HUMAN STUDIES 3, 403-410 (1980) Review Section Schutz's Theory of Relevance LENORE LANGSDORF Department of Philosophy University of Texas at Arlington A review of RONALDL. COX,Schutz's Theory of Relevance: A Phenomenological Critique. MARTIUS NIJHOFF, THE HAGUE, 1978 In the course of his extensive research into the nature of social reality, human action, and social interaction, Alfred Schutz returned repeatedly to the phenomenon of relevance. Any attempt to analyze Schutz's crucial concepts (e.g., the Life-world, Intersubje.ctivity, Typification, Meaningful Action, and Ideal Types) or to use those concepts in the course of phenomenol~gical social-scientific research will similarly call for an understanding of this underlying phenomenon. Ronald Cox's book offers a comprehensive and eomprehendable critique of Schutz's analysis, and of the phenomenon itself. The central importance of the phenomenon of relevance is perhaps best indicated by sketching Cox's own portrayal of how other, and perhaps more obvious, aspects of the social world lead to that phenomenon. This portrayal also serves to introduce Cox's own conception of the nature of his project, as well as suggest what I take to be his most problematic criticism. Schutz's investigations were directed upon the everyday, ordinary experiences which comprise what phenomenologists call the "life-world." More precisely, and to some extent in contrast to much of Husserl's work, Schutz was especially concerned with the intersubjective character of those experiences. He found that we experience our environment (both social and natural) in "typified" ways; i.e. as organized in rather standard ways, and as habitually recognized as so organized, by the experiencers themselves. Cox uses one of Sehutz's examples to illustrate this situation: we typically experience certain creatures as dogs, rather than cats or birds, on the basis of certain typical features. We can abstractively thematize those typifications as "types," and, thanks to our language, we can retain our typifications in a rather precise way: "common language" is their"prime storehouse" (pp. 6-8). Why do we apply particular typifications rather than others? Sehutz responds: relevance to situations or purposes is the determining feature. How 403