LIBRI DI LUIGI MUZZETTO

This paper is divided into two parts. The first traces the conceptual development of because motives, while simultaneously endeavouring to grasp the notion of the unconscious revealed in Schutz’s analysis. The author refers to Leibniz’s theory of petites perceptions and Freud’s theory of the unconscious; theories whose respective characteristics are somehow compared, integrated and thus juxtaposed with the characteristics of because motives. The second part of the paper raises the question why Schutz, in his analysis of motives and unconscious behaviour, does not refer to Husserl’s conception of the unconscious

The author’s aim is to provide some key introductory points to the reading of the topic of relevance. First, it should be stressed that the system of relevance provides access to all the «places» of Schutz’s analyses, from the world of life to the theory of action, whether they concern the methodological, theoretical or «applied theory» dimensions. Moreover, the system of relevance can be understood as the pivot on which the entire Schutz’s interpretative paradigm rotates. The system of relevance contains, at various degrees of articulation, the mechanism of the construction-interpretation of experience based on the principle of the «selective character of the spirit». Although the system (and the process that concerns it) is always understood as unitary, it is distinguished, for heuristic reasons, in three sub-systems: thematic, interpretative, motivational. Each of these, in turn, is articulated dichotomously into imposed versus intrinsic or «voluntary» relevance. The system thus manages to fathom deeply the different traits of the constitutive of experience.