September 25, 2024

Agenda

1. Starter: What knowledge can we be certain about?

   • Statements & truth spectrum

   • Put these five statements on the truth spectrum.

   • Be ready to justify WHY you think each statement is or is not certain.

   • Think of your own two examples – one for each extreme of the spectrum.

     Questions to consider

     1. But how do you know that?

     2. What evidence do you have to support that?

     3. What makes x truer than y?

     4. Where has your opinion on that come from?

     5. Is that always true in all situations?

     6. Is there a difference between belief and certainty?

     TOK will not be looking for you to make binary decisions about whether something is simply true or false. Instead, this course is about understanding complexity, and how some knowledge can be false and valuable while other knowledge can be true and useless.

   • Look over the five examples of ‘knowledge’ from the previous task on the truth spectrum.

     • Apollo 11 landed on the Moon in 1969.

     • Africa is bigger than Europe in terms of landmass.

     • Murder is wrong.

     • 1+ 1= 2

     • The universe is 13.7 billion years old.

   • Place these examples on the truth axis.

   • Add your own knowledge statement to the axis.

   • Add your school subjects to the axis.

2. Reflect in your TOK Journals (‘What is truth?’):

   • What is truth?

   • What knowledge can we be certain about?

3. Review the presentation.

4. Activity: Pencil Tapper

   1. I need a volunteer to tap with a pencil a song that you and everybody in the class knows.

   2. The specific song is known only to me and the pencil tapper.

   3. Once the volunteer is done tapping out 10-15 seconds of the song, everyone will write down what they think the song was.

   4. While the rest of the class is guessing, the tapper will estimate what percentage of the class will guess correctly.

   5. We will then poll the class to see who was correct.

   6. Think: How does the possession of knowledge change you? How does it make it hard not to know and understand someone else’s mind that you do not know?

5. Continue reviewing the presentation.

6. Activity: Fact, Truth, Belief Card Sort

   • Please sort/categorize the knowledge questions into one of the groups (fact, truth, belief).

   • Be ready to report how you grouped them!

7. Finish reviewing the presentation.

8. Final Assignment: Knowledge Responses