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The article above fails to mention that Plato's famous definition of knowledge is widely believed (by professionals who specialize in the theory of knowledge) to be incorrect. How a course can be organized around a definition known to be flawed is, to say the least, problematic. Furthermore, the claim that the definition is flawed is easily found on the web. Just find Edmund Gettier's article "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?" (I quote the title from memory; but even if it's not right, a little time with Google will correct my error.)
Secondly, the article claims that the course "teaches" that among the forms of justification for our beliefs are "consensus", "authority", and "faith". These are all dubious sources of justification. Five million Americans or Frenchmen could be wrong.
"Authority" begs questions about how you know who the experts are.
"Faith" is especially problematic. The faith of many Americans leads them to reject well-established scientific claims.
If "faith", e.g., is not a source of justification, you simply cannot teach that it is--and pretending that you are doing so is, at the very least, a dubious enterprise. What the course should be doing is not t e a c h i n g that these are the forms of justification, but e x a m i n i n g their claims to be forms of justification.
That's more a problem with the article than with the course itself as conceived by IB. But, the course itself has problems too. One fundamental problem with this course is that there is no real theory here.
At any rate, there is no theory in the way one finds theories in the sciences.
And, in fact, there are epistemologists who doubt the very possibility o giving anything like a general characterization of knowledge or justification. There are just too many forms of knowlege, and justification itself varies too much.
A teacher who is convinced by that will end up teaching an Anti-Theory of Knowledge course.
Another serious problem is intellectual conservatism of a suspicious sort. According to Bishop and Trout, in their "Epistemology and the Psychology of Human Judgement", published by Oxford University Press. < http://www.oup.co.uk/isbn/0-19-516230-7> traditional analytic theory of knowledge (epistemology) suffers from a fatal sort of conservatism. We are supposed to be engaged in a serious intellectual enterprise; yet, at the end of the day it must turn out that our ordinary beliefs are pretty much correct. To my ears, that sounds like a recipe for anti-science, and when I read Bishop and Trout's book I immediately thought of IB Theory of Knowledge. The article above illustrates my point.
Inclusion of "faith" on the list of forms of justification above is evidence of extremely strong intellectual conservatism--as if its right to be there were a fait accomplis merely because many people would like it to be. What a proper epistemology course should do is examine the claim that faith is a form of justification. (And, it's not written into the unspoken rules that it must, in the end, prove to be one.)
Note: Bishop's homepage has an article (co-authored with Trout) about the above, on the "pathologies" of "standard analytic philosophy": http://www.niu.edu/phil/~bishop/Research.shtml
The anonymous contributor comments: Thank you for moving this stuff. It was sloppily placed, and your placing is better. On the other hand, if I am right, the errors here are serious ones, ones which cannot be ignored. The article betrays a misunderstanding of its subject-matter. Though I grant you the IB organization at times seems to be suggesting that they've created something new, the truth is that they rely pretty heavily upon traditional mainstream epistemology in the analytic tradition. And my criticisms, I think, are based within that tradition, even if Bishop and Trout criticize mainstream epistemology. I'm not advocating something unusual. And, you can easily enough check that out with a little research.
I am less charmed by Wikipedia-ese.
You don't get objectivity or truth just by getting rid of "I" or what you call "point of view". You may want to disagree, and I grant you that there is room here for discussion. That's precisely the sort of thing that should go on in an empistemology course, whether it is at the unviersity or high school level. Howeever, a contribution may be what you call "heavily POV", and yet, for all that say something true--or, less ambitiously, it may simply improve upon the article it comments upon. Best regards, and thank you again for moving the piece. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 217.172.152.139 ( talk • contribs) . The same anonymous contributor would like to add the following words of clarification: The original article is misleading about the nature of epistemology and the nature of philosophy. (Epistemology or 'theory of knowledge' is part of philosophy.)
The article misleads when it writes of some definite content that the student learns. An important part of philosophical inquiry is asking questions of the sort: is X a source of knowledge? Or, is X a justification? By making these questions seem more definite than they are, the article misleads.
Moreover, by its choice of "faith" as a form of justification the article departs from the mainstream within epistemology. It is, at the very least, controversial to claim that faith is a form of justification. Moreover, by any reasonable definition, that means that the article contains a very definite point of view--POV, if you prefer. It is very noteworthy that the article has been published in Wikipedia without this being recognized.
A second point which I made is more controversial. However, I briefly expand upon it.
