knower(s)

Knower(s)

Natural Sciences

Language

SensePerception

Emotion

Reason

Mathematics

Human Sciences

History

Arts

Ethics

Areas of Knowledge

Theory of Knowledge Diagram

Ways of Knowing

TaK - Emotion

What do you think of when you hear the word

‘Emotion’?

TaK - Emotion

Do you think that Emotion is often looked atwith suspicion?

If so, why?

TaK - Emotion

Emotion (noun)• A mental state that arises

spontaneously rather than through conscious effort and is often accompanied by physiological changes;

• a feeling • “movere” Latin – to move

TaK - Emotion

How are you feeling now, at this moment?

How do you know?Why do you think you are feeling

this way?

TaK - Emotion

What are emotions for?

TaK - Emotion

What role does emotion play in producing knowledge?

Knowledge:1. Knowing that (theoretical) ….2. Knowing how (practical) ….3. Knowing someone (familiarity) ….4. Knowing what is right (moral) ….

TaK - Emotion

To what extent are we able to control our emotions?

Which emotion is the hardest to control?

You are walking down a dark alley ... there are footsteps behind you …

TaK - Emotion

TaK - Emotion

Emotion Reason

Opposition?

TaK - Emotion

Reason and Emotion Walt Disney animation from 1943http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JStrcfHr8AY

TaK - Emotion

TaK - Emotion

Emotion Reason

Opposition?

Charioteer:Reason

Horses:Boldness & Desire

New York Times columnist David Brooks – author of ‘The Social Animal’ on the relationship between Emotion

and Reasonhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7MRleoVFRU

TaK - Emotion

An enemy of reason?or

An important precondition for knowledge?

TaK - Emotion

"Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of

the passions"David Hume (1711-1776)

TaK - Emotion

“Nothing great is accomplished in the

world without passion”Hegel (1770-1831)

TaK - Emotion

Without emotion …

We would feel neither approval nor disapproval; attraction or repulsion; like or dislike…

Everything would be of equal valueNo part of the world would be more important than any another…

There could be no interest in any human relationship, in any work, in any play…

With no emotions, can there be goals?

TaK - Emotion

TaK - EmotionEmotion Reason

Balance?

TaK - Emotion

Emotion Reason

Balance?

Emotion and Reason

Furious Gettingannoyed

Solving amaths problem

ReasonEmotion

TaK - Emotion

Not ‘either – or’,but ‘more - or – less’

TaK - Emotion

Why are we attracted to some human faces but not to others?

TaK - Emotion

• How does she feel?• How do you know?• The title is ‘Absinthe’• Does that affect

your interpretation of the picture?

Knowing emotion through perception

Happiness

Sadness

Fear

Anger

Surprise

Disgust

TaK - Emotion

Primary or Universal Emotions

TaK - Emotion

TaK - Emotion

Secondary or Social Emotions (Socially conditioned)

Embarrassment

Jealousy

Guilt

Pride

TaK - Emotion

Secondary or Social Emotions (Socially conditioned)

TaK - Emotion

Background Emotions (frequently not conscious)

• Well-being / Malaise

• Calm / Tension

• Fatigue / Energy

• Anticipation / Dread

Rationalisations

1.Experiences 2. Powerful Emotions

3. Biased

Perception

4. Fallacious Reasoning

5. Emotive

Language

TaK - Emotion

1. Bill sees some people he assumes are immigrants standing on the street corner…

2. He feels irritated and angry …

3. He notices only lazy immigrants and overlooks hard-working ones …

4. He makes hasty generalisations from his own experience…

5. He concludes that immigrants ‘are idle’ and ‘don’t know the meaning of hard work!’ …

The above factors reinforce the original prejudice and make it difficult for Bill to be objective.

How do we decide what to notice and therefore what to value?

TaK - Emotion

TaK - Emotion

What role does Emotion play in shaping knowledge?

ToK - Emotion

Emotions as a source of knowledge

Have you ever been in a situation where you had to choose between two

equally attractive options?

How did you come to a decision?

What role do you think is usually played by emotion when

people decide which universities to apply to?

TaK - Emotion

Paul has arranged to meet Tom at 3pm. Tom arrives at 3.02pm and apologises

for being late.

Rather than accept the apology, Paul starts screaming and shouting about Tom’s lack of consideration and

completely loses his self-control.

TaK - Emotion

The hospital phones Jane with terrible news. Her husband has been assaulted and is lying unconscious in Intensive Care.

“Oh dear”, she says, “that is annoying! I was hoping to play tennis this afternoon, but I suppose I had better come and visit him.”

