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This course provides an introduction to Theory of Knowledge, examining knowledge issues and ways of knowing in various areas of knowledge. Topics include evaluating alternative explanations, using models for predictions, and the influence of culture on knowledge. Through exercises and case studies, students will develop critical thinking skills and gain a deeper understanding of how knowledge is constructed and evaluated.
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Prior Notions • What do you know about TOK? • What type of questions characterize TOK skills?
Knowledge Issues • Knowledge issues are questions that explicitly address knowledge. • Knowledge issues are best expressed in terms of ToK vocabulary. • When is a scientist justified in saying that she knows something? • Does intuition help us make moral judgements? • To what extent does language influence our understanding of history? • Consider, for example, a real-life situation. Let's say you know someone who visits an acupuncturist.
Does TM work? Traditional medicine Acupuncture How can we establish if TM works? In what ways do TM and science explain the natural world? How do we evaluate alternative scientific explanations?
To what extent can human sciences use mathematical techniques to make accurate predictions? How can we use models to predict crime waves? Will police crime predictions turn out to be correct? How can we prevent crime?
Work Individually • Reflect on a specific situation that had generated a knowledge issue in your mind. • Include a brief slide describing it on the provided presentation on the Wiki.
Radical Doubt and Areas of Knowledge • I exist. • But do I? • Is it possible that you are dreaming right now? • Are some areas of knowledge more certain than others? • Arts, ethics, history, mathematics, natural sciences, human sciences, indigenous knowledge, religious knowledge
Certainty • Difference between what you think to be true and what is certain • Write out three things you are certain of • I know that Neil Armstrong landed on the moon in 1969. • I know that strawberries are red. • I know that murder is wrong. • How do we know what we know?
Other Concerns • Relativism and judgment become paramount • Is there danger in misguided • beliefs? • Dangers in gullibility and skepticism (examples?) • Factors in demonstrating reasonable knowledge - evidence and coherence • Argument ad ignorantiam • Ghosts must exist because no • one has proved that they do not. • Confirmation bias • Correct horoscopes
Exercise in perspective • You are planning a BBQ for Memorial Day with all of the members of this class. You choose to have it at Monmouth Battlefield State Park. • How would each of these professionals analyze the pros and cons of that location? • Historian • Entrepreneur • Scientist • Artist • Poet • Mathematician
10 Minutes to Construct a Map of Monmouth County – you Decide What Goes on It. Prepare to Present.
Assumptions and Values Come From Culture. They Then Direct us in the Ways of Knowing and Areas of Knowledge.
