KNOWLEDGE & TRUTH

… and why we seek them.

How do we learn?

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand .

– Confucius , 5th century BC Chinese philosopher

by Experience & by Authority

• Knowledge by experience is first-hand knowledge, based on personal experience. It’s the skills and feelings and understanding we develop on our own, usually by “doing” things. It’s personal & often hard to explain in words. (I know how to sing well. I know this object is green.)

• Knowledge by authority is also known as second-hand knowledge. It comes to us from sources outside of our own self – experts, teachers, parents, books, etc.

Which do you know by experience & which by authority?

• I know how to ride a horse.• I know Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa.• I know apples taste good.• I know apples are healthy food.• I know that the Earth revolves around the Sun.• I know I have a toothache.• I know gold is a soft, shiny, yellow metal.• I know that there are angels who watch over me.• I know my mother’s voice.• I know my grandpa loves me.• I know Madrid is the capital of Spain.

Another way of classifying knowledge:

• When confronted with a problem (like putting together a piece of furniture, or deciding whether to break up with a boyfriend), what would you do FIRST? Think this through or start doing it & see how it goes?

• Rationalism & empiricism

Rationalism

• Rationalism – using the powers of REASON is the best way to acquire knowledge and to prove a belief is true. Socrates, Plato, the French philosopher Descartes…

• “Cogito, ergo sum” - 'I think, therefore I am.' By applying reasoning Descartes became convinced that the only existence of which he could be quite certain was his own.

• Reason is more reliable than experience or sense perception.

Empiricism• People’s minds begin like a ‘blank slate’ – or tabula rasa – on which experience is written, to create a picture of the world and how it works.

• Our knowledge comes mostly from experience and mostly relies on our sense perceptions & emotion (without excluding reasoning).

• Aristotle, John Locke, Bertrand Russell

What to do next?

• “Rational & Empirical” reading - Grab the blue TOK book (on my shelf under the window). Read p. 7-8 (all together) and p. 20-21 on your own.

• HOMEWORK to turn in (hard copy or email): Write at least two paragraphs in response to “What is your own approach to knowledge – more rational or more empirical?” Give specific examples to support your thoughts.

Personal vs. Shared Knowledge

• SHARED - what we know as part of a group or community, knowledge accepted or created by a group of people (scientists, family members, ethnic groups…)

• PERSONAL - knowledge accepted or created by an individual, either through experience or education.

• Distributed knowledge – type of shared knowledge, the combined knowledge of individuals within a team.

• Can you find examples of the above 3 types in any team sport? Trivia Crack? How about in class?

The parable of the Blind Men and the Elephant (relativism, shared knowledge, etc. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBqgr5xZLz0

What to do next?

• Individually (30 min quiet work) - Read the packet “Knowledge in TOK” and take detailed Cornell Notes in your journal (or use another structured note-taking method) -2 pages - 5 pts

• Groups - create a Venn Diagram of personal & shared knowledge with 4 examples in each of the 3 sections. Use the same color for each set of examples. Examples could be from anywhere. – 5 pts

SHAREDPERSONAL

How WWII began I know about D-day I know from personal experience how it felt to fight

on D-Day.

How do we decide what to accept as knowledge?

• Belief to knowledge continuum.

• Not usually black & white – requires balancing gullibility (being too naïve in believing anything) and skepticism (being too distrustful and unwilling to believe)

How do we decide what to accept as true?

Three Truth Tests (or theories of truth verification)

• Correspondence truth test – we accept something as true/real if it corresponds to a verifiable fact or to the reality we perceive. The table is real because I can feel it, see it…

• Coherence truth test – we accept something as true if it fits in logically with other knowledge we have and with what others around us know to be true. The table is real because it corresponds to what I know a table should look like, and fits in with the context in which it appears.

• Pragmatic truth test – we accept something as true if it is useful to us or works in practice. This table is real (not imaginary) because I can use it now and I can safely expect it to be here for me tomorrow…

Which truth tests would you mostly apply to decide if this is true?

• It’s raining.

• There is an invisible elephant in this room.

• Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa.

• I sing really well.

• The Earth revolves around the Sun.

• There is a snake in the grass over there.

• My girlfriend says she loves me.

• We usually try to combine all of these truth tests – we accept something as true if it reflects facts, if it’s coherent with what we already know, and it works in practice.

What did the Buddha say about the truth tests?

True for all or true for me?

• “My mother is an amazing cook.” But is this an objective or subjective view?

• Objective - seeing things as they are, without the influence of one’s opinion or feelings

• Subjective – when one’s beliefs & feelings influence the way we see things

• Since it’s hard to be sure of anything, and hard to be objective, some people embrace RELATIVISM.

Relativism • The belief that it all depends… there’s no absolute truth, no objective reality, everything depends on who you are and the circumstances.

• Truth may be different for different individuals and cultures.

• “True for me…false for you…”

Other basic TOK terms• Epistemology?• It’s TOK - Theory of Knowledge - it’s a branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and limits of knowledge.

• AOKs – Areas of Knowledge are similar to the subjects you study in school. The TOK curriculum currently studies human knowledge in the following 8 AOKs: math, natural sciences, human sciences, the arts, history, ethics, religion and indigenous knowledge systems.

• Knowledge Questions (KQ) have three main characteristics – they are about knowledge, they are open-ended and general (not specific to a subject). Examples?

• How do we choose what to learn? What is the purpose of education? How can we measure knowledge?

Socrates (5th c BCE)

• Founding figure of Western philosophy, whose main principles were reasoning, questioning assumptions & humility, the need to be self-critical.

• the first step to knowledge is questioning & being able to accept one’s ignorance.

• his style of “teaching” (the Socratic Method) involved simply asking question after question until his students arrived at their own understanding.

• Ben Franklin: “Humility: imitate Jesus & Socrates.”

• After their defeat in the Peloponnesian War, needing a scapegoat, Athenians found him guilty of “corrupting the youth” and sentenced him to death by drinking hemlock poison.

“The only true wisdom is in

knowing you know nothing.”

The Death of Socrates, by Jacques-Louis David

Much loved by Enlightenment thinkers – why?