IB Theory of Knowledge

1. Knowledge and Belief

2. • The maps on this page were drawn by students from Japan,
Greenland, Costa Rica and Canada. Can you match each map
to the most likely student? Why do you think this?

3. Mental Maps

4. Mental Maps
• What do you think we mean by the term “mental
map”?
• In what ways is your mental map similar to a
geographical map?
• What things have affected your own mental
map?
• In what ways do you think your mental map is
different to the person sitting next to you now?
• Is your mental map affected by your age? – is it
static or dynamic?
• Are all maps inherently dynamic?
West Wing – Changing Maps

5. Mental Maps
• The mental maps we create give a distorted picture of
reality (they are prone to confirmation biases)
• This means “common sense” does not really exist
• Our beliefs come from a variety of sources
– Teachers
– Friends
– Family
– Books
– The language we speak
– The culture and/or religion we belong to

6. Mental Maps

7. Mental Maps
• Each of us has a ‘common sense’ picture (or ‘map’ of the
‘world’)
• For each of us this map is different, depending on what
kinds of influences have shaped it
• We hardly ever consider our map (or its flaws)
(Incidentally this would be metacognition)
• Our mental map can be so influenced by the way we
have been brought up, it may skew or bias our common
sense in ways we don’t even realise – so common sense
(or intuition) cannot necessarily be trusted
Harold Camping
The banana – an atheist’s nightmare

8. Mental Maps

9. Paradigms
• A paradigm is a framework of accepted knowledge within
which we build our mental maps
• We generally only recognise them when they are broken –
i.e. when someone comes along who sees beyond an
existing paradigm and produces a paradigm shift
• We often think of such people as geniuses
• You could probably name many geniuses in disciplines like
maths, art and science – but paradigms (and geniuses) exist
in all areas of knowledge
http://edrontheoryofknowledge.blogspot.mx/2
014/08/botswana-ronnie.html

10. Certainty
• All of the ways of knowing have inherent
problems which introduce doubt and make
certainty a difficult thing to achieve:
– Language
– Perception
– Reason
– Emotion
– Faith

11. Certainty and Language
• Knowledge changes over time as new
discoveries are made. Knowledge is
disseminated by language
• Knowledge gained from language involves
somebody else imparting that knowledge,
either through the spoken or written word
• Some sources are more reliable than others

12. Certainty and Perception
• Our senses often deceive
us
• We don’t all perceive
things exactly the same as
each other, e.g. Colour
blindness
• Put your finger across the
centre of the image on
the right. What do you
perceive?

13. Certainty and Reason
• Some people are better at reasoning than
others
• For example, is the following simple syllogism
true or false?
– All fimbles are foobles
– Some fimbles are wombles
– Some foobles are therefore wombles

14. Certainty and Emotion
• Our gut feelings are based on emotion and
intuition
• Different people intuit things in different ways
• People can have equally strong feelings on
completely opposite sides of a debate

15. Relativism
• This is a belief that absolute truth does not exist (i.e. any
position you take on any question is as equally true as any
other)
• In a subject like TOK this is very problematic. You are
expected to develop justifications to defend your position
on a knowledge question, and you can’t do this from a
relativistic standpoint – therefore always avoid relativism
• Of course, in a simplistic sense, two opposing beliefs can’t
both be true. If I believe the Earth is flat and you believe it
is round, we can’t both be right

16. Trusting Knowledge
• Evidence
– In order for a belief to be reasonable, it requires supporting
evidence. The onus is on the person making a knowledge
claim to provide this evidence, otherwise they are guilty of
the fallacy of argument ad ignorantium
• Coherence
– Coherence refers to how well a knowledge claim fits with
current understanding. It is a good guide when chosing what
to believe, since outlandish beliefs rarely cohere with a
contemporary paradigm. However, some scientific claims
have been ridiculed before being accepted as true (e.g.
Alfred Wegener’s Theory of Continental Drift)

17. Knowledge
• The accepted definition of ‘knowledge’ is the Platonist idea
of ‘Justified True Belief’ (JTB)
• This was largely accepted for thousands of years. However,
the ideas of justification, belief and truth are all subjective to
some degree
• In his 1926 essay ‘Theory of Knowledge’, Bertrand Russell
had this to say about the JTB definition:
“The trouble is that no one knows what a belief is, no one knows what a
fact is, and no one knows what sort of agreement between them would
make a belief true."

