ABSTRACT
To examine what the familiar and the strange mean, and why constituting the former as the latter is beneficial for sociology, Chapter 3 explores different provinces of the familiar and the strange and justifies social defamiliarization on methodological and practical grounds. Drawing from Schutz, the familiar is analyzed in terms of the same, the similar, the existent, and the routine, a mundane world which, harkening back to Chapter 2, is shown, via Karel Kosík, to be the reified social world. Along with a short description of the uncanny, the strange is analyzed as the unfamiliar and the absurd. Social defamiliarization is scientifically beneficial because it encourages the asking of new questions about social phenomena that were previously too obvious to be reflected upon; deepens the capacity to gain more extensive and precise knowledge about social phenomena; and fosters better interpretations of social phenomena. Social defamiliarization is practically beneficial because it draws attention to the contingency and changeability of social arrangements. However, these practical benefits are limited by current social conditions, a problem returned to in Chapter 5. The conclusion touches on sociological dimensions of social defamiliarization, especially how objective social changes impose strangeness on what was formerly familiar.
