Areas of Knowing (AoK)

How do I know that a given assertion is true or a given judgment is well grounded? WoK… How do I know? AoK… What do I know?

ToK Awareness Methodology: what methods are used to reach knowledge claims? Are the methods wholly reliable? How do they compare with methods used in other subjects? Questions: what type of questions do we ask in a subject? How does it differ by subject? Who, what, why, to what extent… what does that imply about the subject?

ToK Awareness Limitations: what, if anything presents knowledge claims in our subject from being absolutely certain? Are those limitations acknowledged in class? Biases: what assumptions do we make when making knowledge claims in a subject? How do culture, language and other factors affect the knowledge claims we make?

ToK Awareness Knowers: how do the perceptions, emotions, language and reasoning of the knower (student) affect what and how they learn? Language: how do we use language in a particular subject? Why do we use it in this way? How does it increase the level of certainty/accuracy in the subject?

Mathematics What does it mean to call math a language? “Arithmetic is where the answer is right and everything is nice and you can look out of the window and see the blue sky— or the answer is wrong and you have to start all over again and see how it comes out this time.” Carl Sandburg

Mathematics “Ah, Why, ye Gods, should two and two make four?” Alexander Pope “May not Music be described as the Mathematics of sense, and Mathematics as the Music of reason?” J.J. Sylvester Do different geometries (Euclidean & non- Euclidean) refer to or describe different worlds?

Science What does the word science mean? “Science does not know its debt to imagination” Ralph Waldo Emerson “Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.” Adam Smith

Science “Research is what I am doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.” Wernher von Braun “Science is built of facts the way a house is built of bricks, but an accumulation of facts is no more science than a pile of bricks is a house.” Poincare

Science Is scientific knowledge valued for its own sake or more for the technology which it makes possible? Is there any science which can be pursued without the use of technology?

History To what extent can the past be known? “Life must be lived forwards but can only be understood backwards.” Kierkegaard “What is past is prologue.” W. Shakespeare

History “Nothing changes more constantly than the past; for the past that influences our lives does not consist of what actually happened, but of what men believe happened.” Gerald White Johnson What are some of the problems that face the historian?

Ethics What is the source of “right” and “wrong”? “Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people.” Spencer Johnson “Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful” Samuel Johnson

Ethics Relativity applies to physics, not ethics.” Albert Einstein Does the possession of knowledge carry a moral responsibility?

The Arts What do we mean by “the arts”? “A work of art is intentionally formed by a person for the sake of doing so in order to evoke a response from some other person.” Reuben Abel

The Arts Art functions… “to express the imagination.” Shelley “to advance universal brotherhood.” Tolstoy “to enhance morality.” D.H. Lawrence “to criticize life.” Matthew Arnold

The Arts “to bring you ‘face-to-face’ with reality.” Bergson “to help you relax.” Matisse “to serve no function at all, but simply to exist for its own sake.” Reuben Abel Are the arts a kind of knowledge, or are they a means of expressing knowledge?