1. Finding out how the social world works
Michael Schwalbe

2. How do we know things? Logical deduction
Things passed on by parents, teachers, friends
Personal experience or observation
Systematic research
Instinct

3. Each source of knowledge has limitations
Part of being sociologically mindful is to be aware of these limitations

4. Logical deduction is great
Unless the premises are wrong
Then your conclusions might be wrong
However, you can always check your assumptions and correct them

5. Relying on others Sometimes lead to different versions of the truth
Which is right?

6. Personal experience has limits
Sun revolves around earth
All people of a group are that way when you’ve only met two, etc.

7. Advantages of systematic research
Best way to create valid knowledge
Eliminate personal biases
Look beyond obvious
Check up on each other – peer review

8. This allows to have more faith in what we know

9. Empirical questions
Countable, measurable
Answerable with data

10. Aesthetic questions What is pleasing to the senses? Is this beautiful?
No amount of data or logic can prove you wrong

11. Moral questions
Is it right to do?
Calls for a judgment

12. Questions of interpretation
What does this mean?
Especially asked with works of art, or novels

13. Research is better suited to answering
Some types of questions than others
Great for empirical, can be useful for interpretative
Can only guide aesthetics and morals

14. Answers to empirical questions
Can lead to interpretative difficulties
Ex. Poverty rate story
Ex. Ice Cream Sales > Murder

15. Mindful Skepticism Numbers can be cooked up to mislead us
We rely on information from others
Can’t check out everything for ourselves

16. Key questions How was the information created? By whom?
For what purpose?
Who benefits if this information is accepted as true?

17. Being mindful puts you on alert against fraud,
But doesn’t cut you off from learning

18. Seeking alternative views
Can help see limitations of our own knowledge
Ex. Columbus

19. Recognizing the relativity of perspectives
Is part of being sociologically mindful
Maybe you can understand the world more fully
More angles from which to view it
Closer to a better version of the truth

20. To be mindfully skeptical is to live with
Inevitable uncertainty
We fear losing what we think is the truth
We never possess the absolute, complete truth

21. If we can accept that attitude toward learning,
We recognize that some alternative viewpoint can come in handy someday

22. This doesn’t mean flitting from one idea to another
Ex. Wading upstream example

23. This view can be unsettling
To imagine you know everything is comforting
Problem occurs when you encounter others who think the same
To understand and get along with others, we must consider their perspectives
And tolerate the uncertainty that comes with openness

24. Perpetual Inquiry and Conversation
Avoids dead ends of nihilism – there is no truth
And fanaticism – only one truth, and only I know it
Being mindfully skeptical keeps the conversation going

25. If you could live forever,
Would life get boring?
Or would it get more interesting as you learned more about the world and how it works?
You need curiosity, care and hope

26. Sometimes with so much hardship and day-to-day sameness
It’s hard to get people to think about these things
But a lesson in mindfulness might turn that around

27. Curiosity
Learning about patterns, connections, etc. in the social world is interesting and satisfying
You can always learn something new

28. Caring
Understanding connections shows how our thinking and acting affects others’ lives

29. Hope Awareness of problems isn’t supposed to inspire hope
It is supposed to inspire outrage and a desire to change things
However, awareness plus powerlessness often leads to despair instead

30. The social world Is a social construction
So problems are within our power to overcome them

31. You can’t do it alone
But being in a community or organization can overcome feelings of hopelessness
You can change a small part of the social world single-handedly
How you treat others
What job you do, etc.

32. The author says that sociological mindfulness
Must mean more than just studying the social world
Must do more than inspiring curiosity, caring and hope
Must change yourself and actions you take
“Heartful membership in a conversation that ought to have no end”