Good Morning

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Good Morning

• Please make yourself a drink and find your seat.
• With your table mates please have a conversation
  on how your background has affected your
  knowledge.
• Secondly please discuss what you know about TOK
  and what you believe about TOK.

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Welcome to Theory of Knowledge

• Stingrays
• Platos dialogues on Socrates and confusion.

STINGRAYS
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Socrates is accused of deliberately confusing
everyone by Meno

• Meno says
• you are exactly like the flat sting ray that
  one meets in the sea. Whenever anyone comes into
  contact with it, it numbs him If you behaved
  like this as a foreigner in another country, you
  would most likely be arrested as a wizard.
• Socrates replies If the sting ray paralyzes
  others only through being paralyzed itself, then
  the comparison is just, but not otherwise. It is
  not that, knowing the answer myself, I perplex
  other people. The truth is rather that I infect
  them also with the perplexity I feel myself.

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• The point is, if one of the most brilliant
  thinkers in the history of the world not only
  experienced confusion, but believed that it was a
  positive emotion, then theres really no shame in
  getting bewildered from time to time.

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• Terms we take for granted, like truth, belief,
  opinion, and of course knowledge are often far
  from straightforward, and will be considered in
  some detail as we proceed.
• Now think back to the conversation you had with
  your table mates at the start of the class.

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What you know about TOK (the truth) What you believe about TOK

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The Big Three

• What is this class all about?
• Is it the same as philosophy?
• Is it based on humanities?
• Is it more to do with science?
• Is it more skills-based designed to help you
  study?
• Is it mandatory?
• How is it assessed?

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1. What is this class all about?

• All of these things and more!
• It involves some philosophy, and draws on the
  ideas of the most famous thinkers from throughout
  history.
• Certainly, it involves looking at aspects of the
  humanities, as well as the different sciences.
• And there are parts of it that will definitely
  help you to improve the way you study other
  academic subjects.
• But theres a lot more to it than those things.
  Its probably best understood by looking at its
  aims, the fundamental one of which is simple to
  help you think more clearly and deeply.
• More on the aims in a few minutes.

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So how do we do it?

• By looking at both the subjects we study (the
  areas of knowledge) and how we perceive them (the
  ways of knowing), and then trying to work out the
  connections between them and ourselves as
  knowers.
• I know that already that sounds complicated.
• It means in practice that we try to apply what we
  are learning to the world of ideas, pondering
  such questions as Can art be fundamentally good
  or bad?
• How complete is the picture of the world that
  science provides us with?
• How much do ethical decisions depend on society
  and individual?
• Does our view of History change over time?
• ... and so on.

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2. Is it mandatory?

• Yes!
• the IBO (International Baccalaureate
  Organization) considers the skills and topics
  that youll be learning during the course very
  important.
• TOK, alongside the extended essay and CAS, is one
  of the three things that sets the diploma apart
  from other programs of its type, such as AP
  classes, and, dare we say it, makes the diploma a
  superior and more demanding course.
• Also Universities love it!

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3. How is it assessed?

• Youll be assessed in two ways in your senior
  year of the course.
• First youll write an essay which will be
  externally marked.
• You get to choose from a list of 6 titles, and
  given time in class and at home (if necessary) to
  complete it.
• Then youll give an oral presentation in class
  that will be marked by Ms. Burton.
• Your overall grade will be worked out on a scale
  of A E, and together with your extended essay,
  it will contribute up to 3 points to your overall
  mark out of 45.
• One change that has recently been made is that
  you have to pass TOK in order to pass your
  Diploma.
• Even if you have done extremely well in your
  other subjects, you will not be awarded you
  diploma if your grade in TOK is less than a C.

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• TOK is about issues, about debate, about forming
  opinions, and about trying to improve the way we
  structure our thoughts and ideas.
• It is about being critical but not cynical,
  interested but also objective, well-informed but
  not opinionated.
• What does this mean?

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• It is about encouraging the process that Maria
  Mitchell talked about when she said
• We have a hunger of the mind which asks for
  knowledge of all around us, and the more we gain,
  the more is our desire the more we see, the more
  we are capable of seeing.
• Please take the next 5 minutes to write down a
  reflection on this passage in your Journal.

