Theory of Knowledge
One of the required courses I have to take for IB is called Theory of Knowledge. My teacher describes it as the class anyone can teach, but no one is qualified to teach. I didn’t know what the class was about when I signed up other than that I had to take it, but the answer was right in front of me: it’s about the theory of knowledge.
In Theory of Knowledge, or TOK as we IB savvy people like to call it, we learn about knowledge, to put it simply. We ask questions like…
- What is knowledge?
- What constitutes as knowledge and what doesn’t?
- Where does knowledge come from?
- Are there different types of knowledge?
And we have lengthy class discussions in which we try to answer these questions, and more often than not the topic of religion creeps in somehow. Plato and his allegory of the cave will most definitely come up at some point.
It sounds like a really boring class but it really isn’t. I would go so far as to say it is my favorite. The topics we talk about in class are usually interesting and I often leave the classroom with something to wonder about. I also find myself making vague references to the things we learn all the time. For instance, I’ve made a few syllogisms since we learned about them. Even more weird is that I have managed to apply quantum physics to an activity once. Yay for Schrödinger’s cat.
So what is knowledge? Knowledge is true justified belief. What that means is a long story. We’re only spending the entire school year on the subject.
Posted on November 13, 2007 in School
