Unit #1 Vocabulary
Areas of Knowledge
The Arts: includes all the forms of expression that we use to communicate our creative instincts and intellects. We look at the arts via the perspectives of creators, the audience, and critics, and think about the relationships that exist between them.
History: is the study of the past, rather than the past itself. This means that history in TOK is more akin to ‘historiography’, although we consider the way ‘ordinary’ knowers – not just professional historians – process the past.
Human Sciences: is a huge area of knowledge, encompassing any discipline – psychology, economics, anthropology, sociology, etc. – that involves the study of human behaviour on an individual and societal level.
Mathematics: is not only an area of knowledge in its own right, but forms the basis of many other fields that we consider in TOK, such as physics, economics, technology, and even music.
Natural Sciences: exceptionally wide-ranging scope, including both the experimental sciences and, increasingly as society develops, more abstract, theoretical sciences. The natural sciences aim to acquire knowledge about the natural world. The scientific method is a key feature of what makes the natural sciences so scientific.
Ways of Knowing
Reason: is a way in which we are able to generate justified conclusions from assumptions, logic or premises.
Sense perception: is the stimuli a person perceives, processes and understands through the five senses: smell, sight, taste, touch and hearing.
Emotion: is a human, subjective response to an experience shaped by internal thought and physiological response.
Intuition: it is a way by which the mind acquires knowledge directly by simple ‘gut’ feeling rather than through the senses or by the use of reason.
Imagination: the ability to form in your mind something that is not material in the reality or is not immediately perceivable.
Memory: the store of lessons retained from experience as well as the storage of sensory perceptions.
Language:any type or mode of communication or expression.
Faith: complete trust or confidence in someone or something.
Vocabulary about Knowledge
Truth: that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality.
Belief: Confidence that something is true without support from definitive proof or certainty.
Justification: is a reason for a belief. This can be derived from both logic, evidence or other modes of knowing.
Justified: defended, shown to be correct
Certainty: is perfect knowledge that is error-free and does not evoke any doubt.
Knowledge: An understanding of reality’s truths, untruths and the in-between.
Proof: evidence or argument establishing or helping to establish a fact or the truth of a statement.
Truth Tests: Reasoning tests that can be used to determine truth, untruths and the in between.
The Pragmatic Test: means a belief is true if it works and is practically functional.
The Coherence Test: means a proposition is true if it is consistent with all the other established understandings we deem true and has internal coherence.
The Correspondence Test: means a proposition is true if it corresponds with the facts, and false if it does not.
The Consensus Test: something is true if a majority or large number of people agree that it is true. It is universally regarded by philosophers as the least reliable of the theories of truth.
Unsound: not based on facts or good reasons
Premise: assertion
Ambiguity: confusion because there are multiple meanings
High-order thinking: knowing and processing the facts (I.e. analysing, interpreting, manipulating, categorizing)
Abstract: something that exists only in the mind I.e. truth, beauty, etc.
Analysis: detailed examination
Inductive: Using known facts to produce general principles. In class, we discussed inductive reasoning that moves from the particular to the general.
Example of inductive reasoning:
Premise: 90% of humans are right-handed.
Premise: Charlie and Godot are human.
Probable conclusion: Therefore, the probability that Charlie and Godot are right-handed is 90%
The particular characteristic of humans being right-handed is applied to the general group of humans which Charlie and Godot belong to.
Deductive: using available knowledge and information to understand or form an opinion about something. In class, we discussed reasoning that moves from the general to the particular.
Example of deductive reasoning:
Premise: All men are mortal.
Premise: Socrates is a man.
Conclusion: Therefore, Socrates is mortal.
The general characterizing of men being mortal is applied to a particular man, Socrates.
Perception: the process by which humans gain knowledge about the outside world using the senses.
Interchangeably: in the same way to mean the same thing.
Instinct: a natural tendency to behave in a particular way or a natural ability to know something, which is not learned.
Paradigm: a model or example that shows how something works, or is produced.
Implications: 1. The indirect results of an action or a thought. 2. The conclusion that can be drawn from something, although not explicitly stated.
Relativism: the doctrine that knowledge, truth, and morality exist in relation to culture, society, or historical context, and are not absolute.
Dissonance: Lack of harmony or comprehensive clarity/consistency in knowledge.
Consonance: Harmony and comprehensive clarity/consistency in knowledge.
Scientific method: a formal method used by scientists; it consists of systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.
Hypotheses: explanatory ideas that must be tested through experimentation and investigation.
Empiricism: theory that knowledge is derived from sense-experience
Empirical: based on evidence (usually quantitative) collected from experiments
Argument: line of reasoning, claim.
Ethical: about moral principles and practices
Model: a simple representation of a complex process
Cognitive: concerning mental processes such as a memory, perception and attention
Psychological: mental, emotional
Valid: acceptable
Definitive: unchanging, unambiguous, correct.
Reliable: accurate
Logic: a step-by-step way of thinking that seems correct and reasonable.
Epistemology: the study of knowledge