That is, I may well have floundered and died if I were confronted with the environmental (social and physical) stressors and affordances he was able to navigate. Gregg Henriques, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at James Madison University. %��������� In metaphysics, knowledge by acquaintance has increasingly been incorporated into arguments concerning the nature of conscious experience and the viability of physicalism. >O��4�C�:����@�69*4�=��`��wW4�qNPP�Q�`+(�=W�uRIJ���WT|�M��p�|�� 4�|��9k0��C�(UÜ��#O������+w�-�fWVf��tJv�DR�d�b�H��(�%�;q� What counts as “good evidence” in these themes/areas of knowledge? Is there any knowledge that a person or a society has a responsibility to acquire, or not to acquire. The areas of knowledge roughly correspond with the groups of study within the IB programme, even though there are some additional realms of knowledge such as ethics, religion and indigenous knowledge which are relevant to TOK. Read more about cookies. << /Length 5 0 R /Filter /FlateDecode >> Knowledge questions may imply links between areas of knowledge, the themes and also the four elements of the course: scope, perspective, ethics, tools & methods. For example, you may have read an article on driverless cars and the way they are programmed to make ethical decisions (i.e. Within your TOK classes, you will also explore boundaries and overlaps between different areas of knowledge. Abortion should be illegal. Knowledge questions may explore the strengths and limitations of methods and tools at our disposal in the (human) search for knowledge and, perhaps even the truth. What responsibilities rest on the knower as a result of their knowledge in these themes/ areas of knowledge? Can you relate this to another area of knowledge (history) and explore if this has always been the case? Copyright 2020 Lanterna Education ltd, not affiliated with the IBO. In order to deeply delve into this title, we need to: 1) define what personal circumstances are What ethical responsibilities do we have regarding knowledge that has been created or published by other people? The distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description has a number of important applications in philosophy. Why are so many people drawn to conspiracy theories in times of crisis? You can find some examples of general knowledge questions based on these elements below. While my TOK may well be more coherent, empirical, and comprehensive, if I were to be transported back into his time and attempted to live in his world, the conduciveness of my TOK relative to his may well be far lower. !function (d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0], p = /^http:/.test(d.location) ? What are the key current open/ unanswered questions in these themes/ areas of knowledge? Although there is much debate about this, philosophers have offered four basic angles to analyze one's TOK. ​​. (For me, the difference between coherence and correspondence is seen comparing people with disorganized schizophrenia from delusional schizophrenia. Try exploring this with regards to mathematics as an area of knowledge (theorem vs. proof). But what do questions about TOK have to do with psychology? Learn more about theory of knowledge. Perhaps one of the best ways to do that is to spend time with people who have very different worldviews. 1) define what personal circumstances are, 2) consider why it is assumed that personal circumstances affects how seriously your knowledge is taken, 3) (most importantly) discuss if this matters, One way of approaching this question is writing about the notion of biased perspectives and biased knowledge. The TOK guide, provided by the IBO, has suggested a range of knowledge questions on these elements for each part of the course. Is this where the difference between a description and explanation becomes blurred? In philosophy, a distinction is often made between two different kinds of knowledge: knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description. As a thoughtful and purposeful inquiry into different ways of knowing, and into different kinds of knowledge, TOK is composed almost entirely of questions. These are the second-order claims made in TOK that are justified using the tools of TOK, which usually involve an examination of the nature of knowledge. Science is more reliable than faith. Clearly there is a difference between a description and an explanation, but is there anything that we can pinpoint which clearly marks something as one or the other? So there we have it, three of this year’s TOK essay titles broken down! How are you feeling about the TOK presentation? (Although meant rhetorically, I welcome readers' reactions). Matter is made up of atoms. 1) Coherence refers to the extent to which the knowledge system offers semantically clear constructs that relate to one another in a logically coherent way. Naturally, as this is a Picasso quote, considering the quote with regards to art as an area of knowledge may be valuable. Consider, for example, the contrast between myself and Huck Finn. What is TOK? This is a new blog grounded in the ideas put forth in the just-released book, A New Unified Theory of Psychology. For example, I recently listened to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn on tape, and it is striking to consider how different the character's worldviews are to my own. To contrast, one could consider religious knowledge systems as an area of knowledge. This question allows you to explore the foundations of moral judgement (and set ethical principles), for example. Biases are personal circumstances that shape the way in which we see and perceive knowledge. The next question becomes if it matters that we assign less credibility to information/knowledge that deem to have been affected by personal circumstances (biases). Naturally, we as knowers take information from famously biased people, organisations, or news sources less seriously than ones in which we believe bias has not affected the information.