Constitution of Mutual Knowledge in Telecopresence: Updating Schutz’s Phenomenological Theory of the Lifeworld

Abstract

In 1932, phenomenological sociologist Alfred Schutz provided a theory of mutual knowledge that explains how individuals come to understand one another in the increasingly differentiated lifeworld. Schutz’s main argument was that the contemporaneous lifeworld consists of two distinct realms and human mutual knowledge is constituted differently in each realm: in the realm of consociates, people get to know each other by way of growing older together in corporeal copresence; and in the realm of mere contemporaries, people come to know each other based on ideal types constructed through generalized typification. This article extends Schutz’s theory to an emergent realm of the lifeworld brought about by the advent of the Internet—the realm of consociated contemporaries. In this new realm, which is spatially divergent but temporally convergent, anonymous individuals become intimately familiar with one another through mutual biographical disclosure in telecopresence. This analytic extension not only expands the scope of Schutz’s theory but also deepens our understanding of the essence and purpose of human mutual knowledge.