Knowledge+issues,+knowers+and+knowing

Knowers and Sources of Knowledge

• How is knowledge gained? What are the sources? To what extent might these vary according to age, education or cultural background?

• What role does personal experience play in the formation of knowledge claims?

• To what extent does personal or ideological bias influence our knowledge claims?

Being biased - How facts backfire

 This story sheds light on the ingrained difficulties of getting people to change their minds, based on actual facts. What the researchers discovered was a sort of pathology of the human brain, whereby we can be "inoculated" against truth:

//Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It's this: Facts don't necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.//

• Does knowledge come from inside or outside? Do we construct reality or do we recognize it?

• “Whoever acquires knowledge and does not practise it resembles him who ploughs his land and leaves it unsown.” (Sa’di) Are there responsibilities that necessarily come with knowing something or knowing how to do something? To whom might these responsibilities be owed?

• In what sense, if any, can a machine be said to know something? How can anyone believe that a machine can think?

• When a machine gives an instruction to press a certain button to make it work, where is that knowledge or awareness located? Does technology allow some knowledge to reside outside the human knower? Is knowledge even a “thing” that resides somewhere?

Knowledge Communities

• In the TOK diagram, the centre is represented as both an individual and a group. To what extent can we distinguish between knowing as an individual and knowing as a group or community enterprise? • How much of one’s knowledge depends on interaction with other knowers? • Are there types of knowledge that are specifically linked to particular communities of knowers? • To what extent can we act individually in creating new knowledge? What are the strengths of working in a knowledge community? What are the dangers? <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 140%;">• Is common sense just what is taken for granted in a community? How can we decide when to question common sense? <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 140%;">• Presented with the belief system of a community of knowers, how can we decide what we personally believe? How can we decide which beliefs we ought to check further? In the end does it just amount to a question of trust? If so, how can we decide who to trust, and on which issues? <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 140%;">• Do we need to grow up in a human community in order to develop ways of knowing (sense perception, language, reason and emotion)? Or are we born “hard wired” to be able to use them? Is community more important in some ways of knowing than others? <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 140%;">• In what sense is a community of knowers like bees constructing the labyrinths of their hive or a group of builders constructing a building?