Street Epistemology FAQ

What is Street Epistemology?

What are the goals of Street Epistemology?

How can I learn Street Epistemology?

How does Street Epistemology apply in real-world situations?

What are the key principles of Street Epistemology?

How does Street Epistemology differ from other forms of critical thinking?

Can Street Epistemology challenge beliefs effectively?

How does Street Epistemology handle resistance or sensitive topics?

How can Street Epistemology improve communication and understanding?

What are some potential criticisms of Street Epistemology?

Some potential criticisms of Street Epistemology include: SE being atheist evangelism, manipulation, avoidant of facts, allowing for unqualified people to discuss epistemology, unnatural, and ineffective. Each of these are addressed in detail below:

SE is Atheist Evangelism
Accuracy Estimation (2017–Present): Mostly False
Accuracy Estimation (2015–2016): Partly True/Partly False
Accuracy Estimation (2013–2014): Mostly True

Ever since Street Epistemology began it has been criticized as a form of covert atheist evangelism—a charge primarily made by religious apologists. While we think this criticism is no longer quite as valid, things were a bit different in the early days of SE.

In order to properly explore this criticism, it’s important to share the common definitions of the following words:

atheist
1. Someone who lacks belief in one or more gods.
2. Someone who believes that there are no gods.

evangelism
1. The enthusiastically zealous attempt to persuade or convert others to a particular conclusion or worldview.

We understand where this criticism comes from. The concept of Street Epistemology originated in philosopher professor Peter Boghossian’s 2013 book, A Manual for Creating Atheists, an admittedly evangelistic title. The controversial book began to catch people’s attention and was regularly promoted in atheist circles as a better way to have conversations with religious believers. An expanding library of online content where SE was used to explore religious and supernatural beliefs also served to feed this criticism.

Boghossian’s book specifically encouraged readers to view faith as “pretending to know things you don’t know” and view theists as epistemic victims in need of an intervention, leading to the reasonable charge that SE was atheist evangelism. The word “street” in Street Epistemology and online examples conducted in parks and campuses practiced almost entirely by atheists no doubt added to the impression that SE might be similar to what a proselytizing street preacher might do.

Do all of these things combined make it reasonable to say that SE was atheist evangelism? Pretty much. However, even back then the main focus of Street Epistemology was more on the quality of their reasoning process, and less so on the result of it.

"The core of the intervention is not changing beliefs, but changing the way people form beliefs—hence the term ‘epistemologist.’ … the problem is with epistemologies people use, not with conclusions people hold.” – Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

Relatively quickly, practitioners from the Street Epistemology community began departing from SE’s original, narrow focus on religious claims encouraged by the book, and began to see if SE could also be used to explore a wider variety of claims.

From 2015 to 2016, SE gradually broadened its focus from religious claims to pseudoscience and the supernatural, with an emphasis on adjusting confidence downwards, which then made SE appear more like evangelism for skepticism and naturalism, if anything.

Around 2017, SE continued to evolve into what it is now, where a wide variety of topics are explored, including but not limited to ghosts, karma, veganism, gender, gun control, immigration, and critical race theory. Today, everyone is encouraged to learn, practice, and apply SE in their discussions, including those who think God is real or not. This diversification of its practitioners, coupled with the fact that the SE community has broadened its focus beyond theistic and supernatural claims, could be considered reasons to think that SE is not evangelism for some specific point of view.

We’re unsure if Street Epistemology can ever be completely decoupled from its initial association with atheism or if this should even be an area of major concern for people interested in learning SE, but it’s probably worth being aware of.

While we think SE has come very far from its original form, little can prevent someone from using the approach who does have a desire to sway or change others to a specific conclusion or worldview, be that atheism, theism, or anything else for that matter. The idea that SE could be used to bring people around to their point of view may even be a major reason for why a lot of people are drawn to Street Epistemology in the first place.

However, while a changed worldview could very well occur from an SE talk, the primary goal is reflection on the quality of our reasoning. Ultimately, we think all beliefs worthy of being held should be able to stand up to such scrutiny. If SE serves to evangelize for anything it would be for people to value the attitudes and tools that aid in critical thinking in order to live a more examined life.

SE is Manipulative
Accuracy Estimation: False

Ideally, SE talks are intended to inspire reflection and a great way to do this is by having the clearest understanding of our conversation partner’s reasoning process. But manipulating or tricking people as you work toward this goal could interfere with your ability to truly understand your conversation partner’s reasoning and damage any trust you may have had.

