25 Facts About Peter Boghossian

Peter Gregory Boghossian is an American philosopher and college professor.

Peter Boghossian is the author of A Manual for Creating Atheists, and of How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide.

In September 2021, Peter Boghossian resigned his position from Portland State University, citing harassment and a lack of intellectual freedom.

Peter Boghossian coined the term street epistemology for a set of conversational techniques he described, which are designed to enable examination of strongly held beliefs, especially of the religious kind, in a non-confrontational manner.

Peter Boghossian is of Armenian descent; his paternal grandparents were Armenian immigrants.

Peter Boghossian received a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from Marquette University in 1988, and later earned a Master of Arts degree in philosophy from Fordham University in 1992.

Peter Boghossian later received his Doctor of Education in 2004 from Portland State University.

Peter Boghossian's thesis looked at the use of the Socratic method with prison inmates for critical thinking and moral reasoning with the intention of decreasing ongoing criminal behavior.

Peter Boghossian was Chairman of the Prison Advisory Committee for the Columbia River Correctional Institution.

Peter Boghossian is a fellow at the Center for Prison Reform.

Peter Boghossian was employed as an assistant professor at Portland State University, quitting in protest due to what he viewed as a culture of illiberalism.

Peter Boghossian is the author of two books, A Manual for Creating Atheists, a book with a foreword by Michael Shermer, and How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide.

Peter Boghossian contributed a foreword to white supremacist commentator Stefan Molyneux's book Against the Gods.

Peter Boghossian has characteized his collaborations with Molyneux as being based only on his agreement on matters of metaphysics, and not with Molyneux's political views.

In 2017, Peter Boghossian was featured in Reasons To Believe, a documentary focusing on psychology and the science of belief.

Peter Boghossian has been a speaker for the Center for Inquiry, the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, and the Secular Student Alliance.

In September 2021, Peter Boghossian resigned his position from Portland State University.

Peter Boghossian has been described by The Daily Beast as aligned with the New Atheist movement.

Peter Boghossian advocates using the Socratic method to dissuade religious believers, though he recommends focusing on criticism of faith as a way of knowing, rather than the outward trappings of religious communities.

Peter Boghossian stated that any of the Republican candidates for the 2016 presidential election "would be an unmitigated disaster".

Peter Boghossian donated to and endorsed Andrew Yang for the 2020 United States presidential election.

Peter Boghossian has stated that the US Republican Party is "the most powerful, anti-science political movement in the world".

Peter Boghossian has often stated that cultural relativism and egalitarianism are contradictory values.

Peter Boghossian outlined the method and its application in helping religious believers to reflect on the reliability of faith as an epistemology.

However, it has been found effective in many other contexts, and Peter Boghossian later co-authored with James Lindsay How to Have Impossible Conversations, which describes the application of street epistemology to an examination of a wider range of beliefs including nonreligious ones.