Showing too little emotion is, perhaps, as irrational as showing too much

TaK - Emotion

“Anyone can be angry – that is easy.But to be angry with the right person

to the right degree,at the right time,

for the right purposeand in the right way – that is not easy.”

Aristotle

TaK - Emotion

What does he mean?

IntuitionTaK - Emotion

IntuitionTaK - Emotion

Intuition• Core intuitions - our most fundamental

intuitions about life the universe and everything.

All human beings are created equal My friends are not aliens Murder is wrong Life is not a dream The laws of Physics will not break

down tomorrow

Things we consider to be ‘obvious’

TaK - Emotion

Intuition

We sometimes appeal to intuition to justify our knowledge claims in various areas of knowledge about which we perhaps know little, but

research suggests that such ‘uneducated’ intuitions should be

treated with caution….

TaK - Emotion

Intuition‘Uneducated intuitions’ should be

treated with caution….

Imagine you are standing on a flat plain holding a bullet in one hand, and a loaded

gun in the other.

If you fire the gun horizontally, and drop the bullet at exactly the same time which of the

two bullets will hit the ground first?

TaK - Emotion

Intuition

• Educated Intuition ‘Eureka!’ moments

TaK - Emotion

Intuition

• Subject-specific intuitions – the intuitions we have in various areas of knowledge such as science and ethics

TaK - Emotion

Intuition• Social intuitions – our intuitions about other

people, what they are like, whether or not they can be trusted etc

TaK - Emotion

Web site about intuition: http://www.davidmyers.org/Brix?pageID=19

Imagine that you are presented with a special gift: a machine - the “Happiness Machine” – that can give

you wonderfully positive emotions.

All you have to do is hook yourself up ... and switch it on.

But there’s a price: once the machine is switched on, you will not remember anything that happened before

switching on the machine. Ever again.

Do you want to switch the machine on?Why?

TaK - Emotion

TaK - EmotionSome key points:

• The emotions are relevant to the search for knowledge because they provide us with energy, affect our thinking and are sometimes used to justify our beliefs

• The six primary emotions of happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust are found in all cultures

• Emotions are sometimes an obstacle to knowledge. Strong emotions can color our perception, distort our thinking and inflame our language

• Rather than think of reason and emotion as opposites, it may make more sense to say that our emotions can themselves be more or less rational

• Intuition is an immediate insight into something – sometimes valuable, sometimes to be treated with caution.

Questions…• How might it be said that all decisions and therefore

actions are based on emotion? Why is it we rely on these feelings as a higher form of certainty than raw, objective empirical data?

• What are the flaws in relying solely on emotion as a way of knowing?

• Despite these flaws, how do we integrate emotion to create justified true belief?

• In what areas of knowledge is emotion important?

TaK - Emotion

Emotion

LanguageIs language used more to persuade

or describe?

ReasonAre we driven

more by reason or emotion?

EthicsIs ethics more a

matter of the heart than the

head?

ArtsDo the arts

provoke emotions or purge them?

HistoryWhat role does empathy play in the historian’s

work?

Human Sciences

How much of a problem is bias in

the social sciences?

MathsHow important is

intuition in mathematics?

Natural Sciences

What does biology tell us

about the emotions?

TaK - Emotion

ToK Essay Prescribed Title 2008:

“There can be no knowledge without emotion .... until we have felt the force

of the knowledge, it is not ours”

Discuss this vision of the relationship between knowledge and emotion.

TaK - Emotion

TaK - Emotion

What role does Emotion play in your IB subjects?

Extras

Extras

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/paul_bloom_the_origins_of_pleasure.html

“The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious.

It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science.

He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as

dead, a sniffed-out candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly:

this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only,

I am a devoutly religious man”Albert Einstein

TaK - Emotion

TaK - Emotion

An Emotion Wheel designed by Robert Plutchik in 1980.

Eight basic emotions with their opposites.

Combinations: Optimism is composed of Anticipation and Joy. It’s opposite is Disapproval.etc

TaK - Emotion

JoySadnessAnxiousEnvyGratitudeConfidentAweReliefWonderEnergeticDisgustStupidAshamedHungry

HappyHelplessHopefulLuckyContentGuiltySleepyBoredTiredIrritatedRelaxedSurprisedAmusedProudNervous

Instinctive

Social

InwardLooking

OutwardLooking

Inward looking: such as ‘fear’ where we are ‘drawn into ourselves’Outward looking: such as ‘wonder’ where we are ‘drawn out of ourselves’Instinctive: such as anger, loveSocial: such as guilt, shame

TaK - Emotion

“Above all else, guard your heart, for it affects everything you do”

Bible

TaK - Emotion

Why do we want to touch some sculptures and stand away from others?

Henry Moore Giacometti