Thomas Luckmann
What we take as reality is built up from everyday knowledge we share, and in modern life religion does not vanish but moves out of the churches into private life.
Placement
Sociologist of knowledge and religion, born in what is now Slovenia and teaching mainly at Konstanz: with Berger he showed how everyday knowledge builds social reality; in modern societies religion becomes “invisible”, a private search for meaning beyond the churches.
Key ideas
- Social construction of reality
- Invisible religion
- Structures of the life-world (with Schutz)
Teachers: Alfred Schutz
Influence
Influenced by 5
Émile Durkheim
influenced by
Against a church-centred sociology of religion, Luckmann took up Durkheim’s functional view of religion as what binds individuals into a social order of meaning (The Invisible Religion, 1967). T. Luckmann, Das Problem der Religion in der modernen Gesellschaft (1963); The Invisible Religion (1967)
Evidence: AI draft
Émile Durkheim › 1858–1917
Edmund Husserl
influenced by ✓
Luckmann continued Husserl’s analysis of the life-world in completing Schutz’s Structures of the Life-World (1975, 1984) and treated phenomenology as a ‘protosociology’ underlying social science. A. Schütz and T. Luckmann, Strukturen der Lebenswelt (1975, 1984); T. Luckmann, “Philosophie, Sozialwissenschaft und Alltagsleben” (1973); SEP “Edmund Husserl”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Edmund Husserl › 1859–1938
George Herbert Mead
influenced by ✓
With Berger, Luckmann took over Mead’s account of socialisation through significant others and the ‘generalized other’, internalising society’s roles and norms (The Social Construction of Reality, 1966). P. L. Berger and T. Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality (1966); G. H. Mead, Mind, Self, and Society (1934); SEP “George Herbert Mead”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
George Herbert Mead › 1863–1931
Max Weber
influenced by ✓
With Berger, Luckmann joined Weber’s subjective meaning of action to Durkheim’s social facts: society is a human product and an objective reality (The Social Construction of Reality, 1966). P. L. Berger and T. Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality (1966), introduction; SEP “Max Weber”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Max Weber › 1864–1920
Alfred Schutz studied with
studied with ✓
Luckmann studied at the New School for Social Research in New York in the 1950s and attended Schutz’s courses; after Schutz’s death he completed Strukturen der Lebenswelt from his drafts (1975/1984). A. Schütz & T. Luckmann, Strukturen der Lebenswelt I (1975), preface
Evidence: AI draft
Alfred Schutz › 1899–1959
Works
A treatise in the sociology of knowledge: society is a human product, society is an objective reality, the human being is a social product.
Religion does not disappear in modern society; it leaves the churches and becomes a private matter of individual meaning.
Position
With Berger, Luckmann gave the sociology of knowledge a new subject: not the ideas of intellectuals but the everyday knowledge by which people orient themselves. Habits become institutions, institutions are legitimated by stories and theories, and each new generation internalises them as simply the way the world is; society is a human product and at the same time an objective reality. In his study of religion (German 1963; enlarged as The Invisible Religion, 1967) Luckmann criticised a sociology of religion that counted church attendance. Religion, he argued, is the capacity of human beings to transcend their biological nature by building worlds of meaning; in modern societies it does not disappear but leaves the churches and becomes a private assortment of meanings – the self, family, sexuality, self-realisation. Critics objected that so broad a concept of religion includes almost everything, even football. In Konstanz he turned to the sociology of communication and studied “communicative genres” – fixed patterns such as gossip, conversion stories or moral sermons – through which societies pass on knowledge and morality. His students, among them Hubert Knoblauch, built on this in what became known as “communicative constructivism”.
Life & context
Thomas Luckmann was born in 1927 in Jesenice, then in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Yugoslavia from 1929), today in Slovenia, to an Austrian father and a Slovenian mother. He studied philosophy and linguistics in Vienna and Innsbruck and in 1950 emigrated to the United States, where he studied at the New School for Social Research in New York with Alfred Schutz and took his doctorate in 1956. After teaching at Hobart College and the New School he became professor in Frankfurt in 1965, and in 1970 at the new University of Konstanz, where he taught until 1994. Together with Peter L. Berger, his friend from the New School, he wrote The Social Construction of Reality (1966). After Schutz’s death he completed The Structures of the Life-World from Schutz’s notes (German 1975 and 1984). He died at his home in Carinthia in 2016.
Further main works
- The Structures of the Life-World (with Alfred Schutz, 1975/1984)
- Theory of Social Action (Theorie des sozialen Handelns, 1992)
As of November 2026 · Sources · Improve this page · How Agora is made