TOK - Foundations Test Pt 2

This one actually requires preparation </3

Epistemic (vs. Phenomenological) Objectivity

Epistemic (vs. Phenomenological) Objectivity

• Epistemic means connected to knowledge

  • Epistemic objectivity is coming to a conclusion based on tangible evidence

  • judgements based on a discernment of sufficient evidence

  • only way to be an object epistemically is to be a subject succeeding in the performance of the transcendental method

• examples: here’s someone achieving this!

Evidence: Necessary, Sufficient

• information necessary to critically think

• what is considered evidence can vary from person to person

• evidence is the primary thing a conclusion is built off of

  • sufficient evidence: set of things I need to complete the method

  • All parts of evidence are necessary, but each part on it’s own are not sufficient

• Examples:

  • Someone’s alibi is necessary evidence but not enough to build a case against them

  • That along with DNA at a crime scene is sufficient evidence to make a conclusion

Interpretation and Knowing

• the way that the human mind perceives information, this varies from person to person

• more often than not influenced by human bias

• anything we know is demonstrated interpretation

• Knowing is when all conditions are met

  • ex: is this a projector? it meets the requirements, so yes it is.

  • If you determine something is a projector without the sufficient evidence, then just an interpretation

Certainty and Demonstration vs. Certitude and Justification

• certainty: the state i’m in when i’ve come to know what I know - facts

• Certitude: felt certainty

• justification: whatever story you tell to prove certitude

Critical Thinking

• the long thinking process that is used less often than the quick thinking process used throughout the day

• requires more time and energy to come to a conclusion that is more fully fledged and attainable than the quick thinking process

• thinking that separates rather than looking at a mush of ideas

• ex: american freedom

  • what are the conditions to this freedom?

  • what do I mean by this?

  • how do I know this is true?

• an earnest effort to be objective

Truth and falsity

• the basic meaning of truth, not about the universe (ex: my phone is on my desk)

• to be a truth is to be the content of a judgement based on an insight

• Possible for someone to understand the idea and the conditions that are met

• Falsity: if the insight is not available for anyone to have than the judgement is false

Real, Reality, and Ontology

• something is real if:

  • you got intelligible content

  • there are no conditions

• reality:

  • the set of all real entities

  • anything intelligible and existent is part of reality

• ontology:

  • the study of what does it mean to be a real thing

  • ex: this class!

Psyche and Mind, Person vs Animal

• Mind:

  • curiosity and emotional component

  • ex: transcendental yearning method

• psyche:

  • all sensory experiences and emotions

  • human psyche is totality of the human mind that helps us navigate through life

• animals don’t have the mind, only the psyche

Define foundational traditions

a specific epistemology and its logically consequent ontology

a claim about what knowing is and a logical consequent claim about what real is (what do you have to do to know that something exists)

• epistemology: an account of what we do when we know

• ontology: an account of what it is to be real

Define intuitionism

indicates an account in which knowing is characterized as a passive process

• a process in which we know because we experience certain kinds of conscious states

define discursivism

indicates an account in which knowing is characterized as an active process

• a process in which we produce the knowledge by interpreting successfully

  • asking and successfully asking questions

define transcendental discursivism

• the entirely correct foundational tradition, given the dispositive evidence of operational incontrovertibility

• every other foundational tradition is therefore to some important extent mistaken because each is wholly or partially incompatible with transcendental discursivism

• one’s thinking is therefore philosophically contaminated to the extent that it is influenced by any foundational tradition other than transcendental discursivism

give the epistemological premise and ontological conclusion for transcendental discursivism

epistemological premise:

one knows that something exists if and only if:

• understands an intelligibility

• understands that that intelligibility is (factually or valuably) unconditioned

• affirms that that intelligibility is (factually or valuably) unconditioned

• (think transcendental yearning method)

ontological premise: something is real if and only if it can be known to exist

ontological conclusion: therefore, something is real if and only if it can be the object of someone:

• understanding an intelligibility

• understanding that that intelligibility is (factually or valuably) unconditioned

• affirming that that intelligibility is (factually or valuably) unconditioned

• that is, something is real, if and only if it is an unconditioned intelligibility

Define a real entity’s value in sensory intuitionist terms

a real entity’s value or disvalue is nothing other than an arbitrary eliciting of positive or negative emotions upon being experienced as a sensory datum

Give the epistemological premise and ontological conclusion for sensory intuitionism

epistemological premise: one knows that something exists if and only if one experiences a sensory datum

ontological premise: something is real if and only if it can be known to exist

ontological conclusion: therefore, something is real if and only if it can be a sensory datum

