Subjectivism and Economic Analysis: Essays in memory of Ludwig ...

THE SUBJECTIVISM OF ACTIVE MINDSour thoughts, then, is a structure of typifications. Some of thesetypifications are filled with many particulars; others are quiteempty. My typification of, say, my old pocket knife is quiteparticularistic. I know the heft of it and where the blade is nicked.By contrast, my typifkation of, say, a postal worker is rather empty.In ways I don’t quite understand, the faceless postal worker sortsand delivers. The personal types containing more particulars have alow degree of ‘anonymity’. At the other end are the personal typeswith a high degree of ‘anonymity’.What has been said about types of higher and lower anonymity isstill true if the typifications are those of social science. The scientist’sideal types are of higher or lower anonymity according to theproblem he studies. Whether we are speaking of everyday thoughtand action or of our scientific understanding of that thought andaction, our thoughts spin a web of stereotypes, some of which arevery spare or thin descriptions of their objects, others of which arevery detailed or thick descriptions.The stereotypes I must rely on when I think about social life aregotten by taking ‘a cross-section of our experience of another personand, so to speak, “freezing it into slide”’ (Schutz 1932:187). Thus,the personal types of my mental picture of the world know nofreedom. They cannot act out of character. The real peoplecorresponding to them may, of course, act out of character, but notmy typifications of them. The personal types of scientists and socialparticipants are equally unfree.Max Weber’s method of ideal types ‘consists’, for Schutz, ‘inreplacing the human beings which the social scientist observes asactors on the social stage by puppets created by himself (Schutz1967, vol. II:17). The puppet is a personal ideal type. Each puppet’s‘destiny is regulated and determined beforehand by his creator, thesocial scientist, and with such a perfect pre-established harmony asLeibniz imagined the world created by God’ (ibid.: 83).Schutz showed that the propositions we make about highlyanonymous (ideal) types are more reliable guides to ourexpectations than those we make about (ideal) types of lowanonymity. Schutz’s concept of anonymity helps us to understandhow social order is achieved in spite of the subjectivism ofexpectations. We can co-operate with anonymous others preciselybecause of their anonymity. The types of high anonymity are thindescriptions of rather robot-like beings. We know that each realpostal worker is unique. But we rely on a stereotyped picture of himthat quite effaces his personality. To the extent that I can rely on69