xviii In a sense this book is the Summa of Schutz's life

xxviii As Schutz emphasized many times, everyday life intrinsically involves the suspension of doubts concerning the reality of the world.

p.3 The sciences that would interpret and explain human action and thought must begin with a description of the foundational structures of what is prescientific, the reality which seems self-evident to men remaining within the natural attitude. This reality is the everyday life-world.

p.5 It is self-evident to me in the natural attitude not only that I can act upon my fellow-men but also that they can act upon me.

p.6 The life world is... a reality which we modify through our acts and which... modifies our actions... our natural attitude of daily life is pervasively determined by a pragmatic motive... I must understand my life-world to the degree necessary in order to be able to act in it and operate upon it.

p.7 So long as the structure of the world can be taken to be constant, as long as my previous experience is valid, my ability to operate upon the world in this and that manner remains in principle preserved. As Husserl has shown, the further ideality of the "I can always do it again" is developed correlative to the ideality of the "and so forth."

p.8 the validity of my previous experience and... my ability to operate upon the world... are essential aspects of thinking within the natural attitude.

p.13 Our knowledge is taken for granted; that is, what was questionable became explicated, the problem solved - in a manner and to a degree that was sufficient for the actual, situationally conditioned problematic. But this also means that the process of explication was interrupted somewhere... so that the solution was partial; in other words, it was a solution "until further notice." Our stock of knowledge and its correlative schemata of typification results from the discontinuance of processes of explication, and exhibits the sedimentation of past situational problematics.

p.14 my stock of knowledge is not a logically integrated system, but rather only the totality of my sedimented and situationally conditioned explications

p.14-15 within the natural attitude, I am governed by the pragmatic motive. My stock of experience serves me for the solution to practical problems... In the world of everyday life, I am interested... in being able to orient myself in my action in routine ways. The explications sedimented in my stock of knowledge have the status of actional directions: if things are thus and so, then I will act thus and so. Because of the successful employment of these directions, I do not need at every moment to go to new solutions of problems... but rather I can act as I have already acted "in such circumstances." ...Their continuous "practical" success guarantees their reliability for me, and they become habituated recipes... The recipes have "proven" themselves elsewhere.

p.18 We must find our way about in the life-world and while acting and being acted upon must come to terms with the data imposed on us by nature and society... it is through my action... that I seek to modify what is imposed on me... The life-world is above all the province of practice, of action. The problems of action and choice must, therefore, have a central place in the analysis of the life-world.

p.19-20 The fact that my acts, which I am able to apprehend as typical acts, will have typical consequences, is at the same time presented to me in my stock of experience.

p.20 Every action in my surrounding world changes it.
 It is, furthermore, also obvious to me... I must undertake a whole series of component actions which are subordinate ends toward a higher goal... In short, within the natural attitude I do not act only within a biographically determined hierarchy of plans. Rather, I also see typical consequences of my acts which are apprehended as typical

p.21 Man... is able to transcend everydayness by means of symbols.

p.36 The place in which I find myself, my actual "here," is the starting point for my orientation in space.

p.37 The sector of the world which is accessible to my immediate experience, we will term the world within actual reach. It embraces not only actually perceived objects but also objects that can be perceived through attentive advertence.

p.42 [George Herbert] Mead's theory that the manipulative zone presents the kernel of the reality of the life-world agrees with our interpretation.

p.100 In every moment of conscious life I find myself in a situation. In its concrete contents this situation is indeed endlessly variable

p.119 The acquisition of knowledge is the sedimentation of current experiences in meaning-structures, according to relevance and typicality.

p.127 The problem of one province of reality "disappears" as a problem after the "leap" into the other province... A theme that spans two provinces of reality in this way will be called a symbol.

p.128 Let us illustrate the interruption of a process of explication, by which the problem "disappears" without my leaving the province of reality. I sit in my room and write a letter. Suddenly there is a bang in the street. Was it a shot? An explosion? I go to the window, look out, notice nothing out of the ordinary, and sit down again in order to finish the letter. I have not solved the "problem." I have simply determined with some assuredness that among the possible actions relevant for me (hurry to help someone, go to safety, etc.) none probably applies. The situation was problematic for me only so long as such possibilities were under consideration. After discarding these alternatives I interrupt further explication, since it doesn't "interest" me which among the other possibilities was actually the cause of the report... the problem was, strictly speaking, only hypothetically relevant.

p.131 The data of the world imposed in the situation do not allow certain activities, as for instance some explications of problematic situations and experiences, to be carried out in one thrust. Continuation of the acquisition of knowledge is above all conditioned and limited by the changes in the tension of consciousness and the rhythm of inner duration, which show themselves subjectively to be the limited aspects of corporeality, attentiveness, and "will power." Acts whose scope exceeds the duration of individual phases of this rhythm must be interrupted in order to be picked up again later.