18. Justified True Belief

19. The Problems of Knowledge
• Belief – something that is often thought of as being self-evident (after
all, you might say you “know” what you believe and what you don’t).
However, it is not always easy to pinpoint your own beliefs
• Truth – this is perhaps less self-evident. Truth may change over time
and what one person may accept as a perceived truth may be
challenged by another. In his essay Theory of Knowledge, the
philosopher Bertrand Russell discussed the relationship between truth
and belief in these terms “… no one knows what a belief is, no one
knows what a fact is and no one knows what sort of agreement
between them would make a belief true.”
• Justification – this is plainly not self-evident. Justification of a belief is
in some way personal to whoever is making a knowledge claim and
perhaps to some extent subjective. Forming your own justifications to
defend your own knowledge claims is at the heart of the discipline of
TOK

20. The Problems of Knowledge
• In 1963, Edmund Gettier published a paper in which he
showed it is possible to hold a justified true belief, but not
have knowledge. One of his examples is paraphrased below:
• Smith and Jones apply for a job. Prior to his interview Smith is
told by the president of the company that it is has already
been decided that Jones will be offered the job. Smith also
sees that Jones has ten coins in his pocket (in a conceit of the
story it’s never explained how Smith sees this – perhaps they
were talking at the coffee machine). Smith now holds a
justified belief that the person who will get the job has ten
coins in his pocket. However, it transpires that the Company
President was wrong and Smith is offered the job (not only
that, but coincidentally Smith also has ten coins in his
pocket). Smith’s justified true belief therefore stands, but we
cannot call it knowledge because the premises of his
justification were faulty.
Gettier’s original paper
Analysing the Gettier Problem
Can you come up with your own
version of a Gettier problem story?

21. Knowledge and Belief
• Knowledge and Belief are related and lie on some kind of
continuum (we may disagree about where each actually lies
and whether the positions are fixed)
Impossible CertainUnlikely Possible Probable
• Beliefs may or may not be true, and do not necesarily require
justification

22. The Importance of Open-Mindedness
• Carl Sagan
– “Be open-minded, but not so open minded that
your brains fall out”
The importance of unbelief

23. The Problems of Knowledge
a. Certainty
• Knowledge (or at least certainty) is always
moving away from us
– If you study something in year 7 at school, then
you revisit the same thing again in years 9 and 11
your knowledge of that topic has grown
(“vertically”?)
• There also appear to be some things in the
Universe which defy understanding (at least at
present) e.g. The Bell Experiment

24. Buffon’s Needle Puzzle
Probability needle hits a
line = 2/π

25. The Problems of knowledge
b. Justification
• Imagine, in the Middle Ages, a scholar claimed
that the Earth was round, not flat. When asked to
justify his belief, he explained that because our
feet are curved at the bottom. This must be
because the Earth is round and our feet become
molded to it when we are children and walk
around without shoes.
• Does he know the earth is round?
• Compare this to The Banana – an Atheist’s
Nightmare

26. Transforming Information
1. Understand the information
2. Evaluate the information
3. Respond to the information
We have already considered how we understand
information. Now we need to think about we evaluate
and respond to it.

27. Responding to information
• There are 2 ways to respond to information
• Either you believe/accept it or you
disbelieve/reject it – your response either
results in ACTION or INACTION

28. Truth and Belief
• Information is often presented as a knowledge claim
– “I know that… because…”
• There are 3 ways to investigate the truth of a
knowledge claim
– Correspondence theory
(does the knowledge claim correspond to a fact?)
– Coherence theory
(does the knowledge claim fit in with our current set of
beliefs?)
– Pragmatic theory
(does the knowledge claim work in practice?)

