We've finished! Sort of...

Well, that lesson finished us off for Knowers and Knowing.  Now we get to explore the WoK!  Ways of Knowing here we come.  Just as a little reminder, our ways of knowing are:

1. Language
2. Sense Perception
3. Reason (Rationality)
4. Emotion

In next Thursday's lesson, we will look at the strengths and weaknesses of each of these ways of knowing and then dive right in to language!  So your homework for next Thursday's blog is the following:

Put these statements in rank order of importance and justify your ranking.

1) We cannot carry every object about which we need to communicate.
2) We need to be able to communicate about actions without actually doing them.

3) Abstract ideas which can only be expressed in language are an essential part of human experience.

4) We need to be able to communicate about emotions beyond their mere expression.

Can you think of any other reasons we need language?  Write your other reasons below your justification.

TTFN

What we still don't know

As I said in class today, I watched the most relevant programme this weekend to what we have been studying recently.  The 'Are We Real' episode will also be a great preparation for the ToK seminar we're going to in November.  Below are links to both the accompanying website and the episode itself.  The previous episodes are just as great, but the one I have linked specifically to is perfect in following up on our continuing discussions of the nature of knowledge and whether or not we exist.  Happy viewing!

http://www.channel4.com/science/microsites/W/what_we_still_dont_know/arewereal.html

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8018371269760059556

PS - Isn't Martin Rees creepy?

ToK Blog Homework 8/10/09

In class today, I hope you came to some conclusion about our knowledge communities and their inherent limitations.  I think its important that we finished with Sir Ken's words, as his idea of what education needs to be - I write needs instead of ought because there is an urgency to his TED speech that I hope was not lost on any of us this morning -  is exactly what I think we're trying to do in ToK.  I am, in a way, a victim of the very education inflation that Sir Ken referred to and I'd hate to see any of you in the room go down that same road of disappointment and resentment that further education will inevitably lead to if we don't start to think differently. 

In my freshman year at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, I had the real pleasure of going to an evening lecture with James Burke, science historian and tv presenter, in which he warned against a tendency towards specialisms, in which every student becomes more pigeon-holed into a specific category of study - never seeing the forest, for the trees.  He saw this as dangerous and I tend to agree - no doubt because I watched his Connections series as a child and was influenced by his thesis that everything, all knowledge, is interlinked and that true innovation and creativity is come to by those who are aware of these links and take advantage of them.

And so that brings me back to the idea of education from your blogs last week and its institutions that we consider to be perhaps the most influential when it comes to where we get our knowledge.  Your new Blog task is to read over the following questions about knowledge communities and reflect on them in your blogs.  Remember, next week is the 2nd marking of your Blog entries, so let's keep up with them. 

• Do knowledge claims transcend different communities or cultures?
• What differences exist between public and private justifications?
• To what extent might this distinction between private knowledge and public knowledge be culturally dependent?
• Does making a knowledge claim carry any particular obligation or responsibility for the knower?

 PS - some of us haven't linked our blogs to this site - so some of us do not have a mark yet for the last blog mark up.  Get linking guys!!!

TOK Blog homework

For your homework this week:  Write a journal entry based upon the following tasks.

• SCHOOL! What in your opinion is the difference between ‘education’ & ‘indoctrination?’
• Do schools encourage you to question things and think for yourselves?
• Find examples of where school wants you to conform.
• Do you expect your teachers to ‘know’ everything there is to know? Why?

PS - the link to the TED video we were supposed to watch in class is below - look for contributing to knowledge.