With Valentine's day around the corner, it seems appropriate to have a look at love, attraction and marriage. The TED talks below invite you to look at the above concepts from different angles. With the help of your knowledge frameworks, can you come up with some knowledge questions? Remember that knowledge questions must be:
What questions does (the extract of) 1984 raise in terms of the strengths and weaknesses of memory as a tool to gather and shape personal as well as shared knowledge?
What is the role of reason in ethical principles and their justification? Is reason more important to acting morally than other ways of knowing?
Under what circumstances should we trust our senses as a source of knowledge?
To what degree might different languages shape in their speakers different concepts of themselves and the world? What are the implications of such differences for knowledge?
After having watched FIVE STEPS TO TYRANNY, which questions could we ask about language, power and thought? Please illustrate your questions with real life examples from the documentary. You are obviously welcome to respond to comments from other students and to offer additional examples from your own life to illustrate/contradict other points of view.
In the film 'her', the main character, a lonely writer, starts a relationship with an operating system which develops her own intuition and identity. The relationship moves from friendship to love. Do you think that, with the advancement of technology, computers or operating systems will ever be able to know (as defined in TOK classes)? And if so, will they ever be able to love?
Do you think that Mathematics is really out there, or do you feel that Mathematics is a human invention? This question has puzzled great thinkers for ages. It would be great to hear your views.
Mr Whitehead's lecture on Sculptures raised some very interesting points about The Arts in TOK terms. Mr Whitehead demonstrated that throughout the centuries sculptures have been made for different purposes and that whether or not they could be classified as art varies according to the criteria the art critic uses. There has been much debate as what constitutes 'real ar't. Your definition of art will depend on what you consider the purpose of art to be.
Your forum question: What is the point of art? What kinds of knowledge can the arts give us which other areas of knowledge can't? There is no right or wrong answer. But please consider how you use the ways of knowing to aquire knowledge in the arts and explore links between different areas of knowledge when you discuss the role of the arts. |
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