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Stretch and refill
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Aims of the course

• To help students to discover the richness of
  knowledge, and to realize how empowering
  knowledge can be.
• To examine how knowledge is built up, examined,
  and evaluated by individuals and societies.
• To reflect on how we learn both inside and
  outside school - and to make links between the
  academic disciplines and our thoughts, feelings
  and actions.
• To reinforce the idea that there are many
  different ways of thinking and perspectives, and
  that assumptions that we have because of our
  cultural and individual positions may obscure the
  way we see the world.
• To suggest some of the responsibilities that may
  come with knowledge.

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• But how does TOK propose to do all these
  high-minded things? That can be fathomed out from
  the structure of the course, and its part in the
  IB diploma program.
• TOK doesnt have a curriculum quite as tight as
  other subjects. The reason for that is simple
  there is no checklist of things you have to know
  for the end of course exam, because there is no
  end of course exam.
• Instead, you are expected to be able to construct
  a wide-ranging essay and presentation that draw
  on your own ideas and opinions, formed during
  your time in the course
• Having said that, you will focus on several
  distinct things

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An introduction to knowledge

• We will begin by looking at what we mean by the
  term knowledge, and the way people have tried
  to divide it up.
• Its probably worth pointing out that looking at
  a theory of knowledge is by no means a new
  idea almost all philosophy courses at university
  level devote some time to its consideration,
  though they use the slightly less manageable term
  epistemology.
• And almost all philosophers of worth (and a great
  many thinkers in other fields) have devoted some
  of their time to thinking about it.
• In this first section, we will also think about
  truth, about various ways of testing whether
  something is true, and well come across a few
  philosophers whose ideas you probably already
  know.

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Ways of knowing (WOKs)

• We will move on to think about the ways we gather
  knowledge, and process it. In TOK, we divide
  these ways into four sense perception (sight,
  hearing, etc.), emotion, language, and reason.
• We will examine each one individually, and try to
  work out how they are all interlinked.
• In some ways they are linked in a positive way,
  working complimentarily in others, their
  relationship is more negative, and one way of
  knowing hinders another.
• Well also think about other possible ways of
  knowing. Should there just be four? What else,
  and why, could be considered a way we build up
  knowledge of the world?

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Areas of knowledge (AOKs)

• Then well go on to the knowledge itself. This we
  divide into six areas mathematics, natural
  sciences (biology, chemistry, physics), human
  sciences (sociology, anthropology, and most other
  things with an ology in them), history, ethics,
  and the arts.
• Like the WOKs, well look at them on their own,
  and then figure out how they overlap with each
  other.
• Well also investigate how the AOKs relate to the
  WOKs, and whether any of them fit naturally
  together.
• To give and example of this, we might think about
  how emotion is used by artists to convey their
  messages. We might consider how the way we use
  language affects our understanding of history. We
  might pose the question Is reason the only AOK
  used in mathematics?

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Knowledge issues

• Youll see the phrase knowledge issues a lot in
  TOK. Your essay and presentation are based around
  the idea of knowledge issues how well chosen
  they are, how well analyzed they are, and how
  well you link them together. So, what are
  knowledge issues?
• Knowledge issues are, simply, issues about
  knowledge, usually framed as questions.
• You have to be able to answer them first by
  explaining what they are, then presenting an
  argument (backed up by evidence), next, a
  counterclaim (more evidence), and finally a
  conclusion.
• They cant be too easily answerable or closed,
  but then again, they cant be too vague and
  all-encompassing.
• Ideally, they should be closely related to one or
  more of the AOKs or WOKs.
• At this stage, theyre not worth worrying about
  too much you will come to understand what is,
  and what is not, a knowledge issue as you follow
  the course.

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The TOK Diagram

• The Arts
• Emotion
• Ethics
• History
• Human Sciences
• Knower(s)
• Language
• Mathematics
• Natural Sciences
• Reason

Learn it, Live it, Love it!
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Are you ready my little Stingrays to go out and
shock yourselves and the world?
Homework bring in a picture or a copy of it that
you can cut up and use for tomorrow. Wallet size
up to 5 x 7