In his book, A Manual for Creating Atheists, Peter Boghossian introduced Street Epistemology (SE) to the world nearly a decade ago. SE is a non-confrontational way to help people clarify what they believe and why they believe it. By asking Socratic-style questions, SE helps people calibrate the confidence in their beliefs to the reasons and evidence they have for holding those beliefs.
A movement formed around SE, with participants initially focused on engaging claims by religious fundamentalists. Since then, new forms of irrational thinking not bound to religious fundamentalism have emerged. These have been actively undermining our institutions.
When Peter developed SE, Critical Social Justice had not yet weaved its way into society. But the epistemological strategies and techniques he developed—and the SE community improved upon and added to—are just as timeless and relevant with this new epistemological threat as they were with older, more established belief systems.
This past Spring, Peter traveled to universities with a film crew for the Reverse Q&A Tour, and he and his team brought SE with them (Including famed Street Epistemologist Reid Nicewonder!) We’ve shared dozens of conversations from the tour over the last few months, and we still have a few behind-the-scenes videos that will be released. As we begin to wrap up this project, we want to give thanks to the Indiegogo supporters who made the Reverse Q&A possible.
In addition to receiving production credits, we sent original haikus to our Indiegogo supporters. We are sharing one of these with all of you who have joined us along the way.
A sincere thank you to everyone for your support in all its forms.
And now, put on your seatbelts! Peter’s next project is All Things Re-Considered, an in-depth analysis and humorous look at NPR’s coverage. It’s coming your way in October!
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An answer to a question I did not think to ask from in the post!!
What is next?
Looking forward to the content generated around that subject.
Nice shout out for Reid.
All those that support the tip of the spear deserve our sincere thanks and acknowledgement.
Love that you’re tackling NPR. I used to think that they were too tame to be considered Left. Am looking forward to your take on the network.