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StreetEpistemology.com

Street Epistemology (SE) is a conversational tool that helps people reflect on the quality and reliability of their reasoning in a non-confrontational manner. Here are some steps that may help you through a conversation. Don’t feel obligated to use all of these simultaneously. Pace yourself and try to go where your conversation partner takes you!

1. Choosing the topic, obtaining consent, introducing SE

  • What would you say is your claim?
  • Do you mind if I ask you some questions about it?
  • I’m really interested in examining your belief and the ways of reasoning behind it.
  • One goal is to understand your reasoning and reflect on its reliability together.
  • I'll be happy to answer the same questions myself as well if you're interested.
  • The approach I'd like to use in this conversation is called Street Epistemology. It's aimed at examining the methods we use to come to conclusions.

2. Clarification of the belief. The “What” type of questions

  • What do you mean by that?
  • Could you please elaborate on that, so that I can better understand it?
  • Can you please give me your best example of how that works?

In case the belief is ethical:

  • Do you think anything should be done about it?
  • What kind of results do you expect to see?
  • So you believe that these [particular] actions would result in those [testable] consequences?
  • What are the pros and cons of this solution?

Testing for the interest in examining the belief:

  • How important do you find this subject?
  • Do you think that people who disagree with you are wrong?
  • If your belief was faulty in some way would you like to know about it?

3. Finding the level of confidence

  • How confident are you in this belief?
  • On a scale from 0 to 100% how confident are you that your [particular] belief is correct?

4. Searching for the confidence reasons. The “Why” questions

  • Why do you think so?
  • What gives you that amount of confidence?
  • What would you say is the main reason for that confidence?
  • If you didn’t have that [particular reason] how would that impact your confidence?
  • If we put all your reasons on a pie chart how big of a slice would each reason get?

5. Examining the reliability of the methods. The “How” questions

Socratic questioning:

  • Should this [particular] evidence give us that amount of confidence?
  • Would the same reasoning work with different claims?
  • Can our feelings be deceptive?
  • Can a person have faith in something that is not true?
  • How can we determine if two separate events are related in any way?
  • How could we test this?

Searching for alternative explanations:

  • What alternative explanations can you think of?
  • Is there a way to know which alternative explanation is the most plausible?
  • If there were other possible explanations would you like to know them?

Making the claim falsifiable:

  • How could we test whether it is really true?
  • Is there a possibility that you are mistaken about it?
  • What could possibly show you that you were mistaken if that was the case?
  • What new evidence would significantly shift your confidence about it?

The outsider test:

  • If another person uses the same [particular] methods and comes to a different conclusion than you do, how could an outside observer decide which one of your claims is more likely to be correct?

  • If some methods can lead us to different and contradictory conclusions what does it tell us about the reliability of such methods?

  • What question do you think would be important to ask next?

  • What would be a good question to ask yourself?

6. Feedback and reflection

  • Did our chat generate any interesting thoughts?
  • Did your level of confidence fluctuate in any way afterwards?
  • Did you enjoy our conversation?

7. Concluding the conversation

  • SE talks can absolutely be a back and forth exchange. Ask if they would like to use these questions with you, or maybe to just learn your stance on the same subject.
  • Exchanging contacts and information.
  • Thank you for the chat!