig says that “frames are basic cognitive structures which guide the perception and representation of reality. On the whole, frames are not consciously manufactured but are unconsciously adopted in the course of communication processes. On a very banal level, frames structure which parts of reality become noticed.” Gitlin (1980) says “frames are principles of selection, emphasis and presentation, composed of little tacit theories about what exists, what happens, and what matters.” Then, Koenig states, “the trouble starts when it comes to the identification and measurement of frames precisely because they consist of tacit rather than overt conjectures, it becomes difficult to identify frames.”
- 18.
Trevino (2003) calls it a metaphor and states: “[…] Goffman suggests that social experience is structured by “frames”, schemas of interpretation, that guide us in defining the multitudinous social situations we find ourselves in. Social interaction is made meaningful because frames help us to make sense of what is going on. The frame metaphor informs all of Goffman’s work from 1974 on, this includes Frame Analysis, Gender Advertisements, “The arrangement between the sexes,” Forms of Talk, and “Felicity’s condition.’”
- 19.
- 20.
I should say here that I fully agree with Richard Lanigan who wrote, in 1990, that Goffman is not a phenomenologist; the person or participant, is not put first but rather the society is. Lanigan (1990: 100) writes “I should be following Goffman’s ‘phenomenological’ methodology in a very precise manner as a sufficient theory. Systematic description would have occurred, but our desire to understand cultural meaning, and, to recognize the exercise of social power in communication would remain undisclosed. Instead, I have taken Goffman’s frame analysis into the theoretical arena of phenomenology proper by providing both reduction and interpretation steps to his description step of method. In so doing, I illustrate how the phenomenological theorist can improve on the legacy of Erving Goffman. Yet, I am also forced to conclude on theoretical grounds that Goffman is not a phenomenologist in the traditional and usually accepted meaning of that name because I insist on cross-checking his research conclusion with persons in their lived world, not that world formed (even at the micro-level) by the naïve realism of the researcher! Thus to reverse Goffman’s paraphrase of his own perspective and, thereby, state the phenomenologist’s perspective, I am suggesting that as a phenomenologist ‘I personally hold the person to be first in every way and any of society’s current involvements to be second, this essay deals only with matters that are first.’ In this reversal, we are motivated to keep the theoretical applications of desire and power straight. Communicated messages are evidence of a subjectivity (desire) that is coded as intersubjectivity (power) which is, of course, the provocative original thesis of the founder of the reflexive theory and method of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl.” (Note: Gofffman says in Frame Analysis that he holds that society is first.)
- 21.
It is interesting to note that philosophers are expected to provide detailed arguments to strengthen or support or refute a particular position whereas Goffman can be dismissive and simply waves off possible criticisms, alludes to them if he chooses and then proceeds as he wishes. Goffman himself seems to be aware of this when he says he is not doing philosophy. This is also an indirect swipe at James/Schutz.
- 22.
Goffman’s methods deserve fuller study but we can at least point to his major approaches to the study of the interaction order (and some interesting similarities in various places with Simmel (see footnote 5)): he does field work; he is qualitative and shuns all quantitative approaches; he uses participant observation in doing what is called ethnographic studies; he is naturalistic in his observations using all manner of observation, interviewing, overhearing, quotes from fiction, novels, etc. in order to catch the details of occurring events; he uses made up ‘data’ which closely conform to what he has read or observed; and, very rarely, uses actual recordings of spoken matters. His methods of data collection are distinctly different from those of conversation analysis which relies consistently on video and/or audio taped recordings of naturally occurring interaction and shuns any artificial, contrived or quoted and reported sayings.
- 23.
Schutz presents a beginning analysis of the worlds of phantasms, the world of dreams, the world of scientific contemplation and shows their varying relation to the world of everyday life.
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Psathas, G. (2014). Goffman and Schutz on Multiple Realities. In: Staudigl, M., Berguno, G. (eds) Schutzian Phenomenology and Hermeneutic Traditions. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 68. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6034-9_13
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