What criteria can we use to distinguish between knowledge, belief and opinion?

Activity One: What do we know?

· Complete the following sentence with three different knowledge statements.

· Try to make each of your three statements as different as they can from each other.

· Once you’re done writing the statements, explain how you know each statement next to it.

I know that _____________________.

Activity Two: How do we know?

· Share your statements with the partners at your table. Also discuss the various ways in which you know each of those statements.

· Once each person is done sharing, consider the different types of knowledge claims each person made. Also consider the different ways that people know.

· Work with each other to make a general list of how people know.

Examples:

· I know my name is Audrey

· I know when I’m hungry

· I know my sister and I are identical twins

· I know that A is the first letter of the English alphabet

· I know that nothing is certain…that may not be certain

· I know the formula for photosynthesis

· I know that bananas have potassium

· I know that you can overdose on potassium

Activity Three: Knowledge and certainty. How do we establish that fact is fact?

· Go back to the list of knowledge claims each member of your group made. Is each statement equally true? Equally certain? If so, explain why. If not, explain why not. What differentiates the quality of the knowledge statements.

Activity Four: What is your definition of knowledge?

Reflect on the work that you have done previously?

What criteria can we use to distinguish between knowledge, belief and opinion? What similarities unite these terms?

Which statement do you agree with the most, please offer justification?

Knowledge is more reliable than belief

Knowledge must be external to the individual

Knowledge can be proven, maybe belief can be disproven

Knowledge is more certain than belief

Coherence Theory:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23431190-600-knowledge-what-separates-fact-from-belief/

Analyse each of the following quotations and discuss the questions that follow.

1 ‘The things that make me different are the things that make me.’ A. A. Milne (1882–1956)

2 ‘If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways.’

Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)

3 ‘When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.’ Lao Tzu (6th century BCE)

4 ‘Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.’ Aristotle (384–322 BCE)

5 ‘To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s.’

Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881)

For each quotation, consider:

a To what extent do you agree or disagree with the quotation?

b How might you challenge the quotation?

c What assumptions underlying the quotation can you identify?

d Does the quotation challenge or affirm your own perspective on who you are?

e To what extent does your answer to question d depend on your answer to question a

https://healthymemory.wordpress.com/2017/04/03/inside-knowledge-what-separates-fact-from-belief/