24 Ways Sociologists Figure Things Out (Epistemology)
Channel: Math 4 Wisdom
Date: 2023-09-16

The epistemology of sociology. How do sociologists figure things out?  Andrius Kulikauskas, host of Math 4 Wisdom, presents a diagram of 24 ways that sociologists figure things out.  Sociologist Aslam Kakar, founder of the Pashtun Studies Institute, provides his expert feedback.

This was the first meeting of the Math 4 Wisdom Sociology Study Group.  You are welcome to join us!  Start by signing up for the Math 4 Wisdom discussion group
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Andrius and Aslam met in Oneonta, New York, at the Let Me Think Scholarship Workshop, in the summer of 2023.  Aslam is about to defend his PhD in Global Affairs at Rutgers University.  His research is based on sociological and historical methods.

0:00 Introduction. Andrius introduces Aslam.
2:00 Andrius explains how he has systematized the ways of figuring things out in all manner of disciplines, including math, physics, neuroscience, biology, chess, as well as personalities, namely Jesus and the Gaon of Vilna. Each discipline presumes an observer and considers what and how they can observe. Each discipline's epistemology reflects the theater of the mind and consists of basically the same system of 24 ways of figuring things out.
5:30 The central way is to determine the self-identity of a person, a tricky challenge, because the answer may depend on who asks.  Sociology is problematic as a science. It can collect data and generate concepts but never yield scientific conclusions if it neglects to address how a person understands themselves. 
9:10 The diagram distinguishes four ways that a person manifests themselves: as an individual with a will, as the sum of how they are documented, as the ways they are classified by authorities, and as the subgroups that they are assigned to by theorists.
10:10 Six methods (longitudinal, comparative, archival, census, survey, social network) relate pairs of ways of considering an individual. For example, a survey relates subgroups that an individual may belong to with the answers that an individual provides.
12:40 How do we build up such an explicit system of society?  The sociologist must start by studying their own personal biases, for example, by keeping a diary.
14:05 There are four ethnographical methods (documentation, personal observation, codification - as with grounded theory, evaluation - ranking). They yield an external evaluation of a society.
16:20 Andrius supposes there are also four economic methods which reflect people's internal values, observing how they behave when granted freedom; when constrained; when helped to overcome a hurdle; and when they self-organize.
18:25 A three-cycle relates the ethnographic and economic perspectives.  Governing yields insights in defining policy, implementing policy and evaluating policy.
19:30 This grounds the notion of self-identity in which is rooted the spirit of society.  But people will express themselves in four ways: whether, what, how, why they experience.
20:25 There are six visualizations.
21:15 A system can be modeled with computer simulations.
21:50 Andrius explains that the diagram is read from the bottom up. The perfect observer is able to observe how an individual is changing.
24:10 Aslam ponders how much people can understand themselves.  Negotiating personal and social dimension. George Herbert Mead's theory of passive "me" and active "I". 
30:20 Identity is performance of a script. Does performance switch around "me" and "I"? Does economics present "I" as "me" and ethnographics present "me" as "I"? Do we buy in to our "me"?  Do we belong to the Republic of Imagination?
37:20 America as a society where people are valued in terms of what they do with themselves. Objective measures of how societies function, allow self-organization.
41:00 Tight and loose cultures. Room for experimentation. What is the meaning of self-assistance? Does security open up self-organization? Arranged marriage.
51:30 What do people do given freedom? Economic methods. Rational choice theory.
55:00 At our next meeting, Aslam will present his personal methodological approach.  How would that relate to the diagram? Are there methods missing?
56:30 Six explanatory concepts: Individual, Social Structure, Nature, Culture, Action, Vision.
1:04:00 Reaching out to exiled Russians for dialogue.
1:06:20 Is self-identity central to sociology? Locating the individual in society.
1:12:20 When is sociology scientific?
Aslam recommends "The Study of Man" by Michael Polanyi and "The Sociological Imagination" by Wright Mills.
1:17:30 Developing a grammar of sociology.
1:20:00 Diagram shows the building blocks of wondrous wisdom.

Recorded on September 14, 2023.

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Public Domain, 2023

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