Ever since examples began to appear, SE has been accused of being a form of manipulation. Over time, as people started to carefully deconstruct SE talks, efforts to make SE more ethical began to appear. Despite such efforts, the criticism that SE is sneaky or manipulative is still levied and therefore is something people interested in SE probably need to be aware of.

It’s important to make a distinction between the set of tools used during an SE talk (which do not inherently have any goals) and the goals of the SEer who is using those tools. If a person attempts to use SE tools in order to manipulate someone else, that doesn’t mean that the SE tools themselves are manipulative by design, no more so than a nail is a tool for spreading butter on bread should someone decide to use it for that.

In order to further explore this criticism, let’s take a look at the common definition of the following word:

manipulation
1. A deliberate, selfish, and dishonest attempt to change someone’s mind.

Street Epistemology is not intended to be manipulative because it emphasizes being honest and having a collaborative attitude, with the primary goal of reflection. But could an SEer manipulate their conversation partner while using the tools of SE without these things? Yes, that is possible, particularly if the SEer’s attitudes, behaviors, or additional goals run counter to the prevailing spirit of SE.

The following is a list of attitudes and behaviors that could shift an SE talk into the realm of manipulation and should be avoided:

Hiding your goals
Being disingenuous in our words or actions
Revealing some goals yet intentionally hiding others
Messaging excessively
Leveraging emotions
Leveraging expertise or a power dynamic
Diminishing or hiding your own expertise
Priming someone to receive a message
Refusing to share your position when asked
Expressing fake empathy or kindness
Dismissing someone’s reasoning
Asking leading or loaded questions
Misrepresenting what someone said
Using complex yet fallacious arguments
Altercasting insincerely
Sealioning
Gaslighting

In addition to avoiding the attitudes and behaviors above, there are a couple of things an SEer can do to distance themselves from anything close to manipulation by simply revealing your goals to your conversation partner and obtaining their informed consent. We think it’s important that your conversation partner is on board with what it is you are hoping to achieve throughout your SE talk.

It’s also worth noting that even if an SEer did reveal some or all of their goals, your conversation partner or even observers themselves may later decide that your disclosure was insufficient in some way. It may not be possible to disclose absolutely everything all parties would find relevant. Trying your best to find that right level of disclosure each and every time you wish to engage someone using SE is an ethically murky area that the SEer will have to decide on based on their unique situation.

SE Avoids Facts
Accuracy Estimation: Partly True/Partly False

Another frequent criticism is that SEers seem reluctant to share any facts of their own during an SE talk. A related criticism is that SE by design does not care about any facts their conversation partner might bring to the discussion. We think it is important to understand (1) why someone doing SE might hold back their own facts and (2) why an SEer responds to their conversation partner’s facts in the way that they do.

Critics may view this decision to set aside our conversation partner’s facts (sometimes referred to as “reasons”) as an indication that the SEer is not interested in their conversation partner’s facts, or is perhaps covering up for their inability to address their conversation partner’s facts, but that is inaccurate.

First, the idea that SEers avoid injecting their own facts into their conversations is tied to an expectation around how our conversation partner might react to those facts. In the early days of SE there was an interest in a notable related phenomenon called “the backfire effect,” which hypothesizes that people become even more entrenched in their views if they encounter contradictory evidence. While more recent studies suggest that the backfire effect may not be as pronounced as originally thought, direct challenges against one’s claim in the form of contradictory facts do indeed seem to pose a liability to rapport and may change your SE interaction from collaborative exploration to contentious debate.

Despite these potential liabilities, there can be situations when the SEer shares their facts, or even corrects or challenges their conversation partner about their facts when doing SE. However, we don’t advise doing this before spending a bit of time considering by default because it’s important to consider how doing any of these things could impact your conversational goals and how your conversation partner might react.

If your conversation partner asks for your thoughts about their facts or for facts of your own, it’s probably best for the SEer to answer as clearly and concisely as possible. A conversation partner who questions their conversation partner (you) is likely engaged, interested, and also seeking clarity. Embrace it! Model the attitudes and actions you’d like to see from them in your response.

Many times a straightforward correction will result in a more guarded conversation partner. But sometimes a direct and sincere response will be well-received, resulting in greater openness. A gentle correction can even help build trust, particularly if it can be communicated clearly and compassionately. Authenticity is key, regardless. We suggest giving careful consideration when deciding to correct your conversation partner or share any facts with them.

