TOK essay – November 2012 * “There are no absolute distinctions between what is true and what is false.” “Everything we hear is an opinion‚ not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective‚ not the truth.” Marcus Aurelius The quotation above explains the claim that is discussed in this essay; weather truth and falsehood can be distinguished. If a person claims they are aware of the truth‚ it is impossible for it to be absolute. Absolute truth would be information‚ which has not been manipulated
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Writing a TOK essay by Richard van de Lagemaat Theory of Knowledge for the IB Diploma Richard van de Lagemaat 978 0 521542 98 2 www.cambridge.org/uk/education/international/ib/tok/ For information on the author’s education consultancy service: www.inthinking.co.uk For information on the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme: www.ibo.org/diploma/ © Cambridge University Press 2007 Writing a TOK essay ‘Most people would rather die than think; in fact they do so.’ BERTRAND RUSSELL
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2014 Exam Session Word Count: 1600 Humans have come to accept that History by mere definition is the exploration and study of history whereas the Human Sciences are defined as the in depth study of social‚ biological and cultural aspects of human beings. As humans we have used and accepted this two Areas of Knowledge‚ to interpret and understand the world around us. History and Human Sciences seek to influence humans through language‚ reason‚ and emotion. An assumption is made here that the
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definition is simple‚ to the point and comes with relatively little bias. Bias is prejudice in favor of or against one thing which falls under the category of personal feelings. Everybody views everything they see with their own personal bias yet many of the things they view are cold hard facts in which no bias is possible in the immediate presentation of the raw fact. The perception of human being as to how they view and portray the fact shows the cognitive bias that comes along with anything and everything
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heavily on the sciences. The sciences first became popular in the Greco-Roman era and from then have continued to develop and ultimately diverge into two separate subjects‚ human and natural sciences. Each of these has further diverges in which there can be up to fifty categories within each subject. However‚ despite the fact that there are numerous categories within the sciences‚ the two are able to remain related through their many convincing theories; all of which seek to explain the world around us
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TOK Essay: When should we discard explanations that are intuitively appealing? Many question its reliability because at times‚ intuition is of great help to us‚ but other times‚ it may influence us in making the biggest mistakes. Before we are able to decide whether or not “intuitively appealing” explanations should be considered‚ we need to define the word. Simply‚ intuition is a method of attaining knowledge without the use of reason. It is the direct knowledge that we can access without rational
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Open-minded or sceptical? That’s the question! Since this school year‚ I am following a new course‚ Theory of Knowledge. For me‚ the approach was entirely new and quite confusing. At first‚ my world kind of made sense to me. I doubted about some things‚ but from experience I learnt that everyone struggled with doubts. However‚ this course questioned everything I assumed to ‘know’ and was sure about! For me‚ this course is a good way to experience something completely new‚ as it encourages me to
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1. First Thoughts I agree with Levi that the treatment that he and all the other Nazi prisoners endured was the ‘rock bottom’ of human experience in all of human history because of their degradation not only by their animal-like treatment but also the wider hatred in the philosophy of the entire German population. What these prisoners experienced was a total loss of their humanity added on to unimaginable torture and agony‚ including separation from their families and the murder of women & children
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Ideas about TOK essay Question 5: What is it about theories in the human sciences and natural sciences that makes them convincing? - Humans in general are gullible. “One who does not know anything must believe everything.” Since nobody knows everything‚ with a bit of evidences‚ which scientific experiments bring along people believe what they are confronted with. Only when you are intelligent enough to question the authority of the scientist that did the experiment are you able to disbelieve
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TOK 1. Persuasion through images.(IV) Images are often not appealing to reason‚ but to emotions. This is not to say that a lot of thought does not go into graphical expression‚ but that the images are all ways aimed at moving the viewer visually. For example a form of visual theatre‚ burlesque will often attack something by representing it so as to look inane. In this case there is an interpreting process going on‚ but the audience must necessarily have an emotional
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