Street Epistemology And Socratic Questioning
Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2016 6:58 am
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?
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?