CORE THEME-Knowledge and the knower-Scope

We can call something “knowledge” after verification in a conscious and conscientious process
of validation.

Knowledge of how to do things- procedural knowledge.

Examples include:
● Playing an instrument
● Translating from one language to another
● Baking/cooking
● To and fro- school-home
● Driving on busy roads
● Celebrating national holidays and celebrations (shared socially/ culturally)

Discuss:
Is this knowledge updated over time as new information, new interpretations and new laws/regulations
arise? How can we know this?

Discuss:
-Think of your former assessment which could have been your formative assessment. -Make a list
identifying both the propositional knowledge (knowing that) and the ability knowledge (knowing how)
that was being assessed.

-Which type of knowledge do you think is most important in terms of ‘being skilled’ in the subject?
KQ: -Is knowing how more or less important than knowing that?

(Propositional knowledge- As students, you are spending a lot of time in school learning theories and facts. Each subject has a
‘body of knowledge’ that, as a student in that field, you are expected to know. Knowledge of facts, knowledge that is ‘true’ in that it
corresponds to some fact in the world is often called ‘propositional knowledge’, because claiming to know something is to propose
that something is true or real. In other words, people could agree with you about something. This form of knowledge can usually be
translated as ‘I know that …’ followed by a claim.

Much of what you are doing in your classes day by day is learning propositional knowledge, and much of what you will be assessed
on in the next exam session is your ability to recall that information

Ability knowledge refers to abilities or skills that you have learned or that you have some instinctual ability to do.

Being a member of a community of knowers requires some level of both propositional knowledge and
ability knowledge - they are intimately related.

Discuss:
-What activities can you think of which are more focused on ability knowledge?
-Do experts have both propositional knowledge and ability knowledge?

In TOK, “Knowledge” refers to any claims that are the product of various purposes used by people when
trying to understand or make sense of the world.

Refer to the image given about surfing in Thailand.

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 CORE THEME-Knowledge and the knower-Scope

There is, for instance, a fact about the number of people in Thailand surfing at this moment in time, but
there’s no practical way of finding that fact out. But there is a fact of the matter and the truth of any guess
made would be true only if it corresponds to that fact.

• Claims or propositions are statements made by people stating what they think might be a fact. One might
claim or propose that ‘there are 1357 people surfing in Thailand right now’. Claims and propositions can be
true or false.

Discuss:
Under what conditions claims can be considered as knowledge?

IA prompt 1.
What counts as knowledge?

Consider all the objects and practices that you can see from where you’re sitting that would be impossible
without ‘knowledge’ about the world, for example:

• knowing what electricity is and how it can be harnessed to power your computer
• knowing about air pressure and the shapes of wings is necessary to produce aircraft that fly
• knowing how to organize other human beings and how to coordinate their behaviour is necessary
if you are going to have anything like a business or an economy
• knowing facts about the growth of bacteria is necessary if you are going to effectively store food
for long periods of time, and so on.

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 CORE THEME-Knowledge and the knower-Scope

Traditionally claims about the world have been broken into three
categories:
opinions, beliefs and knowledge. What are these and how are they different?

Draw three columns on a piece of paper and label them ‘Opinion’, ‘Belief’ and ‘Knowledge’.
1 Think of five examples of claims that you would place under each category.
2 Compare them with a partner and discuss any ways in which your partner would have categorized your
choices differently.
3 Can you create some principles which you can use to identify unique characteristics or which would
differentiate the three from one another?

Is expert opinion closer to knowledge?

One way in which beliefs are contrasted with knowledge, is to suggest that knowledge is known to be ‘true’,
that is to say that knowledge claims capture some fact about reality or the way the world actually is. What
makes something ‘true’ and how this is established, however, are highly contentious and generally depend
on the way that some community of knowers or an AOK has decided the criteria for what ‘truth’ amounts
to.

Calling a claim a ‘belief’, or saying ‘I believe that …’ means something like, ‘I think it’s true and I might have
some reasons for thinking this is true, but I’m not sure or certain’, or it might mean ‘I am absolutely certain
this is true, but don’t have a method by which I can make you as certain as I am’
Knowledge Question:
What criteria can we use to distinguish between knowledge, belief and opinion?

IA prompt 25.
How can we distinguish between knowledge, belief and opinion?
In this video the traditional view of knowledge given by Plato and the problems raised for it by 20th
century philosopher Edmund Gettier is given.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRzLh9xGOVE

Extra:
Opinion, Doubt, Knowledge, and Belief
https://aquinas101.thomisticinstitute.org/opinion-doubt-knowledge-and-belief