Introduction: Finite Provinces of Meaning, Resilience, Responsiveness, the Plan of This Book

This chapter explains what Alfred Schutz means by “finite provinces of meaning” and what the six features of a cognitive style are and how they characterize in different ways all such provinces. It examines how Schutz’s methodology in his essay “On Multiple Realities” is phenomenological. In addition, it presents two central themes traced throughout the book: resilience, understood in terms of how events or objects imposed upon us do not cause our response but solicit our meaning-giving, and interpersonal responsiveness. Although Schutz himself does not explicitly use these concepts, they can be taken to provide a novel and comprehensive interpretative key to his entire work. The chapter concludes by considering Schutzian concepts that need clarification, such as the “tension of consciousness,” and “fundamental anxiety,” and it considers the significance of non-pragmatic provinces for a philosophical anthropology.