Tok Essay
Question 7: “We see and understand things not as they are but as we are.” Discuss this claim in relation to at least two ways of knowing.
Louise Hansen
IB candidate#: 000768-019
American School of the Hague
Theory of Knowledge Essay
May 2010
Word Count: 1,599
“We see and understand things not as they are but as we are.” Discuss this claim in relation to at least two ways of knowing.
In 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed, and it was the end of the Cold War. Who was responsible for ending the Cold War? Was it Reagan or Gorbachev? From all the sources and knowledge accessible shouldn’t we all come to the same conclusion? Even in history the use of perception and language changes the way we see and understand things. Historians continuously disagree, even on the matter of who ended the Cold War. Language, emotion, and perception are tools of manipulation in history; we become analytical and come to understand the past as we are, not as they are. This process of understanding the past is far from simplistic. Human minds are complex and unique.
Even the most basic process of visual perception involves a multiplicity processes. There is not just one chain of microbiological events; we don’t all just understand that a table is in fact a table and that we use it to place items on. The process is multithreaded where one interprets the angles, lines, shape, color, and texture into the final conclusion that a table is something you use to place items on. If this process is multithreaded, then it wouldn’t take a lot for someone to see and understand things differently, the way they are. The environment around us, and the things we see and come to know are determined by who we are, and how we want to understand them.
Imagine seeing an object in a room, the shape of it, the color every detail, but you can’t understand what the object is just by seeing it. The case study “A World Without patterns, Faces without Meaning” by Hilary Lawson, studies a
Louise Hansen
IB candidate#: 000768-019
American School of the Hague
Theory of Knowledge Essay
May 2010
Word Count: 1,599
“We see and understand things not as they are but as we are.” Discuss this claim in relation to at least two ways of knowing.
In 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed, and it was the end of the Cold War. Who was responsible for ending the Cold War? Was it Reagan or Gorbachev? From all the sources and knowledge accessible shouldn’t we all come to the same conclusion? Even in history the use of perception and language changes the way we see and understand things. Historians continuously disagree, even on the matter of who ended the Cold War. Language, emotion, and perception are tools of manipulation in history; we become analytical and come to understand the past as we are, not as they are. This process of understanding the past is far from simplistic. Human minds are complex and unique.
Even the most basic process of visual perception involves a multiplicity processes. There is not just one chain of microbiological events; we don’t all just understand that a table is in fact a table and that we use it to place items on. The process is multithreaded where one interprets the angles, lines, shape, color, and texture into the final conclusion that a table is something you use to place items on. If this process is multithreaded, then it wouldn’t take a lot for someone to see and understand things differently, the way they are. The environment around us, and the things we see and come to know are determined by who we are, and how we want to understand them.
Imagine seeing an object in a room, the shape of it, the color every detail, but you can’t understand what the object is just by seeing it. The case study “A World Without patterns, Faces without Meaning” by Hilary Lawson, studies a
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