Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Rx: Knowledge

Welcome back to your knowledge home.  Take a look at the prescribed titles for your TOK essays, below.  For Tuesday, please write a response to one of these titles, beginning by quoting the title.  Whichever you choose, use examples from two areas of knowledge to explore your responses.  Consider multiple perspectives and center your response on knowledge issues raised by the title and the areas of knowledge you select.  In class, we will discuss in greater detail the structure and assessment of these essays.

Theory of Knowledge Prescribed Titles:

1.  In what ways may disagreement aid the pursuit of knowledge in the natural and human
sciences?   

2. “Only seeing general patterns can give us knowledge.  Only seeing particular examples
can give us understanding.”  To what extent do you agree with these assertions?

3.  “The possession of knowledge carries an ethical responsibility.” Evaluate this claim.

4. The traditional TOK diagram indicates four ways of knowing.  Propose the inclusion of a
fifth way of knowing selected from intuition, memory or imagination, and explore the
knowledge issues it may raise in two areas of knowledge. 

5. “That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.”
(Christopher Hitchens).  Do you agree?

6. Can we know when to trust our emotions in the pursuit of knowledge?  Consider history
and one other area of knowledge.