Linking+Questions

Linking Questions for TOK I and II: Here is a list of linking questions with which you should acquaint yourselves. The **questions in bold** are subject to assessment.

è **Knowledge Questions **


 * **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? **


 * Do the images of a web, building blocks, concentric circles, a spiral, or a grid make a convincing description of the interconnections in the ways of knowing and areas of knowledge? In what ways might these metaphors be useful?


 * To what extent is knowledge about the past different in kind from other kinds of knowledge?


 * Does making a knowledge claim carry any particular obligation or responsibility for the knower?


 * WAYS OF KNOWING: (LINKING) **

è **PERCEPTION: (LINKING) **


 * To what extent is visual perception in particular a justifiable model not only of all sensory perception but of human understanding as well (in English, “I see” often means “I understand”)?


 * What is the role of sense perception in the various areas of knowledge, for example, history or ethics? How does it differ across the disciplines? Is it more important in relation to some disciplines than others? Is there any knowledge that is completely independent of sense perception?


 * Does sense perception perform fundamentally distinct functions in the arts and the sciences? To what extent does the artist make an advantage out of the subjective nature of sense perception, while the scientist regards it as an obstacle to be overcome?


 * What can be meant by the //Panchatantra// saying, “Knowledge is the true organ of sight, not the eyes”? Is it necessary to have clear ideas to see?

è **LANGUAGE: (LINKING) **


 * To what extent is it possible to overcome ambiguity and vagueness in language? In what contexts might ambiguity either impede knowledge or contribute to its acquisition? Does the balance between precision and ambiguity alter from one area of knowledge to another?


 * What do we gain, and what do we lose, when we name something? Do different areas of knowledge manage differently the balance between particularity and generality?

è **REASON : (LINKING) **


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">To what extent do you agree with André Gide’s view that, “L'illogisme irrite. Trop de logique ennuie. La vie échappe à la logique, et tout ce que la seule logique construit reste artificiel et contraint. //Donc// est un mot que doit ignorer le poète, et qui n'existe que dans l'esprit.” [Lack of logic annoys. Too much logic is boring. Life escapes logic, and everything built on logic alone is artificial and limited. //Therefore// is a word that the poet must ignore, that exists only in the mind.]?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Susan Sontag said that, “Thinking is a form of feeling…feeling is a form of thinking.” Are they related in this way?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">How does the role of reason compare with the roles of the other ways of knowing? Why might some people think that reason is superior, and what consequences does holding this position have for the knowledge pursued and the methods considered appropriate in the pursuit?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Does the role of reason affect the degree of certainty in, or the social status of, the various areas of knowledge? What are the implications of the answer to this question when disputes arise among practitioners and between cultures?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Attempts have been made to identify universal, self-evident and incontrovertible laws of logic, such as the law of identity (for example, “an apple is an apple”) or the law of non-contradiction (for example, “nothing can be an apple and also a non-apple”). Are these actually laws in the scientific sense of the term, or are they axioms? How do logical axioms compare with axioms in mathematics, and with the underlying beliefs we take for granted in other areas of knowledge? What is the role of reason in ethical principles and their justification? Is reason more important to acting morally than other ways of knowing?

è **<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">EMOTION : (LINKING) **


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">What part does emotion play in the acquisition of knowledge? Does the role of emotion vary across the different areas of knowledge?


 * **<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Should emotion play a role in the evaluation of knowledge claims? Are there circumstances under which, in order to evaluate a knowledge claim, one should ignore or, alternatively, pay special attention to one’s emotions? **


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Is an action morally justifiable if it feels right? What part do, or should, emotions play in the formation of moral judgments or political judgments?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Can emotions be classified as good or bad? Can there be correct, or appropriate, emotional responses? Is it correct to be horrified by accounts of torture?

<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> emotion a source of spiritual knowledge?
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Is faith purely emotional or is it possible to provide a rational justification for religious belief? Is


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Do people act their way into feeling or feel their way into action? What is the relationship between emotion and experience (for example, in CAS activities)?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">How did your feelings or emotions affect (positively or negatively) your ability to perform, to make decisions or to reason in regard to particular CAS activities? How did you deal with such situations?

**<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">LINKING QUESTIONS: **

<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">"//Under all that we think, lives all we believe, like the ultimate veil of our spirits." Antonio Machado//
 * **<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Belief **


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">What may be meant by Ugo Betti’s comment that “When you want to believe in something you also have to believe in everything that’s necessary for believing in it”?

<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">knowledge?
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">How do beliefs about the world, and beliefs about what is valuable, influence the pursuit of


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">To what extent can beliefs be justified on the basis of ways of knowing? To what extent should they be justified this way?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Does some degree of unjustified belief exist within each element of the TOK diagram?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">What may be meant by the following comment?
 * //<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">First there is a time when we believe everything without reasons, then for alittle while we believe with discrimination, then we believe nothing whatever, and then we believe everything again—and, moreover, give reasons why we believe everything. //**
 * //<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Georg Christoph Lichtenburg //**

è **<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Certainty ** //<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">"We know accurately only when we know little; with knowledge doubt increases. //**<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">" ** //<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Johann Wolfgang von Goethe // <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> **//The best lack all conviction, while the worst//**
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">What may be meant by Martin Luther King’s claim that “Nothing is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity”, or the following lines by W B Yeats?
 * //<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Are full of passionate intensity. //**


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">To what extent is certainty attainable within each of the ways of knowing or within each of the areas of knowledge?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">In the absence of evidence, is certainty possible? Can there be certainty about a claim that is false?

