The Delphic oracle in ancient Greece had two sayings..."Know Thyself" and "Nothing to Excess." Although the original sayings were in Greek, the first one was displayed in Latin, Temet Nosce, above the Oracle's kitchen door in the first Matrix movie. Several comments on the first post of the year started to move down this path.
How does one know oneself? Is self-knowledge the surest knowledge that we have? Can you be wrong about yourself?
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"Political Ethics and Moral Ambiguity: The Moral Agency of Nation States" Monday, October 3, 7:00 p.m. in the Performance Classroom of North Central High School
Socrates
A blog for Theory of Knowledge students at North Central High School
2011 Episteme Lecture
"Political Ethics and Moral Ambiguity: The Moral Agency of Nation States" Monday, October 3, 7:00 p.m. in the Performance Classroom of North Central High School
2011 Episteme Lecturer -- Dr. Carlton Waterhouse
The Episteme Lectures Renewed!
Thanks to a generous grant from the Washington Township Schools Foundation, The Episteme Lectures have additional funding for another three years! While we continue to need further financial support to expand the level of excellence for which the lectures are known (interested donors should contact Steve Perkins at sperkins@msdwt.k12.in.us or 317.259.5301, x5526), we are deeply grateful to the WTS Foundation for its previous and continued support of this unique educational opportunity. Please visit us at www.epistemelecture.org.
Former TOK Students Speak Out
Today, when I went to open my links to my required reading for my Intro to International Studies, I laughed out loud as I read the title of the second article we had to read:
Epistemology: How You Know What You Know.
Something tells me I am already very well prepared for this course thanks to two years of thinking in one class. I hope all is well with you and your classes at North Central and thanks again for two years of one of the best classes I ever took. Alley Murphy
I'm finishing the last 20 pages of the marathon that is Will Durant's Story of Philosophy. You should recommend its 400 dense (both in words and concepts per square inch) pages of 1920's ornate and pristine prose to any exceptional student; if they start now, it would supplement their ToK experience and undoubtedly imbue them with remarkable writing ability. Although I realize that ToK isn't a philosophical survey course, I can't help but see my youth as one of privation for lack of Kant. Spending one class surveying Kant would not only reveal to ToKers the joys of philosophy and the inevitable narrowness of their perspective, it would also provide some support against the arrogant materialists. Benson Tucker, Brown University
A quote by Rousseau was brought up in my Intro to Itnl. Studies class, and it reminded me greatly of TOK. Fred Hendricks III, Indiana University
As I was sitting in Mexico, waiting for the VBS my youth group was running to end, I noticed the hue of the sky. It indicated a nearing sunset; thus, it was time to go. I got up only to find it was in fact not time to go but at least half an hour early. I took off my sunglasses. They were spotless, unscratched. They gave me a perfectly accurate view of the world save for tint, and that exception influenced my actions greatly. It got me to thinking what other slight misperceptions of the world could have caused me and others to do. It got me talking about perception back at my hotel room. It got the little TOK voice in my head whirring.
Just thought you should know as you begin to plant that questioning seed inside the minds of your new class that your last crop was successful, that even in another country there is no place for your students to run or hide and that even the quiet ones will fall. Kim Hotchkiss, St. Olaf College
Tell all your IB students TOK is the one thing from IB that you will most definitely use in college! I certainly have and I am so happy I was exposed to something like TOK before college. Marissa Hampton, University of California-Irvine
TOK is the best class you can take in high school. And, being able to write critically off the top of your head is pretty much what your have to do on all your non-math/science exams. Plus, TOK is generally a heck of a lot of fun. If you can make it through the beginning of junior year, you're golden. I really do appreciate what TOK has done for me. Anna Boch, Harvard University
I'm double majoring in political science and criminal justice. I've taken some philosophy classes and in depth political analysis classes already and basically owned them. TOK really gave me a crazy perspective when analyzing texts and debating them. I found that I was much much much more prepared than the majority of the students. Keane Mossman, Indiana University
A couple of years ago I asked a large group of [Katie's] friends if they felt prepared for college and what class at NC helped them the most. This was a group of kids who were at Harvard and Stanford and everywhere in between. They said without a doubt they were better prepared than 99% of other students. They also agreed that the best class by far was TOK because it really taught them to think and question. Sara Lootens, mother of Katie Lootens, Duke University
Epistemology: How You Know What You Know.
Something tells me I am already very well prepared for this course thanks to two years of thinking in one class. I hope all is well with you and your classes at North Central and thanks again for two years of one of the best classes I ever took. Alley Murphy
I'm finishing the last 20 pages of the marathon that is Will Durant's Story of Philosophy. You should recommend its 400 dense (both in words and concepts per square inch) pages of 1920's ornate and pristine prose to any exceptional student; if they start now, it would supplement their ToK experience and undoubtedly imbue them with remarkable writing ability. Although I realize that ToK isn't a philosophical survey course, I can't help but see my youth as one of privation for lack of Kant. Spending one class surveying Kant would not only reveal to ToKers the joys of philosophy and the inevitable narrowness of their perspective, it would also provide some support against the arrogant materialists. Benson Tucker, Brown University
A quote by Rousseau was brought up in my Intro to Itnl. Studies class, and it reminded me greatly of TOK. Fred Hendricks III, Indiana University
As I was sitting in Mexico, waiting for the VBS my youth group was running to end, I noticed the hue of the sky. It indicated a nearing sunset; thus, it was time to go. I got up only to find it was in fact not time to go but at least half an hour early. I took off my sunglasses. They were spotless, unscratched. They gave me a perfectly accurate view of the world save for tint, and that exception influenced my actions greatly. It got me to thinking what other slight misperceptions of the world could have caused me and others to do. It got me talking about perception back at my hotel room. It got the little TOK voice in my head whirring.
