Toledo, U. 2007. Realidades Múltiples y Mundos Sociales. Cinta moebio 30: 211-244

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Multiple Reality and Social Worlds. Introduction to socio-phenomenology

Dr. Ulises Toledo (utoledo@uss.cl) Universidad San Sebastián (Concepción, Chile).

Abstract

The Multiple Reality theory represents a key piece to understand the socio-phenomenology. It is sustained by a triangulation of the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl, the vitalism of Henry Bergson and the pragmatism of William James (and it has as a background the praxeology of Ludwig Von Mises and the sociology of Georg Simmel and Max Weber). In such triangulation the notion of emphasis of reality becomes central and it refers to the intensity degree of the conscience intentional tension and attention to life. Starting from this point the world of life is diffracted in multiple provinces among which social life is just one of them. Each province has a specific emphasis of reality which allows it to delimit a finite area of sense that counts on its own legitimization and justification criteria. As a result, the socio-phenomenological analysis also applies the term reality to the imaginaryphenomena when they have a strong consistency founded in the pragmatic principle: what is not contradicted is assumed ipso facto like reality. Nevertheless, in the context of the Multiple Realities theory the daily social life is understood like eminent reality and this vision opens a promising heuristics for social investigation.

Key words: Socio-phenomenology, world of life, multiple realities, social world, emphasis of reality.