I suggested that the very title "Theory of Knowledge" is misleading. The Theory of Knowledge course within the IB program is supposed to be interdisciplinary. It is supposed to connect with other subjects the student studies. To the extent that it does this, it is largely a course in critical thinking. Consequently, there is a natural emphasis more upon criticism than theory construction. That makes the title of the course misleading.
One final comment. If I am correct to suggest that the article evinces misunderstanding of what epistemology is, and if the article is, in fact, coming from the IB organization itself, then that bodes ill both for IB and for Wikipedia. As I said above, the article clearly contains a certain controversial (and I suggested false) point of view. Yet, it escaped the notice of Wikipedia's content managers. That raises questions both about Wikipedia and the IBO. One might also wonder whether the article is not, in effect, a form of advertising for the International Baccalaureate Organization? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 217.172.152.139 ( talk • contribs) .
The course teaches nine reasons for justification of things one claims to know: logic, sensory perception, revelation, faith, memory, consensus, authority, intuition, and self-awareness.
There are nine reasons for justification of things one claims to know: logic, sensory perception, revelation, faith, memory, consensus, authority, intuition, and self-awareness.
Thanks for your comment, Keenan. Your points are clear.
You suggest that the article only d e s c r i b i n g the point of view that faith is a source of justification. That's not what I understood it to say. Possibly, the author wished to only describe that point of view. If so, I think the writer could have taken steps to make it clear, such as by adding "alleged" or "commonly believed to be".
If the article means what you suggest, then its author has been sloppy. In any case, the author makes the thing a bit too baroque by using reasons and justification. One term would be enough.
I wonder, incidentally: Doesn't the article have the offical logo of the IBO organization on the page? Doesn't that indicate official endorsement?
You seem to be saying that The official title is whatever the IB says it is--And, so you (anonyomous editor) can't argue about that. Heck, it's their course, isn't it? Well, in a way, I doubt all of that. The title should reflect the nature of the subject matter. I claim that it reflects poorly on the actual subject matter. The subject wasn't invented by them and what it is is not solely a matter of their opinion--especially if their ideas are not consistent or clear. I think someone can judge whether they've chosen a good name. Cf. If Ford wants to call their new car "the Plum Pudding", and it is actually a very fast, aerodynamically streamlined car, someone might point out that the name is misleading with respect to the product.....
When you say I cannot debate about what the course teaches, you puzzle me. You cannot teach what is not true. Ergo you cannot teach that faith is a source of justification. That is my point of view. And just because the IB writer manages to say (whether or not that is his intention) that faith is a source of justification, it is still not true, and so cannot be taught.
When I say "teach" I don't mean to propagandize, but to convey knowledge, to share truth.
Your remark about "conficting material" puzzles me. I can't conflict with the article? But I think the article has a serious mistake; so, any honest editing would have to make a serious change. It might be possible for me to find a way around this, though; but I hadn't planned to spend so much time on this......(I'll have to think about it.)
In any case, the article does seem to be a fancy sort of advertisement! :-) And it does make me sceptical about Wikipedial.
Incidentally, I do teach IB TOK and have taught Philosophy for a for a few years, so I think I'm not just making this up. :-) Thank you again and Best regards, --the anonymous editor.
Ihave the feeling that my remarks could be clearer, but I've run out of time. Perhaps you'll get the main point despite the excessive verbosity! :-)
Incidentally, you can find something related to some of the views I describe in Stephen Stich's article, "What is a theory of representation?" in Mind, Vol. 101, 1992, ppp. 243-261. It's relevant to my remarks about epistemology and "anti-theory". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 217.172.152.139 ( talk • contribs) .
What should or should not be taught in this class and the name of the class is not the point of this article. So what if Plato's theory is wrong? Are you the teacher or an IBO board member? If so, take your complaints there. Mainly, the end result of this class is to have those kids come out and be able to analyze things that happen and not just be that couch potato who sits down and absorbs everything without putting a thought into what is being told. This class is not a requirement in any country. It's a fine class that gets students to critically think, especially if you have the right teacher like me.
24.4.221.251
04:55, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia really ought to take a browser from a 'theory of knowledge' link to a disambiguation page, one which includes (a fancy word philosophers use for the disciple they also frequently call 'theory of knowledge') and this page, which is an extremely narrow and technical use of the expression 'theory of knowledge'.
