Quintipartite Method and World-Disclosure

Here, I present my method for doing phenomenological sociology. We begin with novel phenomenological investigations and develop our concepts. We move on to minimal interpretations that allow us to apply our concepts to empirical investigations. We leave the epoche and investigate an empirical case (we actually talk to people and interpret texts). We present the kind of maximal interpretations associated with strong social-theoretic knowledge production. Finally, we return to the epoche and do phenomenological work on the entire foregoing structure. In this chapter I also discuss the distinction between the lebenswelt and the lebensumwelt and its importance for sociological work, and I emphasize the importance of temporalization for working with the lebensumwelt in sociology. I introduce the term “lifecone” to mark the explicit temporalization of the lebensumwelt in social-theoretic work.