ToK Term 2

• an assertion that something is the case
• a true or false statement

a problem or limitation with a knowledge claim, or an opposing view within the same perspective

the opposite of your claim

things that weaken the argument, make it problematic

within biology - counter claim must be withing biology

can be answered within the subject

• the question is about the subject
• general, contested
• should not be in the language of the real-life situation

• question about knowledge
• a second order question
• a contested question (no one true answer)
• a general question (not specific)

• to what extent
• at what point
• what is the role of
• how do we know
• in what ways

• a way in which we acquire knowledge
• memory
• intuition
• language
• reason
• faith
• sense perception
• imagination
• emotions

• area in which knowledge can be found
• human sciences
• natural sciences
• mathematics
• ethics
• arts
• history
• religious belief systems
• indigenous belief systems

• link different aspects
• within ways of knowing and areas of knowledge
• between ways of knowing and areas of knowledge
• link ways of knowing and areas of knowledge
• culture
• values
• technology
• certainty
• truth
• evidence
• explanation
• belief
• interpretation
• experience

• something that poses doubt in the process of knowledge acquisition
• limitation
• uncertainty
• bias
• verification
• justification

• knowledge that a particular individual has of the world
• experiential or second-hand

• knowledge gained through experience
• knowledge by acquaitance or practical knowledge

• first hand knowledge based on perceptual experience (knowledge of)
• colours, smells, noises, people, places, tastes

• skill based knowledge (knowledge how)
• running, walking
• needs practice
• hard to put into words

• acquired through sources such as school, culture, internet, media
• academic knowledge
• informal knowledge

knowledge of academic subjects

stock of cultural and local knowledge, random facts, trivia

• influence it
• ignorance
• apathy
• fantasy
• bias

a stock of academic, practical, and informal knowledge which can be communicated verbally or non-verbally to other people

• authority worship
• groupthink
• power distortions
• fragmentation

uncritically accepting something as true simply because an authority says so

a form of peer pressure which leads everyone in the group to think in the same way

governments and corporations have vested interest in influencing our beliefs and values

• division within a particular area of shared knowledge
• there can never be a unifying voice

• the internet
• cultural tradition
• school
• expert opinions
• the news/edia

• personal knowledge contributes to shared knowledge
• shared knowledge influences personal knowledge

• justified true belief (plato)
• we can only know the things that exist and for us the only things that exist are the ones we know
• Gettier cases

ascribing human traits to something that is not human (God)

• theism
• pantheism
• atheism
• agnosticism

the universe is governed by an eternal, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving creator God

• God is everything and everything is part of God
• reality is spiritual in nature and the everyday world is an illusion

denial of the existence of a creator God and believeing that the universe is material in nature and has no spiritual dimension

a position which neither asserts nor denies the existence of God or some higher reality but keeps an open, skeptical mind

• described with human language and attributes
• in trying to describe God with human language there is a danger we either reduce him to something less than god or run into insoluble paradoxes

• describing god in abstract language
• all-powerful (omnipotent)
• all-knowing (omniscient)
• all-loving (omni amorous)
• paradoxes

could God create a being that God could not subsequently control?

• God is all-loving and does not want us to suffer
• God is all-poweful and can prevent us from suffering

• if god is all knowing he also knows the future
• this would make human free-will an illusion
• if everything is predetermined, why do we sin

• the argument from religious experience
• the teleological argument
• the cosmological argument

• people who claim to have witnessed the existence of god
• miracle
• religious experiences are difficult if not impossible to verify

an extraordinary event which is brought about by god's intervention in the natural order of things

David Hume - denied existence of miracles, it is never rational to believe in them because the weight of evidence is always against them

• the order and harmony of the universe is evidence for the existence of an intelligent creator
• William Paley - analogy between a watch and a watchmaker and God and the world

• David Hume
• - analogy is poor becuase there is little resemblance between the world and a machine
• - the most the argument can prove is the existence of an architect God
• -the world is very faulty and imperfect compared to a superior standard
• theory of evolution explains complexity and harmony of nature without having to appeal to a god

• sees the very existence of the universe as strong evidence for the existence of a creator god
• the fact that it exists at all
• no answer to what caused the big bang - nothing can come from nothing - universe was created by god

• do we really need a creator god to explain the existence of the universe
• the universe has always existed - big bang = result of big crunch - the universe has been expanding and contracting forever in a series of cycles
• the big bang was the uncaused first cause

why is there so much suffering in the world

• is it possible to give a neutral definition
• does it concern only religion or is it tolerant of other areas of knowledge

• a cognitive element
• an emotional element
• an ethical element

• faith is a form of belief
• many beliefs do not involve faith
• faith describes deeply held conventions
• closely connected with a worldview
• the relation between fatih and evidence is controversial - quest for evidence weakens faith

an overarching theory about the nature of the universe and the place of human beings in it

• faith implies an emotional commitment
• having faith shapes the pattern of your behaviour more than believing in something
• faith goes beyond evidence - includes risk
• faith lacks objective certainty
• subjective certainty: faith = unwavering commitment or faith includes doubt

• faith carries the idea that things will work out for the best
• confident hope
• if you have faith something will happen you both hope and believe
• also to trust
• faith in someone is faith that something is the case

• w.k. clifford argued strength of a belief should be proportionate to the strength of the evidence for it
• it is irrational to believe something with insufficient evidence - faith is belief based on insufficient evidence - faith is irrational
• complications: what is evidence? how much evidence is sufficient? who has the burden of proof? why accept evidentialism?

idea that we should believe in something only to the extent that there is evidence for it

faith in the truth of some kind of divine revelation which is directly based on personal experience and indirectly based on the authority of a religious text

• compatibilism
• fideism
• separate domains

• faith and reason are both god-given faculties and are compatible with one another
• rejects premise 2 of evidentialist argument
• the divine sense theory
• the rational faith theory

• faith = independent faculty which gives us knowledge in the same way as sense perception
• we sense god's presence directly and immediately like the external world
• 'divine sense' like sense perception - placing velief in God on it is as rational as placing belief on the world

• theory is based on a false analogy - is a fallacy in itself - if you reject sense perception you might not survive but you can function normally without a divine sense
• theory cannot explain distribution of belief, why it is stronger in certain countries than others
• postulating a divine sense seems arbitrary - can lead to invention of other new senses (alien sense)

• what is grasped by faith can be supported by evidence and arguments based on ordinary experience
• faith and reason = two different ways of arriving to the truth
• any apparent conflict is due to an improper appeal of faith or unsound reasoning
• faith and reason support each other and keep one another in check
• faith without reason leads to superstition, reason without faith leads to relativism

• why is faith required at all
• does reason support faith

• faith is irrational
• it's opposed to and superior to reason - we must rely on faith not reason in seeking religious truth
• criticism: fideism is too permissive - anyone can claim to know anything, faith in what - no guidence of the direction

• faith is arrational
• faith and reason are appropriate to a different domain of enquiry and both play a role in our attempt to understand reality
• reason - facts and theories about natural world
• faith - questions of ultimate meaning and moral values which are beyond the reach of empirical enquiry
• conflict only when one domain trespasses on the territory of the other - scientism and superstition
• criticisms: most religions make claims about the natural world, meaning and values need not be based on faith