Street Epistemology And Socratic Questioning

[Mr. Purple]

I've started looking into Peter Boghossian and his Street Epistemology methods for changing people's minds. I think it has convinced me I have been arguing with believers incorrectly for years. The core idea behind this method is to exclusively target faith and undermine its credibility as a method for coming to truth. You drill down on how they know what they think they know. This makes a lot of sense to me. Instead of trying to counter a specific claim someone makes, You would ask them about the process they used to gain confidence in that claim.

From watching this method in action on youtube, it seems to have major advantages. It's less threatening to have a conversation as a sort of brainstorm for best methods to come to truth rather than attacking their actual positions they have set up defences for. You aren't trying to win a debate or prove someone wrong, you are just trying to get people to reflect on their own beliefs. It also is far more helpful to the believer in the long run. If you disprove the bible, a person may just switch to the koran since their method for coming to truth is still faith. This method doesn't work if the person honestly holds their belief because of evidence. In that case you can address the claim itself, but that seems to be rare compared to their root reason being faith based.

There is a Youtuber named Anthony Magnabosco who is going out every day and trying to do a quick street proselytising version of this. Some of the ways he makes his points could be refined to be less awkward I think, but it's still helpful to see it in action. Here are some examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkQuFu2gmIM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCuPXyR_BQE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsUZd9q5mOk

(As a side note, In one of Anthony's talks, he mentions that he is becoming more and more convinced that he should stop eating animals.)

What are everyone's thoughts on this method?

[miniboes]

What have you watched/read of Peter? I'm pretty sure this is much of what Matt Dillahunty does on the Atheist Experience, and I think it's rather effective. Anybody got thoughts on how you would apply this to veganism? Would you go out on the street and do this, questioning the consumption of animal products in a similar way?

[Mr. Purple]

I've mostly been exposed to him since he entered in with the circle of people talking about the "regressive left". I've watched one or two of his online talks and a lot of his interviews with podcasts I follow such as Rubin Report, Joe Rogan, Gad saad, Dogma Debate, and probably some others. He has a book called "A Manual for Creating Atheists" that talks about the method and tools to ask the right questions.

This is a good rundown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_UD3AGFG6I

I'm pretty sure this is much of what Matt Dillahunty does on the Atheist Experience, and I think it's rather effective.

Matt dillahunty does use questions to great effect which I agree is awesome. This method peter is putting forward just makes the questioning part of the debate almost exclusively the focus. I hadn't fully recognized how ineffective it was to debate claims before very precisely identifying what is actually driving the person's acquisition of that belief and making it clear to them.

I'm sure there are lessons to be learned from this for veganism as well though that definitely seems more tricky.

[brimstoneSalad]

The equivalent in veganism would be asking people what morality is, and why they think it means what they think it means, getting at the underlying system they believe in and its implications, or undermining that system (if it is not making good conclusions) with questions that demonstrate inconsistency.

[miniboes]

The equivalent in veganism would be asking people what morality is, and why they think it means what they think it means, getting at the underlying system they believe in and its implications, or undermining that system (if it is not making good conclusions) with questions that demonstrate inconsistency.

Yea, I was thinking about perhaps demonstrating inconsistency simply by asking about other kinds of animals they would not consume to products of. Similarly to how Anthony asks 'If you were born in India, might you believe in Vishnu instead?", you could ask "If you were born in China, would you perhaps be okay with eating dog meat?". Not sure how effective this would be.