Units

Junior Year: Semester 2 / Quarter 4

"TOK Camp": Introducing the "Ways of Knowing"

• What does it mean "to know" something?"
• How do we justify what we know?
• How do our various ways of knowing --  sensory perception, reason, emotion, and language -- yield knowledge, and what are their relative strength and limits?  

Senior Year: Semester 1

The Areas of Knowledge: Knowledge Frameworks

The four units in the first semester each examine one or more Area of Knowledge. As we move through these units, we will develop a "knowledge framework" which will help us explore each Area's scope, methodology, applications, and related knowledge concepts. Each student will plan and deliver an oral presentation (the TOK internal assessment) during one of these units.

Methods: Natural Sciences, Sensory Perception, and Reason (i) [August/September]

Why is science considered by some to be "the supreme way of knowing," and is this assertion justified?

• How does science combine sensory perception with reason to gain knowledge?
• What counts as evidence and justification in science?
• How does induction work? What are its limits and strengths?
• What roles do capacities such as intuition and wonder play in science?

Arguments: Logic, Math, Language, and Reason (ii) [October]

What constitutes reasonable justification for the knowledge claims that we make?

• What do mathemeticians mean by “rigorous proof”?
• How does deduction work? 
• How can we successfully construct and assess informal arguments?
• How does mathematical language differ from verbal language?

Stories: History, the Arts, and Emotion (i) [October-November]

What kinds of truths do our stories tell us?

• Why do human beings tell stories and create art?
• What makes for an engaging story, a moving piece of art, and a compelling historical account?
• When challenges do we face when we try to apply "the lessons of history?"
• Is the main difference between fiction (art) and non-fiction (history) that the first is subjective and the second is objective, or is this distinction too simplistic?  

Purposes: Ethics, Human Sciences, and Emotion (ii) [November-December]

Can we truly know why we act the way that we do?

• How can human behavior be studied scientifically?
• Why are the "soft sciences" sometimes harder than the "hard sciences?" 
• Is there such a thing as a universal moral sense, shared by all people and cultures?  
• Of what relative importance are reason, emotion, and intuition in the development of morality?

Semester 2 / Quarter 3

Paradigms: Personality, Human Nature, and Worldviews [January]

How do our various personal-cultural-philosophical filters and lenses affect our understanding of ourselves and the world around us?

• Mental models and personal temperament: The automatic mind: The Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator, Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink," & beyond 
• Conservatism and liberalism: Tragic vs. Utopian Visions (excerpts from The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature by Steve Pinker)
• Asians and westerners: The Tao and the Syllogism (excerpts from The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently…and Why by Richard E. Nisbett).
• Science and religion: Materialism and Spirituality (excerpts from A Theory of Everything by Ken Wilber)

In February and March will turn our attention to the two IB-required assessments, the Essay and the Presentation.

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