Just thought you should know as you begin to plant that questioning seed inside the minds of your new class that your last crop was successful, that even in another country there is no place for your students to run or hide and that even the quiet ones will fall. Kim Hotchkiss, St. Olaf College
Tell all your IB students TOK is the one thing from IB that you will most definitely use in college! I certainly have and I am so happy I was exposed to something like TOK before college. Marissa Hampton, University of California-Irvine
TOK is the best class you can take in high school. And, being able to write critically off the top of your head is pretty much what your have to do on all your non-math/science exams. Plus, TOK is generally a heck of a lot of fun. If you can make it through the beginning of junior year, you're golden. I really do appreciate what TOK has done for me. Anna Boch, Harvard University
I'm double majoring in political science and criminal justice. I've taken some philosophy classes and in depth political analysis classes already and basically owned them. TOK really gave me a crazy perspective when analyzing texts and debating them. I found that I was much much much more prepared than the majority of the students. Keane Mossman, Indiana University
A couple of years ago I asked a large group of [Katie's] friends if they felt prepared for college and what class at NC helped them the most. This was a group of kids who were at Harvard and Stanford and everywhere in between. They said without a doubt they were better prepared than 99% of other students. They also agreed that the best class by far was TOK because it really taught them to think and question. Sara Lootens, mother of Katie Lootens, Duke University
Links of Interest
Socrates
Former Students
Former TOK students who remember something wonderfully witty or stunningly profound that either they or someone else wrote, may recover such tidbits of wisdom by emailing Mr. Perkins at sperkins@msdwt.k12.in.us.
from Plato's Apology
Men of Athens, I honor and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy.
6 comments:
The second paragraph is what I mainly want to comment on. Self knowledge is not the surest that we haev but I wouldn't go as far as to say it is the least effective. Reading the last sentence reminded me of articles in the paper that highlight humans exherting abnormal or uncharacteristic strength. This occurs mostly in times of emergency; however, it is still an example of how one can be wrong about oneself.
In the article below, for example, four women lift a volkswagen beetle to save a man being crushed below it. Distributing the approximated weight of such a car leaves five hundred pounds to each women. The vast majority of females would admit to not being able to lift five hundred pounds, but as the article demonstrates, these women were proven incorrect in their self-knowledge.
http://www.wftv.com/automotive/17014119/detail.html
For one to know oneself, one has to intensly look at themself as if looking at another(to prevent any bias). However, in my oppinion, this is impossible because one will always try to seeonly the best in themself and skip all the parts of their life that they don't want to see.
It is for this reason that self-knowledge is not the surest knowledge that we have. We will always view everything that we do in a way that is biased to make it sound as if there was a good intention behind it. We will lie to ourselves to make ourselves feel better about something that we did that ended with a realization that we are at fault.
I agree with both Rachel and August that you can't truely know yourself. We all see ourselves and think of ourselves from a biased point of view, and others see a person differently than they see themselves.
However there is one thing I disagree with in August's post- I don't think that we will always lie to ourselves when we find out we've been wrong. Obviously people want to think the best of themselves, but many people are good at accepting fault when they've made a mistake and either correcting it or simply moving past it.
I do agree with you when you said that we try to justify our intentions. I think this is one of the ways that we are biased in our view of ourselves. We think that our ideas are better than most others and it takes multiple people pointing out faults with it for us to see that the idea might not be as good as we originally thought it was.
Because of our subjective views of not only ourselves but also of our thoughts and ideas, we can never truely know ourselves 100% and see ourselves the way others do.
do you think that how others see you is more accurate? are they more biased or less in their perception of you than your own introspections on yourself?
Armon- I do not think that the way others see me is more accurate than the way I see myself. For social customs, rules, and unspoken norms of society, I change the way I act for certain situations. For example, I would not act the same way with a teacher that I would with my sister; likewise, I would not present myself to society in the more open manner that I have with my family.
I do believe that not all perceptions one has for oneself are true. While I do still support my first statement that other individuals know me less than I know myself, there are some aspects of myself that I'm sure I would never realize/come to think about if not for others.
It is true that in particular situations some perceptions that an individual has about him or herself can be wrong, particularly in our teen years when we are still encountering new aspects of personalities. This is why I say that the degree of self-perception varies proportionally to an individuals age. Not only are teens personalities still developing, they also do have the years of experience that adults have. These years of experience help a person to better understand their true personality.
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