Give the epistemological premise and ontological conclusion for confident mental intuitionism

epistemological premise: one knows that something exists if an only if one experiences an abstract intelligibility (eg. truth, justice, education) in a conscious state

ontological premise: something is real if an only if it can be known to exist

ontological conclusion: therefore, something is real if an only if it can be an intellectual datum

define intellectual experience and intellectual datum

intellectual experience: experiencing one or more abstract intelligibilities in a conscious state

intellectual datum: an abstract intelligibility in a conscious state

How does transcendental discursivism correct confident mental intuitionism

we do not experience abstract intelligibilities in conscious states; we can experience them only as concepts that we produce when we conceive on a basis of our second-level understanding

How is confident mental intuitionism confident, and what does it produce?

• it is confident because it asserts that we can have an intellectual experience and can therefore know

• produces the expectation that reality mostly or wholly features fixed patterns, since abstract intelligibilities have fixed content

What is skeptical mental intuitionism?

• identical to confident mental intuitionism except that it denies that we can have intellectual experiences and so denies that we can know

• asserts that the contents of our consciousness have no known relation to reality

what is confident mental intuitionism

to know a thing exists is to see it with the mind

• ex: i know what a person is because i’ve seen that nature of humanity itself with the eye of the mind

give the epistemological premise and ontological conclusion for exhaustive discursivism

epistemological premise: one knows that something exists if and only if one understands all intelligibility exists

ontological premise:something is real if an only if it can be known to exist

ontological conclusion: therefore something is real if and only if it is the totality of intelligibility

what is exhaustive discursivism

• they are stuck on the intelligible level

• Believe that you need to know the intelligibility of everything to understand anything

what two definitions define our associative machine

1) the automatic and ongoing formation of associative networks as a reaction to our experiences

• (the formation of our associative networks)

2) making judgements and constructing rationales for those judgements because they adhere with one or more relevant associative network that we have which is the quickest manner of making judgements

Define a critical network

connections among questions, understandings, concepts, judgements, and decisions that are formed via critical thinking

• different from our associative network

what is priming?

the phenomenon in which the components of an associative network collectively come to mind when any one component of the network comes to mind

• ex: thinking: freedom and democracy when hearing “America”

• or thinking: studying, homework, assignments when hearing “school”

name the 8 functions of our associative machine

1) functions to replace/minimize cognitive strain

• minimizes the understanding, judging and deciding that is an effect of critical thinking (if we always used critical thinking, our species would not have survived in the wild)

2) attracts us to familiar ideas associatively coherent emotional responses since those ideas do not create cognitive strain

3) repels us from ideas and emotional responses that are not associatively coherent since those those ideas and responses cause cognitive strain

• (because of this, we are particularly inclined to presume the existence of causal patterns when random events exhibit a causally meaningless sequence)

4) suppresses doubt and ambiguity to avoid compromising associatively coherent accounts

5) helps us as it produces benign bias

6) can be deployed to develop expertise by using prolonged, disciplined practice to train ourselves to rapidly identify a multitude of patterns in regularly predictable environments

• ex: chess games - able to recognize patterns in your opponent’s game

7) misleads us as it produces distortive bias

8) shapes our judgement-making and rationale constructing via the mechanisms of availability and effect

define bias

making specific judgements and constructing rationales for those judgements because those judgements are associatively coherent rather than because those judgements are sufficiently effortful processions through transcendental method

define benign bias

our bias to the extent that its contents would also be produced in sufficiently effortful processions through transcendental method

define distortive bias

our bias to the extent that its contents would not also be produces in sufficiently effortful processions through transcendental method

Name (do not define) the 5 mechanisms that are commonly components of availability and affect

1) substitution

2) the mental shotgun

3) intensity matching

4) anchoring

5) negativity dominance

define substitution

• replacing a difficult target question with an easier substitute question

• then answering the substitute question as if you are answering the target question

• ex: is my life good?

  • well, I’m happy right now, so yeah my life is good i guess

define the mental shotgun

• referring to entirely or partially irrelevant associated considerations when trying to determine something

• helps to produce substitute questions from target questions

• ex: referring exclusively to current mood when trying to determine overall quality of life

define intensity matching

• matching intensities across realms that have little to no relevance to our questions

• often instrumental to answering a substitute question and applying the answer to our target questions

• ex: i’m moderately sad right now, so my life is moderately bad overall

• ex: i did poorly on this one math quiz so i am poor at math

define anchoring

• responding to questions about quantity with numbers that are close to an initially introduced, irrelevant number

  • ex: was Ghandi more or less than 144 when he died?