No, that doesn't really solve the problem, since as it stands a reader without any background might naturally conclude that 'Theory of Knowledge' is most commonly used as a technical term for the particular high school course disucssed in this article, and that the 'theory of knowledge' is merely a species of the broader category of epistemology. This just isn't the way philosophers in academia use those terms. Theory of Knowledge is Epistemology. Two expressions for the same discipline.
ToK is considered, by IB students, to be a form of punishment, to keep them in check. They also believe that people who undertake different courses, are the driving force behind ToK, and that IB students wish to abolish ToK.
I feel as though this should be deleted simply because it is not verifiable. I, for one, am an IB Diploma Programme student who enjoys the class. Casey 02:58, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Although I am not an IB student, I am enrolled in ToK for the coming year and IB graduates from last year absolutely loved the class. 71.103.139.56 02:35, 24 August 2007 (UTC) fdsa —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.250.153.75 ( talk) 03:29, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
The whole article needs to be rewritten. The English is deplorable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.67.154.172 ( talk) 23:55, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm an IB student who likes ToK for the reason that it's a chance to relax and zone out after the stress of other classes. But I agree that such information may not be appropriate for an encyclopedic article Nish81 ( talk) 15:29, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
From my experience doing IB at Maastricht, I found that TOK explained to me some basic principles behind the subjects I was learning - it was telling me more "Where this came from" rather than "Accept it, this is the curriculum". For instance, I studied the rationale behind Mendeléev's work on the periodic table, I understood Babylonian knowledge - I learnt about ideas such as mental expectation (the hunter who shot and killed his friend because of expectation of a deer), and the impact of crowd mentality. TOK will also give young people a realisation of how the media attempts to manipulate those who they consider stupid enough to be manipulated. Philosophy / Theory / Psychology has its place in all levels of education AFAIAC.
From philosophy -> Mathematics, from Mathematics -> Physics, from Physics -> Chemistry, from Chemistry -> Biology
All students need to understand WHY they are learning the stuff that is fed to them through their course books. TOK brought to me a realisation behind the drudgery. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MagnificentMatthew ( talk • contribs) 20:30, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but I think that this page should mention the word "epistemology" at least somewhere. The whole "Theory of Knowledge" thing is just made up by the IB so that even people who don't know big words can appreciate how sophisticated the course is and how wonderful IB is for providing it to high school level students and how prestigious that should make it. Whatever they call it, its an epistemology course, and that should be stated somewhere in the article. greping this article for the word "epistemology" and not finding anything is just unacceptable. I'll leave someone else to do it in the spirit of CONSENSUS. 114.244.74.134 ( talk) 07:38, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
I removed some inappropriate links, namely:
These either violate IB's copyright or appear to be links from their password-protected Online Curriculum Center. As a result, this also required that I edit a few passages in the body of the article.
For further information, please see the discussion at Talk:IB_Diploma_Programme on 2 July 2009. I'll return at some point to help provide solid citations from legitimate sources. Regards, CinchBug | Talk 22:39, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
This entire article is nothing but propaganda for International Baccalaureate and should be wiped and re-written. No citations, no criticism, no history, inaccurate, (for example, TOK is only for students going for the FULL Diploma)and a bunch of puffery and bravado. ObserverNY ( talk) 11:19, 21 July 2009 (UTC)ObserverNY
I am a little surprised by the listing, in the opening, of "Ways of knowing: (sense perception, reason, emotion, authority and language/tone/symbols/nomenclature). "
Not for a moment do I think that revelation, cloud-reading, stirring of entrails, and so on and so forth are valid ways of knowing, but it is not subject to doubt that many people, perhaps a majority of the human race, do think of these and methods like them as valid. It is probably as true today as it was seventy years ago, when Bertrand Russell first made the remark, that there are more astrology columns than science columns in newspapers.
Thus, I think a major part of any teachihng of epistemology has to be concerned with methods that are wrong, stupid, harmful and ignorant as much as with methods that are generally thought to be correct, intelligent, useful and well-informed.
-dlj. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DavidLJ ( talk • contribs) 13:53, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
The ToK/EE Points Matrix is outdated. As of 2010 if you get an E in one of ToK or EE you have to achieve 28 points in your IB Subjects to be awarded a diploma. There might have been another condition which I can't remember right now, but things have changed An example ToK/EE Points Matrix is here: http://www.aisb.ro/page.cfm?p=2594 Jhgenius01 ( talk) 22:15, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
From the may examination session of 2015 an E in either TOK or the Extended Essay results in you failing the diploma regardless of your score Charmeister ( talk) 13:24, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
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