Second, it’s fairly common during SE talks for a conversation partner to provide facts that they think support their view. When this happens, both the SEer and the conversation partner usually consider the relationship between their conversation partner’s facts to their level of confidence in the truth of the claim. Sometimes we decide to set aside a surfaced fact if we learn that it has no bearing on our conversation partner’s confidence in the truth of their claim, and it doesn’t seem helpful in any other capacity, like maintaining rapport. After we’ve identified the facts that impact our conversation partner’s confidence, we can then use SE to explore those facts.

Focusing on the relevant facts is a more efficient use of our time. In other words, we’re not avoiding our conversation partner’s facts, we're efficiently focusing our time on relevant facts.

Our conversation partner’s facts, relevant or otherwise, provide unique insights into their reasoning process, so it’s worth giving them due consideration when conducting SE.

SE-ers Are Unqualified to Do What They Do
Accuracy Estimation: Mostly False

Another criticism from some people is that those who use SE lack a specific level of expertise in psychology or epistemology which should be required in order to explore other people’s deeply-held beliefs.

The reason usually provided for the psychology-related side of this criticism is that SEers are unqualified to notice or deal with the ramifications of causing doubt in a deeply-held belief that may be tied to someone’s identity. Causing this kind of harm is certainly possible, perhaps even likely, in these specific situations. But we believe human beings are antifragile, or in other words, have the capability to thrive to a significant degree when facing stress. Virtually everyone goes through some fairly significant psychological distress due to having difficult conversations and tends to come out not just fine, but better off. Our default assumption for exploring people’s deeply-held beliefs is that humans are capable of handling such challenges unless it becomes obvious during your discussion by either your conversation partner’s words or actions that they are not. While experience in psychology might be helpful, our conversation partner’s inherent antifragility reduces the need for it.

The degree to which an SEer should be concerned about the psychological harm they may cause to their conversation partner while discussing their deeply-held belief is ethically murky territory and is best discussed openly with your conversation partner. For example, if the conversation partner explicitly states that they value truth over comfort, then the ethical calculation becomes more clear: the SEer has a strong reason to proceed. This emphasis on informed consent further reduces the need for qualifications in psychology. The conversation partner taking responsibility for the potential psychological harm they might endure in a conversation about their beliefs reduces the SEer’s responsibility for that harm and, consequently, requires less qualification from them.
"I never let my schooling interfere with my education." – Mark Twain
Another reason critics might give for thinking SEers are unqualified to challenge the quality of their conversation partner's reasoning is because they lack education in formal epistemology and hence don’t have enough understanding to deal with the intricacies of truth and ways of knowing.

Expecting practitioners of SE to have some level of expertise in epistemology is not a large leap to make. Street Epistemology contains the word “epistemology,” which is an academic word that few people are familiar with. However, it’s currently unclear if the quality of an SE conversation would be significantly improved by having additional expertise in epistemology.

While having some understanding of epistemology could prepare you for the types of concepts that are often revealed in an SE conversation, it seems that an advanced understanding of epistemology is not required. The epistemological concepts encountered in an SE conversation are fairly common and easy to understand, even for lay people. Interestingly, those who stick with SE eventually tend to gain some knowledge in formal epistemology when learning the approach and engaging with the broader SE community.

In our view, there are other ways to learn about psychological and epistemological concepts besides academia and there’s tremendous value in exploring these concepts with laypeople, many who may have never considered such things before to any significant degree. While one can have expertise in fields like psychology or epistemology, academic expertise in those disciplines is not necessary in order to have a great SE conversation about someone’s claim.

SE is Unnatural
Accuracy Estimation: Mostly True

Another criticism of SE is that it appears unnatural when compared to the other ways people normally converse and as a result, it must not be useful, is unappealing, or should be avoided. While some people may not really care about whether or not SE is unnatural, enough people surface these points where we think you should at least be aware of it.

SE talks can be quite different from the typical types of engagements that we have with others about the beliefs they hold and the claims they make. Many people don’t usually see interactions like those in SE, so when they do, it can appear alien, boring, cringey, fake, or even fringe or countercultural. Just because SE is different, however, does not mean that it’s bad or a problem. When you consider how heated and ineffective talks on controversial topics can usually get, SE being different from how we normally interact may not be such a bad thing.

