Welcome to Within Reason. My name is Alex O'Connor. My guest today is Peter Begozian, who is the founding faculty fellow, a founding faculty fellow at the University of Austin, former professor at Portland State University.

Place we shall not name, which we won't go into. And also, I believe you coined the term street epistemology. Correct, if I'm not mistaken.

2013. So I have spoken before to Anthony Magna Bosco, who is a wonderful street epistemologist. And we actually tried to do some street epistemology together at the time, after when I was in Austin, we went to the university campus and he said, well, let's get out in the street and let's get you doing some street epistemology.

Yeah, because it was the summertime. It was too hot. It was, it was allergy season. And when I showed up today, you know, I was sort of sniffling a little place because the weather at the moment, I just sort of have a, have a horrific form of hay fever. So I'm, I'm either allergic to grass or apparently allergic to street epistemology.

I don't know which it is. Well, Austin's an oven in the summer. I wouldn't try to do anything other than E. Barbecue there. It's a truly horrific in the summer.

It was quite an experience, but it's interesting now to sit down with a man who coined the term. Yeah, people who are listening who might not know what street epistemology is. And you give them the sort of the blurb definition. So thanks for asking.

Street epistemology is a way and we're actually in the room with the president of street epistemology read nice wonder where we go all around the world. And we make videos.

So street epistemology is street epistemology epistemology means how you know what you think you know.

So it's taking epistemology from a formal academic setting and bring it into the street hence the street epistemology. And what it is is we ask people and help them clarify their beliefs and how strongly they believe something

or confidence with the evidence and the reasons they have for something. So it's a very civil non-confrontational way to help people align the confidence they have in their beliefs with the evidence for those beliefs or the reasons that they hold the beliefs.

The thing that I kept getting taught off for by Anthony when we tried to do street epistemology was that I was a little bit too obvious in my own opinions.

Yeah, you can't do that. They will compromise as the integrity of the whole process.

Now I thought that I was being quite neutral. I thought that I was just sort of asking questions trying to get to the basics of why people believe certain things. But he seemed to be suggesting at certain points that it was sort of slipping through the cracks.

Well, there's a corrective for that and actually read came up with this for when we go around the world and we do this the very last question that we ask everybody is.

So we have lines strongly disagreed disagree slightly disagree neutral and then the other side will put people on the neutral line will ask them a claim they'll walk to align they can switch at any point as long as they commit to a full line.

They don't have to switch at all they can stand the neutral line and this is like on a university campus anywhere we've done it here we've done it on the street just streets university campuses doesn't matter where it is.

But the last question that I asked people is what line do you think I'd be on right and if they say I don't know it's successful or if they say that's the best I don't know the next best is if they say the opposite.

The worst is if they know if they know what you would believe because then then they'd be trying to think or maybe maybe thinking that you're trying to persuade them and it's not about persuading anybody.

I take a great deal of pride when I see hate comments of the form on my podcast.

When I spoke to constant kiss and and he was talking about freedom of speech right and I'm pushing back and I'm saying but you know should be really have unrestricted speech can't words be harmful isn't it all just the brain saying it doesn't like a certain experience that it's that it's feeling.

And he re-uploaded a clever bit on to his own channel and and the comments are sort of painting me out to be this ridiculous sort of sensorial you know wokest and I think to myself like the fact that I'm otherwise described as a free speech activist another label that I don't really like very much.

I must say that I indulge in a little bit of pride in thinking that I've done such a good job of hiding what my position actually is and my capacity as an interviewer.

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