KQS For the Core Theme

Scope

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

• How do we distinguish claims that are contestable from claims that are not?

• Are there situations where “knowing how” is more important than “knowing that”?

• Why should we care about acquiring knowledge?

• Do we know as much as we think we know?

• Are there limits to what we can know?

• Is the point of knowledge to produce meaning and purpose in our personal lives?

​Methods and tools

• How do we acquire knowledge?

• What constitutes a “good reason” for us to accept a claim?

• Are intuition, evidence, reasoning, consensus and authority all equally convincing justifications for a claim?

• Does knowledge always require some kind of rational basis?

• Are our emotions a useful potential source of knowledge or an obstacle to knowledge?

• What tools are available to us as knowers to help us evaluate claims?

• How do our expectations and assumptions impact how we perceive things?

• Do all claims require evidential support?

Perspectives

• What shapes my perspective as a knower?

• How much of our knowledge depends on our interactions with other knowers?

• Is it inevitable that our personal perspectives will play a part in the judgements we make?

• Presented with the belief system of a community of knowers, how can we decide what we personally believe?

• Are there types of knowledge that are specifically linked to particular communities of knowers?

• What role does personal experience play in the acquisition of knowledge?

• How can we know that current knowledge is an improvement on past knowledge?

Ethics​

• Are there responsibilities that necessarily come with knowing something or knowing how to do something?

• Do knowers have a moral duty to examine their own filters?

• Under what circumstances, if any, do we have a moral duty to share what we know?

• Does all knowledge impose ethical obligations on those who know it?

• In what ways do ethical judgements differ from other kinds of judgements?

• Can moral disagreements be resolved with reference to empirical evidence?

• Is there knowledge that a person or society has a responsibility to acquire or not to acquire?

• Is there such a thing as a moral fact?

• Do established values change in the face of new knowledge?

• If moral claims conflict, does it follow that all views are equally acceptable?

• What personal traits (such as taking seriously the knowledge of others) do we need to be ethical knowers?

The TED talks below by Shermer are very popular in TOK classes. They discuss how and why people sometimes feel compelled to believe strange things. The examples given by Shermer to illustrate human gullibility are certainly entertaining. According to Shermer, we are pattern seeking animals. To guarantee our survival, we have been looking for patterns for centuries (better to be safe than sorry). Shermer argues that we still feel compelled to see patterns, whether they exist or not and he illustrates this in "The pattern behind self-deception". In terms of knowledge production, we should arguably find a good balance between too little and too much imagination. If we have too much imagination, we can find patterns where there aren't any, and this is not very useful. However, without imagination, we miss patterns that exist and we may hamper the production of knowledge.

The Pattern Behind Self Deception: https://youtu.be/b_6-iVz1R0o

Why People Believe Weird Thing: https://youtu.be/8T_jwq9ph8k

Knowledge in a post-truth age

​How do I distinguish between claims that are contestable and claims that are not?

The concept of knowledge is a rather problematic one. We are continually confronted with knowledge claims in our daily lives, but how do we know whether these claims are well founded? From wrinkle creams, to online scams and misguided reports of our colonial history, our lives are filled with all sorts of claims that pretend to be knowledge or fact. But, on what basis should we accept or reject something as knowledge? How do we know if something is true?

How false news can be spread: https://youtu.be/cSKGa_7XJkg

How to spot a misleading graph https://youtu.be/E91bGT9BjYk

How to Choose your news https://youtu.be/q-Y-z6HmRgI

Some people or entities (such as companies) can be very good at misguiding us. Politicians, for example, can use a particular type of language to manipulate our thoughts. They can pretend to care for the preservation of knowledge, when in fact, they are deliberately trying to do the opposite. This can happen in two ways. They can claim things are not true, when they are. Conversely, they can also convincingly claim something is true, when this is clearly not the case. Trump, for example, has illustrated that it is way too easy to brush "inconvenient truths" off as "fake news". It can be dangerous to disregard facts.

​However, this does not mean that we should accept every bit of information that comes our way as genuine knowledge. It is up to us to make good judgement and to critically evaluate the knowledge we encounter. Sometimes this is difficult to judge. Explanations that seem acceptable to us, may not seem acceptable to members of other communities of knowers. It can be frustrating that we cannot know everything. We are human, and we are limited to our human body and mind. There are things "out there" that we cannot (yet) perceive or understand. We could indeed claim that we can never truly know what is really "out there".

"The truth" is indeed a very tricky concept that is very difficult to define. And yet, we have gathered and produced an incredible amount of knowledge throughout history. Human beings are also ingenious when it comes to devising methods that can overcome our human limitations. Arguably, it is sometimes difficult to know something with certainty. Indeed, the historical development of disciplines (or areas of knowledge) demonstrates the provisional nature of knowledge. Yet, that does not mean we should abandon our quest for knowledge. Long gone are the days that we should fear the punishment of the Gods for getting closer to the truth

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