è **<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Culture ** //<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Just because we aren’t all the same doesn’t mean we have nothing in common. //   //<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Kirk Kerekes //
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">What beliefs or knowledge, if any, are independent of culture?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">How do cultures differ with respect to the ways of knowing and areas of knowledge that they value above others? How would one justify valuing one way, or one area, more than another?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">If one looks at most western compilations of quotations, it seems that most are attributed to dead, white, European males. Why might this be so? To what extent does the identity of the author of a quotation influence how its content is interpreted and how seriously its ideas are taken? What does the choice of quotations in this guide signify?

è **<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Evidence **
 * //<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe and he’ll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he’ll have to touch to be sure. Anon //**
 * **<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">What constitutes good evidence within the different ways of knowing and areas of knowledge? **


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Do sense perception, reason and emotion have the same weight in providing good evidence for claims within the different areas of knowledge? Must evidence always be expressed in words?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">What could be meant by “A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it” (Tagore)?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Which, if either, is the more definitive: facts from books, or facts from databases?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Can a fact exist without a context?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">What does Luigi Pirandello mean by his comment that “My opinion is a view I hold until—well—until I find out something that changes it”?

è **<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Experience **
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">In what ways have your perspectives changed as a result of your experiences of working with other people in the Diploma Programme, for example, in science projects or CAS activities?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">What kinds of knowledge can be gained only through experience?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">In which areas of knowledge is experience of least importance?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">What are the dangers of equating personal experience and knowledge?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">CAS is often described as “experiential education”. In what ways is learning in CAS similar to or different from learning in other areas of the Diploma Programme?

è **<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Explanation ** //<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">The reverse side also has a reverse side. Japanese proverb //


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">What characteristics must an explanation possess to be considered **good** within the different ways of knowing and areas of knowledge?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Must all good explanations make predictions with the same degree of success?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Where would explanations about each area of knowledge rate, in a continuum from stories through models to reality? What is reality?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">What are the differences between persuasive explanations, good explanations and true explanations?

è **<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Interpretation ** <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">knowledge affect the knowledge we obtain?
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">What may be meant by Eugène Ionesco’s statement: “Explanation separates us from astonishment, which is the only gateway to the incomprehensible”?
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">To what extent do the classification systems (labels and categories) adopted in the pursuit of


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">How does interpretation occur within areas of knowledge? Within ways of knowing? Are some ways of knowing less open to interpretation than others?

è **<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Intuition ** //<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next. Jonas Salk //
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">In attempting to understand what is commonly called “intuition”, is it best to think of it as a rapid cognitive process or perhaps, as some say, as an irrational or unmediated awareness of phenomena?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Germaine Greer once commented that “The frequently celebrated female intuition…is after all only a facility for observing tiny insignificant aspects of behaviour and forming an empirical conclusion which cannot be syllogistically examined.” Does “feminine intuition” exist? Do men’s ways of knowing differ from those of women?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">To what extent is intuition to be taken seriously in the different areas of knowledge?

è **<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Technology ** //<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Before you become too entranced with gorgeous gadgets and mesmerizing video displays, let me remind you that information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight. Each grows out of the other and we need them all. Arthur C Clarke // <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Although technology is certainly not new, rapid and accelerating advances in the fields of information <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">and communication technology are commonly recognized as having profound effects on what we do <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">and can know. Technology offers a means of communication that, more than any other, crosses cultures.


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">In what ways has technology expanded knowledge? In what ways has it affected how much we value the different ways of knowing and areas of knowledge? What fields of study have been founded on technological developments?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Does information technology, like deduction, simply allow the knower to arrange existing knowledge in a different way, without adding anything, or is this arrangement itself knowledge in some sense?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">To what extent do information and communication technologies influence the way we think about the world? To what extent do these technologies determine what we regard as valuable or important? Could it be argued that the increasing global dominance of a particular form of information technology gives rise to an increasing uniformity of thinking?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Can it be said that every new technology affects the beliefs of individuals and societies, in both positive and negative ways? How can the impact of new technologies be predicted? How reliable are these predictions?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">What is the difference between data, information, knowledge and wisdom? Are there technologies specifically designed to impart data, information, knowledge and wisdom?

<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">information, and the reasons for believing such information to be true? Who controls such <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">technologies, and what are the effects of such control?
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> In what ways do information and communication technologies influence the accessibility of


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">What did Sydney Harris mean when he said that “The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers”?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">What is meant by Akio Morita’s claim that “You can be totally rational with a machine. But if you work with people, sometimes logic has to take a back seat to understanding”?

è **<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Truth ** //<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">They who know the Truth are not equal to those who love it, and they who // //<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">love it are not equal to those who delight in it. Confucius //
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">How useful are the truth tests of coherence, correspondence and pragmatism in arriving at knowledge?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Is there such a thing as **false knowledge**?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">What is the difference between justified true belief and true belief?

**//<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">As the wise test gold by burning, cutting and rubbing it… so are you to accept my words after examining them and not merely out of regard for me. Buddha, //**//<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Compendium of All the Essences of Wisdom //
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">What is meant by the following statement?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">To what extent does the truth of a statement depend on the language used to express it?

è **<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Values ** //<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">To live is, in itself, a value judgment. To breathe is to judge. Albert Camus //
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">How do values underlie the pursuit of truth in the different areas of knowledge? How, if at all, do they influence methodology?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">To what extent do the different ways of knowing and areas of knowledge influence the values adopted by individuals and societies?


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">In what ways do values affect our representations of the world, for example, in language, maps, visual images, or statistics? When might a persuasive representation be praised as “effective”, or, in contrast, condemned as “manipulative”?


 * //<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">At the end of nine or ten nights he realized, with a certain bitterness, that he could expect nothing from those students who accepted his teaching passively, but he could of those who sometimes risked a reasonable contradiction. //**
 * //<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Jorge Luis Borges //**