29. Correspondence Theory
• Something is true if corresponds to a known fact
• e.g. “grass is green”
• Correspondence theory leads to all kinds of problems
• How do we know the previous fact is true?
• What is a fact? Do facts just exist outside the realm of our
perception
• There are all kinds of problems with our perception

30. Coherence Theory
• Something is true if it fits with our overall beliefs
• Are there are problems with this?
• JFK is a good film, it is based on some historical facts
and many people believe the conspiracy theory it
presents for the assassination is correct – but that
does not necessarily make it true
• Coherence is necessary for truth, but does not make
something true on its own

31. • Think of some coherent but stupid
explanations for the following examples:
– Why the Sun moves across the sky
– Why the prices of stocks and shares goes up and
down
– The assassination of John Lennon
– Global warming
Coherence Theory

32. Pragmatic Theory
• Something is true if it can be shown to work in
practice
• e.g. “my theory on how a disease spreads
must be true, because the medicine I have
created to prevent its spread works”
• What is the problem with this?
• Well, basically, it is possible for something to
be useful but not true, or true but not useful

33. Pragmatic Theory
• Newton’s Laws were shown by Einstein’s
theory of relativity to be basically untrue
• However, Newton’s Laws work so well in
practice that scientists use them in their
calculations to land a spacecraft on the Moon.

34. • Class the following statements as (A) true and useful, (B)
untrue and useful, (C) untrue and not useful:
1. If a noun in Spanish ends with “a” then it is feminine
2. 2+2=4
3. Santa Claus is watching over you to see if you are being
good
4. If you smoke cannabis your teeth will fall out
5. I am right because God is on my side
6. Anyone in Mexico can be successful if they work hard
enough
7. Everyone has a special talent, we just need to find out
what it is
Truth and Belief

35. Evaluating Information
• One of the biggest debates around today is
the debate about global warming
• What can we choose to believe or disbelieve
here?
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1Pv7wCR
cJ4&feature=related

36. Evaluating the Information
• Please make up your own mind about the knowledge claims
on both sides of any debate
» BUT
• Be a critical thinker
– Use the theories of correspondence, coherence and pragmatism when
investigating a knowledge claim
– Look for self-interest in anybody’s argument (in other words look for
confirmation bias)
– Look for argument ad ignorantiam (the person presenting the
knowledge claim should be “knowledgeable”)
– Be ready to accept expert opinion (but don’t be fooled by authority
worship, and check that the “expert” really is an expert within the
field of the knowledge claim)

37. What is Wisdom?
“Knowledge of what is true coupled with just judgment as to action.”

38. Wisdom

39. Wisdom
• The textbook lists the following characteristics
as typical of a wise person. Please remember
that this is the author’s opinion (but I think it’s
a good list).
– Good judgement
– Breadth of vision
– Self knowledge
– Responsibility
– Intellectual humility

40. Good Judgement
• Certainty is impossible
• We need to turn ourselves into critical thinkers –
there is no point believing everything, or questioning
everything
• How much evidence is enough?
• Good judgement is as important in areas of
knowledge as diverse as history, ethics, maths and
science
• You can’t learn good judgement simply by reading
about it in a book, its something that takes a lifetime
to develop

41. Breadth of Vision
• We live in a world where we are becoming increasingly
specialised (especially in education)
• This produces people with quite a narrow or fragmented
vision of reality
• There is a word for a person like this in German (but not
English) – a fachidiot
• I would suggest that the wisest people are those with
specialist knowledge, but with a good understanding of the
“big picture” – i.e. not fachidiots!
• There has been a move recently for interdisciplinary projects
– perhaps most notably in environmentalism

42. Self-knowledge
• Prejudices are impossible to avoid altogether,
but somebody with self-knowledge (meta-
cognition) is able to recognise them within
themselves
• We often need the courage to question our
own beliefs – and our own prejudices
• This is the root of true self-knowledge

43. Responsibility
• “If I have become great, it is by standing on the
shoulders of giants” – Isaac Newton
• All knowledge comes in some part from other people
• You have to have some level of trust in the people
you have gained knowledge from
• However, you also have some responsibility to check
the evidence you are basing any knowledge claim on
• There are many people around today with “know-
how”, but there are few wise people with “know-
why”!

44. Intellectual humility
• We all need to realise that we can never achieve absolute
knowledge. We all need to be aware of our limitations
• We can never know everything there is to know, even about a
single grain of sand
• Therefore the big mysteries of the universe are things to be
contemplated rather than solved
• Dogmatists (people who think they know everything they
need to), never experience intellectual humility
• These are people who find everything “boring” – and have
therefore lost their sense of wonder in the world around
them
• These are also people who avoid this “boredom” by becoming
involved in drugs, pseudoscience and the paranormal