1. Intro to TOK World
Gr11 W1

2. Why TOK? Intellectual Journey
Develop our skills as reflective thinkers
Richer understanding of the world

3. TOK Terminology-1 Justified: True: Belief:
shown to be fair, right or reasonable
True:
logically consistent, honest, correct or accurate
Belief:
a feeling that what you think is true

4. Knowledge Claims «the universe is 13.77 billion years old»
Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon»
«knowledge can be based on faith and reason»
«I know Burma is now called Myanmar» - claim of personal certainty
«I believe Burma is now called Myanmar» - recognises a personal uncertainty
I know = I am claiming to be certain about it.
May or may not be true
Claim made about knowledge
We may not be able to say with certainty
But we can say that it is a claim accepted by the majority of the society

5. KC
Difficulty of certainty
Insufficient evidence

6. Types of Knowledge What is knowledge? 2 types:
Priori: before experience
Posteriori: after experience OR
First hand: we gain for ourselves
Second hand: we acquire from other sources

7. Types of Knowledge 3 types:
Practical knowledge: how to do things, like how to swim, play a violin or read a book
Knowledge by acquanintance: first hand. Knowing ourselves, people we have met, places we’ve been to, taste of things etc.
Factual knowledge: about events that have actually occured or things hat have been verified as true (collection of KCs about the world in all AOK)
True by definition: «my parents are my mother and father.» (fact of the English)
No guarantee that a truth by definition entails existence
e.g. unicorns

8. TOK Terminology-2 AOK: Valid: KQ: branches of knowledge that have
A distinct nature and different methods of gaining knowledge
Maths, NS, HS, Arts, Ethics, religious knowledge systems and indigenous knowledge systems
Valid:
well-grounded or justified
KQ:
an open question that explores issues of knowing
Prepare tok vocab wall on cardboard strips

9. Activity
Discussion on KCs
Page 5

10. Knowledge Questions Explicitly about what knowledge is
How we know what we claim to know
e.g. To what extent might one WOK be more reliable than another?
To gain a better and deeper understanding of what we hold as true and why
We may lose some of our certainties

11. TOK Terminology-3 Ways of knowing:
how we know what we know. Language, sense perception, emotion, reason, imagination, faith, intuition and memory

12. Assignment-1
Presentation task: Consider how you might develop the following KQ for a presentation. What RLS might your developed question apply to?
To what extent does our willingness to rely on eyewitness accounts depend on our emotional responses?
Extended writing task: write 500 word on one of the following questions;
1. how important is it that we are certain about what we claim as knowledge?
2. to what extent might it be more important for knowledge to be useful rather than accurate?

13. Justification and Evidence
«Is the KC supported by substantial evidence and/or valid reasoning?»
Justification often relies on evidence
Neither coincidence nor correlation implies causation
When we have enough evidence to be able to claim sth as true, we may view this as proof of its truth.

14. TOK Terminology-4 Valid reason: Evidence: Proof: Anectodal evidence:
a reason that is well-founded and convincing; a valid argument is an argument that follows the rules of logic
Evidence:
information that is interpreted to support a particular argument
Proof:
enough evidence to claim something as true
Anectodal evidence:
evidence that comes from personal stories
Coincidence:
when two or more events happen at the same time independently of each other
Correlation:
when there is a relationship between two or more events, but t is not necessarily a causal relationship
Causation:
when one event leand to another event, for example kicking a football causes the ball to move

15. TOK Terminology-5 Shared knowledge: Personal knowledge:
what we know as part of a group or community; for example, what we learn through the curriculum at school is a set of skills and information agreed on by educators, politicians and other as important knowledge for our society.
Distributed knowledge:
the combined knowledge of all the individuals in an organisation, society, nation or the world
Personal knowledge:
the knowledge we have through our own experiences and prsonal involvement; this can include knowledge by acquaintance, practical knowledge and factual knowledge
Tacit:
understood or implied without being explicitly stated

16. Assignment-2
Presentation task: choose one of the following KQs below. Consider how you might develop the following KQ for a presentation. Select some RL examples that you might use as evidence to support and to counter your argument.
To what extent do we evaluate evidence before making a judgement, and to what extent do we look for evidence to support our judgements?
How does the importanca of justifiying our beliefs differ across different AOK?
Extended writing task: write 500 word on one of the following questions;
1. to what extent are we persuaded by the quantity of evidence rather than the quality of evidence?
2. how can we justify beliefs that do not seem to agree with available evidence?
3. to what extent can we justify beliefs that rest on very flimsy or anectodal evidence? And why might we want to hold or justify such beliefs?

17. WOK in shared and personal knowledge
Explore
Language
Emotion
Sense perception
Reason

18. WOK-LANGUAGE Languages evolve in different societies and cultures
Can only function as a means of communication as far as it is shared
Meaning must be shared so that it can be understood
Without shared knowledge, there could be no language
How we interpret and hear language is also deeply personal
P25’deki task

19. WOK-EMOTION Intensely personal way of knowing
Shape our thoughts and behaviours
Influence our interpretation of the world
Positive and negative words may affect the way we respond to circumstances
May ultimately determine how we interpet language and sense peception
How we respond to issues of faith and how we apply our reason
Emotive language

20. WOK-SENSE PERCEPTION Help us to understand the world
As good as our sensory apparatus and our brains’ interpretation of the data it receives
Music, book, conversations, foods, aromas and so on.
Perceptions may still have in common
Confirm with others
«Did you see that?», «can you hear the noise?», «does this milk smell off to you?»
Believe if shared by the others

21. WOK-REASON
Socially accepted definitions of what constitutes reason and what does not.
We use reason to construct an argument or justify a belief, to assess our intuition and imagination
Valid reasoning
Formal logic (deductive reasoning) can never lead to certaity except in so far as the premises it starts with are certain
Inductive reasoning is inherently fallible

22. TOK Terminology-6 Argument: Premise:
ability to persuade using reason and evidence
Premise:
a proposition assumed to be truei on which an argument is based

23. Assignment-3
Presentation task: Presentation task: Consider how you might develop the following KQ for a presentation. What RLS might your developed question apply to?
How do shared and personal knowledge complement each other?
Extended writing task: write 500 word on one of the following questions;
1. how do we decide which knowledge claims to trust when our personal knowledge is at odds with knowledge that is widely shared?
2. when, if ever, should society allow personal knowledge claims to change shared knowledge?

24. Why Assignments To prepare yourself for
Presentation (IA)
Essay
To let me find out your misconceptions
To let me give you feedback for your improvement