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Comment by kventr on Against Street Epistemology · 2019-04-26T18:54:50.287Z · LW · GW

The criticisms are somewhat fair if SE is considered a literal application of what's said in the articles from the webside, but what we practice doesn't resemble what's described in the OP. I've written a comment below.

Comment by kventr on Against Street Epistemology · 2019-04-26T18:53:51.715Z · LW · GW

I think there's no need to go into detailed discussion of all the things attributed to SE in this post, but being a host of a Russian SE community, I'll be happy to answer any particular questions if you have them.

I think I'll start by saying some thoughts that come to mind and maybe we'll expand from there.

First of all, street epistemology (SE) is a tool and not an ideology. So for me it's certainly not "all about finding poorly articulated or unarticulated spots in people's epistemological views". It's about having the best conversations I can have. And if I know how to improve my conversations in any way, I would just do that. When I think about SE I think about unpacking the belief in question and discussing the reliability of the ways of reasoning being used. It's not at all necessary to find flaws in reasoning, the interlocutor (IL) can easily turn out to be better equipped than ourselves, and then we can learn from her, and not the other way around.

So, having said that, those articles on the website are to be considered as some particular understanding of the method by different interested people, and not as some official rules to be applied in your conversations using SE. As much as I like what I think I've learned from SE, I have lots of disagreement with some of the things written in those articles too. For example, I also don't like the part from the website article where it suggests to "ask questions that, when answered, lead to a contradiction of your interlocutor's assumptions or hypotheses". Probably it's just a poor choice of words, but one can assume that the purpose is to find contradictions, which it is not.

So the criticisms in the OP are somewhat fair if SE is considered a literal application of what's said in the articles from the website, but I would suggest against it.

Now about "avoiding presenting additional evidence or advancing arguments against the interlocutor's position".

I wouldn't suggest avoiding arguments whatsoever. I would even suggest for it but with a small catch: first make sure the interlocutor is interested in your arguments and that she will probably find that particular kind of argument valid for herself in that context. For example, your IL says that she is against legalization of prostitution because it makes people involved worse off, and you believe that it's just plain wrong and people involved have a better say on this subject (I'm not saying that's the case, it's just for the sake of an example). So instead of just saying, "But it's wrong because those people themselves want it, and they know better than anyone what's at stake here", just ask first, "Would you be interested in learning the opinion of people directly involved, and how could their opinion influence your own stance on the question?" If the IL is interested and can find it potentially important to know, then feel free to present that evidence. And another point is that after such a question the argument itself will probably be more welcome. But if your IL is not interested, then you would have wasted your effort anyway, and you should probably just continue unpacking her belief by questions like, "Why do you think people involved would be worse off?" etc.

And if both the parties are ready to just present arguments and evidence to each other straight away and honestly assess them, and possibly shift their positions if the evidence suggests it, then yes, you don't need SE at all in that situation.

It's just a set of tools which you can use in situations you see fit for it. Learn from it whatever you think is useful for you, and feel free to improve on that.