Street Epistemology is Open Source

By Peter Boghossian — 24-Sep-2016

Listen to the audio version

o·pen-source

adjective

COMPUTING

1. denoting software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified.

Street Epistemology is Open Source. That is, it has no leaders, popes, chieftains, or dictators. It’s simply a method to help others live lives free of delusion.

Think Linux, not Windows. Street Epistemology offers a template that people can build upon. A Manual for Creating Atheists, Anthony Magnabosco’s videos, the Street Epistemology website, Atheos, etc., are all tools to help you develop your own approach when engaging others. Use these as guides—maybe even as confidence boosters—but tweak, innovate, experiment, and play off of your strengths.

Street Epistemology is decentralized, not regimented. It focuses on ideas, not personalities, considers thought leaders’ opinions, yet doesn’t put them on pedestals, and encourages emerging approaches not restrictive rules.

As Street Epistemology becomes more commonplace, it’s even more important to resist the temptation to look to authorities for answers. These are your conversations. Your friends. And helping people in your life to be more reflective, honest, and less dogmatic about their beliefs demands that you use your voice in those conversations. Not mine. Not someone else’s. Yours.

Moving forward, we should try to keep the Open Source model in mind. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes, or subjecting your conversations to scrutiny. That’s how you learn. That’s how Street Epistemology grows: Redistribute and modify.

Editor's note: Street Epistemology as a method is not a copyrightable work and so the term "Open Source" does not apply to it literally. Rather, the process by which Street Epistemology evolves is in the spirit of an Open Source community in which users modify the methods to suit their requirements, and contribute their modifications and improvements back to the community.

Actual creative works about Street Epistemology such as Peter Boghossian's "A Manual for Creating Atheists" and Anthony Magnabosco's videos remain subject to their original copyright terms. Just don't take the methods and claims expressed in such works as the final word on Street Epistemology, but rather as a starting point for revision and improvement.