  • this would cause you to overestimate his age at death since an impossibly high and irrelevant age number was introduced

define negativity dominance

• being more emotionally affected and influenced in our thinking by threats and realized misfortunes than by opportunities and benefits because it is more evolutionary advantageous to respond to threats than to detect and appreciate benefits

• commonly leads us to overplay how bad things are and to make consequent irrational choices

Define availability

asking and answering the substitute question:

• is x familiar?

as though asking and answering the target question:

• is x true?

the more familiar an idea is to you, the more available it is

• if x is familiar, we declare it to be true, and our confidence in this statement is directly proportional to how familiar we are with it and vice versa

  • ex: I can confidently say that women are still systematically oppressed because I am familiar with women’s rights issues including access to safe abortions, and difficulties in sexual assault cases

what two things occur under the influence of availability

• more likely to judge that a replicable event always happen in a given context, if the idea of it happening in that context is very familiar

  • ex: armed robberies always occur at night in big cities

  • ex: every time I go out alone as a woman, someone is going to try and harm me

• we are more likely to judge that a replicable event does not occur in a given context if the idea of it happening in that context is very unfamiliar

  • ex: armed robberies will never happen during the day in small towns

  • ex: every time a man goes out alone, no one will try to harm him

define affect

asking and answering the substitute question

• do i like x? (do i have a positive emotional response with x)

as though I was asking and answering the target question

• is x true? is x good?

to the extent that our thinking is governed by affect, we declare x true or good if we like it

Define noise

a set of judgements in which:

• each judgement belongs to a common category

  • ex: evaluating a TOK essay

• each judgement is to be made by using one and the same recognized procedure

  • ex: evaluating a TOK essay with reference to the IB rubric

• each judgement is an error because the assessor fails to use that recognized procedure

• not a single factor or set of factors that explains why all the errors are made, so the production of errors is to some extent, random

• there is an inconsistency among errors that exceed an expected and unproblematic boundary of disagreement

  • ex: one teacher giving a student a 5 while another gives them a 9

Define system noise

noise where the assessor(s) is a specialist making judgements about their specialty

• ex: an umpire making calls in their baseball game

• ex: a doctor making diagnoses at their work

Define level noise

differences in the average kind of error that one assessor vs another contributes to a form of noise

• ex: an umps strike zone is too narrow vs another umps strike zone that’s too wide

define pattern noise

an assessor’s stable traits causing them to deviate from the average kind of error they contribute to a form of noise

• ex: an ump making their too narrow strike zone when a hitter has a batting average below .200

define occasion noise

transient factors causing an assessor to deviate from the average kind of error they contribute to a form of noise

• ex: a uni admissions officer is happy because the weather is good so they accept more kids that day!

epistemic (vs phenomenological) subjectivity

- it’s a judgement but no body can say that they know it is 100% correct

• examples:

  • the theme/message someone takes from an art piece

what is religious consciousness

• includes the experience, feeling the change it produces, embracing it, and it’s downstream effects

• the experience:

  • the experience offers you everything you’re after for the intelligible, actual, and good as it’s finding you rather than you finding it

• if you choose to embrace it:

  • your approach to life changes as you have the extra motivation to succeed because you are more motivated to make choices towards the glory you’ve tasted

• downstream effects:

  • value of what is good is more sensitive because you’ve felt the endgame and everything that’s good has that vibe of glory

• examples: someone undergoing this transformation

  • could be something like having holy communion for the first time

  • could also be a situation as simple as being in the park

  • example is less about external factors and more of the feeling that overcomes you

what is the irreligious response and its cognitive and moral effects?

if you choose to reject the experience you have that offers you a taste of glory, you are back to where you were before

what is a religion?

anything that is offering you a story about what all of this means

• offers some interpretation of the transformative thing you’ve undergone and what it means for the whole universe and your life

• also provides practices for people to do in response to the interpretation

• examples:

  • christianity

  • judaism

give the epistemological premise and ontological conclusion for skeptical mental intuitionism

epistemological premise: one knows that something exists if and only if one experiences an abstract intelligibility

ontological premise: something is real if and only if it can be known to exist

ontological conclusion: therefore, something is real if and only if it can be an intellectual datum

(however, for skeptical mental intuitionism, they believe no one can actually have an abstract intelligibility, so no one can actually know anything is real)