TOK Camp 2013 – TOK Presentation Preparation Part 2

The presentation The presentation is the first of the two assessments for TOK. You can do your presentation as an individual, or in a group of 2. Either way, each speaker has to speak for 10 minutes. The presentation involves skills, knowledge and understandings that will be directly applicable to the second assessment: the essay. The presentation is internally assessed (assessed by your TOK teachers) whereas the essay will be externally assessed.

The basic structure of the presentation

Topic for the rest of this presentation: Once I have extracted a high quality knowledge issue from my real-life situation, how do I go about developing it?

How to develop a knowledge issue Knowledge issues are questions about knowledge. In order to develop a knowledge issue, you need to use your TOK concepts and theory to explore your knowledge issue. It may be that – through this process - you arrive at a single answer to your question. However, it may be that you arrive at a set of possible answers, all of which have something going for them.

Example Real life situation: Ms Fergus-Brown avoids buying coffee at the new Chinese-run café on Main Street. Knowledge issue: What role does reason play in sustaining prejudice? Ms Ferguson-Brown, and then Dr Hodges, will show you how they would approach the knowledge issue. Your job is to pick out the common principles behind the two approaches.

Ms Ferguson-Brown’s approach

Dr Hodges’ approach What is the most obvious response to this question? It doesn’t play a role. Prejudice is irrational. It is biologically-based: humans, like all other animals, are biologically driven to further the interests of those who are most genetically similar to them. Fear of the other is a biological fact of life.

Dr Hodges’ approach What other responses might we make by drawing on our TOK theory? Perhaps people are prejudiced because they suffered some traumatic experience, and they have over-generalized. How does this relate to emotion as a WOK? As much as we might put this kind of a response down to emotion, there is reasoning involved. But it’s unsound reasoning. Fallacy of weak induction: generalizing from a single case or a small sample.

Dr Hodges’ approach OK, but could sound reasoning ever play a role in sustaining prejudicial beliefs? What if every time you ate Chinese food, you became sick? Then the inference to the conclusion that Chinese food is unhealthy might not be based on fallacious reasoning. But, if a belief is based on sound reasoning, is it really prejudicial? So on and so forth …

What are the commonalities and difference between the two approaches?