In a typical conversation on a contentious topic, both parties usually take turns sharing their thoughts, often with the idea of convincing the other person about the truth of their own view, and then pointing out where their conversation partner is mistaken. While directly contesting someone’s view has its place and seems to be the default mode for most people and cultures, doing so can cause defensiveness, heighten emotions, and introduce biases, to name but a few liabilities. However, in SE we intentionally try to take a softer approach to facilitate collaboration instead of confrontation. We do that by recognizing and accounting for the things our brains instinctively do to shelter foundational beliefs from scrutiny. This, among other things, leads to an approach that differs substantially from our traditional interactions, often resulting in greater reflection.

Another thing that might make SE seem unnatural compared to other forms of engagement is the noticeable lopsidedness of the interaction, as the SEer tends to ask their conversation partner lots of questions but will often hold back from expressing their own views. We message less and question more in SE to facilitate the most open and unbiased exploration into our conversation partner’s reasoning. While the SE-er can share their own views, doing so during the exploration of your conversation partner’s views can distract you both from reflecting on them. If this imbalance becomes a concern to your conversation partner, offer to become their conversation partner for a claim that you tend to make to help even things out.

SE may also seem unnatural when the SEer manages to keep calm throughout the whole conversation, especially if their conversation partner says something triggering or very likely to be false. Some people might even perceive the SEer as robotic or devoid of emotion. While it’s natural to have and express strong emotions, learning how to temper those emotions for the purpose of being able to explore our conversation partner’s views effectively is a crucial part of SE.

Something else that could lead people to think that SE is unnatural is when they observe several SE conversations and then begin to detect a pattern or are even able to predict where the conversation might be heading. When this happens, it can certainly begin to seem like the entire conversation is scripted. While there are some general steps to help keep SEers on track, these function more like general rules and principles that collectively create a structure of sorts, so the word “scripted” is too strong of a description of what ideally occurs during an SE talk.

This methodical approach and consistency we may see in SE talks likely comes from its science-minded underpinnings more than anything else. Like in science, we want to keep what works and discard what doesn’t, which means some tools and concepts stay and are consistent across SE conversations, while others are thrown out, which can help explain why SE might appear different or in some cases even predictable than a regular conversation to some people.

While a mental or written script of some kind can be helpful, following one too rigorously could give the impression that the SEer is not really listening. Perhaps worse, following a script too closely could cross the line into insincerity, which as we discussed could shift your talk from SE and into the realm of manipulation.

Although there are distinct steps that we try to guide our conversation partner across, we should never lose sight of authenticity. Creativity, compassion, and the needs and desires of our conversation partner should also be accounted for, even if it requires going “off script.”

Perhaps one day SE talks will be much more commonplace and people will no longer find them so unusual. Maybe folks will even routinely seek them out because of the value they can offer.

SE Is Ineffective
Accuracy Estimation: To be Determined

Another criticism is that SE is ineffective or doesn’t do the things people expect. This criticism centers around several things, including the lack of a commonly-accepted definition of Street Epistemology, inconsistent ways to describe or measure its effectiveness, variations in how SE is conducted, and the absence of scientific studies.

Although efforts have been made over the years to standardize SE in the form of books, discussions, videos, presentations, workshops, documents, and guides, these efforts have never been formally codified to the degree that is happening with this course, a necessary first step before others can begin to study it more rigorously.

Critics rightly claim that, since there is no academic or scientific literature on SE specifically, there’s no reason to place too much stock in the approach. Although there are related studies from which we can make certain inferences (e.g., the benefits of building rapport, active listening, etc.), we agree that the efficacy of SE cannot reliably be asserted with a high degree of confidence at present. Based on this lack of rigorous scientific study, our accuracy estimation for this criticism is as yet undetermined.

While anecdotal experiences seem to suggest that both the conversation partner and the SEer typically enjoy the process, finding it productive and revealing, and perhaps meets some definition of effective, we realize however the limitations of relying too heavily on these observations alone. We do think that the experiences of a multitude of SEers and conversation partner’s look encouraging enough to warrant the practice, promotion, and further study of SE in the interim.

We’re optimistic that academics will begin taking an interest in Street Epistemology so that controlled studies can be performed to determine its immediate efficacy and long-term impacts. Finding people to analyze SE and publish the results is a goal of the non-profit organization Street Epistemology International.

Typical Questions about Street Epistemology