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Is street epistimology a failed epistemology in itself?

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A while ago, I read a book called "How to have impossible conversations" by  Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay. Now don't get me wrong; this is an excellent book. And I highly recommend it as a good read because a lot of stuff in it does work and is backed up by decades of empirical psychological research. Some of the things you will find in this book are hostage negotiable tactics, deradicalization strategies, interrogation methods, street epistemology (AKA SE), Anti-SE, quick rapport building, and much more. Hence, most of this stuff works but do remember the stuff being employed by people here are those that have had years of practice doing this and spent a significant amount of time with their target. The exception is however the rapport-building part; this doesn't take years and if you want to be more popular then this part will definitely be invaluable.

However, the SE seems to only make up a marginal part of the book. Now, for those of you that don't know what street epistemology is it is a method where people go out on the street and ask people how they know what they know, literally, and they do this in fairly short intervals. It's loosely based on the Socratic method of inquiry which I also like the idea of. And the Socratic method is where you are in a debate with someone and you either reason to yourself that you were wrong or reason that the other person was wrong and you were right all along, and that both parties remain in an element of doubt about each of oneself views until an agreement via reasoning of Socratic inquiry has been reached; if only all debates could be like this? Maybe the world would be a better place.

Anyway, some people have used SE to try and reason religious people out of their faith. Now I am not religious myself and this isn't me defending religion; in fact, I will not defend anything that I think is a failed epistemology. But as a skeptic, I would like to ask the SEs how exactly they know their SE interactions have worked. So, you go out one day to a religious guy, spend about 10 minutes, build rapport, and get what you feel is an element of doubt installed in the other party. And then you never see that person again. How exactly do you know that that person has not just forgotten about what you said which is the most likely as these one-off interactions are highly probable to lose their power over time?

So, to conclude spending short minute intervals on the street with people with the goal of trying to convert them to a better way of reasoning other than faith just doesn't cut it. And rather ironic. Over to you.






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