This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Sociology Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Sociology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of sociology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SociologyWikipedia:WikiProject SociologyTemplate:WikiProject Sociologysociology Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. Philosophy: Continental Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Philosophy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of content related to philosophy on Wikipedia. If you would like to support the project, please visit the project page, where you can get more details on how you can help, and where you can join the general discussion about philosophy content on Wikipedia.PhilosophyWikipedia:WikiProject PhilosophyTemplate:WikiProject PhilosophyPhilosophy Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. Associated task forces: /  Continental philosophy

I suggest we shouldn´t use this expression - Lifeworld. It makes no sense to me in English. Husserls Lebenswelt is the world of everyday experience, everyday world would be much better translation or something else - one should look research english philosophical translation of phenomenologicl works - but Lifeworld is definitely stupid. And it is philosophical not sociological term. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pitvok (talk • contribs) 22:11, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This page is a prime example of why some people (philosophers and those who read nothing but) should not be allowed to write.

"This collective inter-subjective pool of perceiving, Husserl explains, is ... capable of arriving at ‘objective truth,’ or at least as close to objectivity as possible."

'Can man fly?' he asked. 'He can!' I said. 'Or, at least, he can come as close as possible.' Riselikehelium (talk) 14:39, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The sense of lifeworld in this article is basically Habermasian, which, I think, is appropriate, since he's the outstanding philosopher who has done most with the originally-Heideggerian/Husserlian notion. The external link, "lifeworld and Habermas," is a reliable contextualization of Habermas' sense of lifeworld. I've been a "student" of Habermas' work for several decades, including time spent with him while he was writing the German version of Theory of Communicative Action. I'm disappointed that betacommand thought (March 21, 2007) that linking to the scholarly Habermas discussion group was inappropriate. Gedavis 21:24, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It appears that the only reason why you would think so is that you have, as you say, been a student of Habermas, and not Husserl. Husserl's concept of lifeworld is large and complex, and he is generally considered to be the main theorist on the issue. I was thinking of adding to the article, clarifying Husserl's account, but I'm not sure that I would be able to make myself understood. Mainly because the concept, though it appears quite clearly to me, still is so complex that to explain it in a way that makes sense without hundreds of other references to other concepts seems difficult, if not impossible. A condensed explanation just seems to me to be slightly too.. chaotic, but I'm no word wizard either. I'm just going to post it here instead of in the article so that someone could try to see if it makes any sort of sense. If anyone has any knowledge of the concept, we could probably work out some sort of intelligible definition.

"On Husserl's account, the lifeworld is the world we live in exactly as it is experienced by the person who experiences it. It follows from this that it is non-reductionistic. As such, the lifeworld is also a sort of "horizon" for all of the things we experience. Generally speaking, our lifeworld can be seen as something we "inherit," whether we do so from our biological or social nature; it contains all meaningful objects and the way in which they are meaningful to us.

The lifeworld can be considered from an individual as well as an intersubjective point of view, but it is generally maintained that it is identical throughout, that there is only one lifeworld. To clarify this apparent paradox, even the intersubjective lifeworld (which is called homeworld, and is shared by one's homecomrades) is "maintained" or "carried" by each individual; it is only those parts of one's lifeworld that are experienced as intersubjective that are part of the homeworld.

The homeworld, furthermore, meets its limits at an alienworld, a world that cannot be comprehended as alien, but that needs "assimilation" or "integration" into one's own homeworld, and even then it only makes sense in the context of the previously determined homeworld. This implies that the lifeworld isn't a static, unchangeable "thing," but rather that horizon upon which all things appear as meaningful."Der Zeitgeist (talk) 20:41, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Husserl's concept of lifeworld is taken from Heidegger. Heidegger's chapter the "Worldhood of the World" in Being and Time is the most profound explication of the concept. Because Heidegger is "tainted" in the public eye, people take his ideas and don't give proper due to the source. Habermas is DRENCHED in Heidegger. Anyone who has read Heidegger knows that Habermas's treatment is deeply Heideggerian, that he internalized the insights that Heidegger proffered. 128.62.75.112 (talk) 04:24, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The concept of "lifeword" existed before Husserl.

I've changed the indication of Cartestian Meditations because the notion of lifeworld (translation of 'Lebenswelt') comes from Husserl's Krisis... lectures, not CM. Though Dilthey had a notion of life experience, the specific notion of lifeworld refers to a Husserlian concept that Husserl didn't coin until the Krisis lectures. Gedavis 00:41, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, he did use it in some notes to Ideen II, and it can be said that he has been dealing with problems related to lifeworld before Krisis even though he didn't explicitly term them lifeworld problems.Der Zeitgeist (talk) 20:41, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One part of the article describes the Husserlian epoche and the historical influences on Husserl concerning this method. I personally find this information redundant to this article. The user of the encyclopedia does not want to be bothered with historical details regarding a different concept. I suggest this part be taken out of the article and that the lifeworld, as a pre-epistemological and intersubjective state (of affairs or being), be highlighted. When there are different ways to portray the lifeworld, they should follow in sequence, preferably with the oldest of origin first. The rest may follow in chronological order or otherwise as ye seem fit. Or what do ye think?Ostracon (talk) 01:56, 16 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

ye? Wophi (talk) 13:50, 22 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm taking as a given that the term can be traced to Husserl and phenomenology, and taking the initial statements about it at face value. I was heartened to see the mention of biology in the initial paragraph, but then no further mention. This comment is about the missing link to biology.

I believe there is conceptual value in exploring the connection between Husserl's "lifeworld" and the non-verbal, baseline environment manifested by the organism's innate biology, an environment that will be objectively different for different organisms due to each one's perceptual equipment, e.g., what color spectrum is available to the organism? what is the scale of that part of the environment co-incident with the scale of the organism itself? how many sensory modalities are providing experiential signals without the organism doing anything to investigate a particular patch for it's food signs or mating potential?

The name that comes to mind is Jakob von Uexküll [I don't know how to link to the Wikipedia article on him] and his concept of the umwelt.

I'm not in a position to examine the degree to which there is an underlying concept to which both concepts can be seen as related, which would bring lifeworld more sharply into focus. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.198.193.102 (talk) 14:44, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"The concept has its origin in biology and cultural Protestantism." Without further explanation, this statement has very little meaning. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Calrad (talk • contribs) 19:21, 27 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The section Lebenswelt#The_sociological_concept gives

• very few place, actually a single sentence, to Albert Schütz, however he is the one who imported the notion of lifeworld in sociology a gave it corresponding (and sensible) meaning
• much too much place to Habermas, even elaborating on concepts of his which are not directly related (colonisation, instrumental rationality...)

I cannot balance myself, sorry.

PS : Like Calrad above, I would relate lifeworld to the notion of Umwelt by Jakob von Uexküll. However, I don't know how to make the relation in WP --and source it-- if no published author have made the relation. denis 'spir' (talk) 10:45, 2 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]