p.133 The theme... which I interrupted... is accessible at any time... There are in fact... many "temporary" interruptions in the acquisition of knowledge that are on hand after such a leap... this theme has not "disappeared"... it is only temporarily replaced by another theme and awaits "unchanged" for its resumption... In "temporary" interruption the original theme remains preserved, together with its thematic relevance structures.

p.191 In other words, if one cannot be routinely oriented in a situation, one must explicate it. And if one knows that in advance, then he also in advance turns to it "voluntarily." That means as well that one cannot be unlimitedly immersed in "other thoughts," but rather is motivated to turn "promptly" to the situation or to certain aspects of it.

p.196 Shots [JLJ - sounds of gunfire] are ordered in my stock of knowledge as typically important events which usually require certain modes of conduct. This element of knowledge is thus coupled with certain motivational references. The coupling is of a special kind: if event X, then modes of conduct Y and Z. That is, Y and Z are "neutralized," but so that they can be "activated" again at any time by X. But it was the case that I cannot say with subjective certainty whether X has taken place. I only know that the event could be of type X. Strictly speaking, therefore, a hypothetical relevance was "imposed" on me by the event.

p.196 Our conduct in the life-world of everyday life is to a great extent coguided by hypothetical relevances. Our action is frequently adjusted so as to give rise to situations in which it is possible to determine whether a hypothetical relevance should be converted to a "valid" relevance or be considered as void.

p.197 The hypothetical relevance is actually now "really" relevant, since one cannot for certain say whether the "hypothesis" will be confirmed in the future or not... Hypothetical relevance is interwoven in many ways with the structures of motivational relevance... experience has shown that some hypothetical relevances are more often, others less often, presented as "really" relevant.

p.208 in doubtful situations one "chooses" between different interpretations... If a theme is constituted as problematic, it remains in the grasp of consciousness.

p.218 The attitude (fear of snakes) is activated whenever the interpretation "snake" becomes actually present with subjective certainty... It is activated as well when the interpretation has a hypothetical character ("it could be a snake"). The attitude is "already there" but is only activated under typical circumstances... An attitude, therefore, is ready under typical circumstances to put into motion typical ways of conduct, as well as typical in-order-to chains of motivation - and, indeed immediately, without having first to "plan."

p.238 The current stock of knowledge consequently operates either as an "automatic" pattern of conduct or as an explicit interpretational schema. The determination and mastery of actual situations also involves an orientation to the future. We have not up to now systematically examined the role of the stock of knowledge in this process. Only in the description of relevance structures, above all in the analysis of the in-order-to motivational context, was the future orientation of everyday conduct referred to in some aspects.

p.239 every experience is "future oriented." ...every actual phase of inner duration also contains... protensions of future phases. These protensions are never completely empty of content... they are filled with automatic typifications which are derived from the province of habitual knowledge... the "content" of the protensions consists of typifications

p.239-240 Automatic protensions are not really "predictions." The latter presuppose syntactical acts of thinking, whose "content" is derived from explicit elements of the stock of knowledge... prediction is founded on protentions... the typifications used in prediction are grounded in automatic typifications. As in automatic protensions, so also in explicit predictions, the "unique," unrepeatable aspects of future events are not grasped, but only the possibility, probability, etc., of typical sequences, typical relations, typical methods of acting, etc., coming true again.

p.241 The praxis of everyday life is characterized in general by one being interested... in the typical repeatability of S, E, H, R. [JLJ - situations, elements, acts, and results]

p.241 By means of typifications included in the stock of knowledge... the stock of knowledge makes possible the orientation of the flux of experience toward the future. Every current situation or the conduct in it has a future horizon which is automatically filled in with typical and typically relevant contents. The stock of knowledge functions as a routine schema for conduct. Further, the act is also oriented toward the future, whereby typical courses of acts and results of acts are established as possible, probable, or also as subjectively certain... in daily life nothing can be predicted just as it indeed happens. What happens could never have been exactly predicted. But since under the dominance of the pragmatic motive, this kind of exact prediction is in general irrelevant, while just the typical and typically repeatable aspects of experience and of action are of interest, prediction of the "future" in the natural attitude is possible and - in spite of its chance character - "successful." [JLJ - note to self: put in current paper]

p.262 We have found that the subjective stock of knowledge consists only in part of "independent" results of experience and explication. It is predominantly derived from elements of the social stock of knowledge. Furthermore, the "independently" acquired elements of knowledge are also embedded in the whole context of an extensively "socialized" subjective stock of knowledge, since the most important relevances of interpretation and motivation are "socialized"

p.271 We define "objectivation" as the embodiment of subjective processes in everyday occurrences and objects.

p.285 We must once again return to the fact that the individual who has acquired a historical system of signs, and especially a language, can "objectivate" this in his subjective and indeed "independently" acquired knowledge.

p.286 Systems of signs... are for their part a component of the social stock of knowledge and are the "medium" for the "objectivation" of explicit elements of knowledge. They are thus the presupposition for the social cumulation of knowledge and for the development of "higher forms of knowledge."