salina_kassam Posted November 4, 2012 Report Share Posted November 4, 2012 "only seeing general patterns can give us knowledge." "only seeing particular examples can gives us understanding." to what extent do you agree with these assertions?Help!! Any ideas on how to answer this question? or any good examples to support an argument?thanks Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
funny10sport Posted November 4, 2012 Report Share Posted November 4, 2012 "only seeing general patterns can give us knowledge." "only seeing particular examples can gives us understanding." to what extent do you agree with these assertions?Help!! Any ideas on how to answer this question? or any good examples to support an argument?thanks \We are here to help guide you, not to give you the answers or give you ideas. You should find them yourself. If I were you, look up the key words in this sentence. I'll give you a hint: "knowledge." Try defining these words and see how you can answer this question by elaborating on them .Again, it says : "To what extent do YOU agree?" Well ask your self that question. Do you agree with this quote?It is a subjective question, but keep in mind, you should try to be as objective as possible in your essay and present personal examples as well as counter arguments to your claim. 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
fяαи Posted November 5, 2012 Report Share Posted November 5, 2012 Look at your assertions. Two key words: knowledge and understanding. Focus on those. Define them. Then move on to answer your question. Look at the assertions again and think back to personal experiences or relate it to someone important and see if it has ever happened to you where you've seen something generally and were able to gain knowledge and understand or just gain. Do the same for the next assertion. Compare and conclude to what extent you agree with it.Good luck. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tok_hater Posted November 11, 2012 Report Share Posted November 11, 2012 yh i'm also doing this topic...it seemed the easiest... i'm going to start out by giving an example where this quote applies... then i'm planning to adress issues such as can we really 'see'(perception)? is understanding simply application of knowledge? and give some counter claims ( these are knowledge issues right? ) Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChocolateDrop Posted November 12, 2012 Report Share Posted November 12, 2012 I would link it to inductive reasoning and research it's pros and cons. One example of the fallabilities of inductive reasoning is John Vickers and the black swan. I would reasearch the example of the black swan.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_reasoninghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RubberChicken Posted November 24, 2012 Report Share Posted November 24, 2012 (edited) For this essay, I thought the word "only" should also be considered a keyword. Silly question, but should I constantly keep that in mind while answering the question? Because I don't want to waste a lot of time asking myself "What other ways can we get knowledge/understanding in <area of knowledge>?"... Edited November 24, 2012 by RubberChicken Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sandwich Posted November 24, 2012 Report Share Posted November 24, 2012 For this essay, I thought the word "only" should also be considered a keyword. Silly question, but should I constantly keep that in mind while answering the question? Because I don't want to waste a lot of time asking myself "What other ways can we get knowledge/understanding in <area of knowledge>?"...Hrm, it's hard to say. I think that as a native english speaker (as you may well be too!) I would read the meaning of only NOT as in meaning that you can only get knowledge from general patterns. Instead I read it as "general patterns can only give us knowledge [implied: and they can't give us understanding]". It is a possible interpretation that it's saying "knowledge can only come from general patterns [implied: and not from anything else]", however I don't think that's the point of the essay. Indeed I think it would side-track from what they're actually answering. So I appreciate your point, but I think you should concentrate on interpreting it how it would read to a native english speaker - if "only" begins a sentence and then is directly compared with a second sentence that begins with "only", it implies a comparison between the two of them rather than a claim about both individually. I hope that makes sense.By all means feel free to talk about your alternative interpretation, but as you've already noted, if you based a whole essay on it you'd just deviate from the main point of the quote like crazy! Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yap Posted December 4, 2012 Report Share Posted December 4, 2012 Guh guh, Yes. Inductive Reasoning is definetely good for this title. You could also bring up something as generalisations and assumptions. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yap Posted December 16, 2012 Report Share Posted December 16, 2012 (edited) After some deeper thinking fof this question, I've come to the conclusion that the really tricky part with this question is the word "understanding". As with knowledge, ToK takes a large part to discuss what knowledge is. The problem with the word understanding is that it can mean everything ranging from "knowing very little" to "knowing everything".Like, you could have understanding of somebody's feelings or ideas, but you probably do not know about them.In another way, you could know something, but have no understanding of what you know.In a sense, understanding can be both above and beneath the knowing.So, I think it is very important to clearly define understanding. Edited December 16, 2012 by Yap Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adela Aleksandra Piontek Posted January 6, 2013 Report Share Posted January 6, 2013 any ideas for bibliography? or just standard TOK books? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura Brandén Posted January 17, 2013 Report Share Posted January 17, 2013 Poppers theory is an interesting thing to discuss in the essay. The theory states that "there is no mechanical way of coming up with a good hypotheseson the bais of the obesrvational data. What is frequently required in the leap of imagination that enables you to look at the data in a different way"this leap of imagiantion can be claimed to be the insight you recieve in a subject when you have gained understanding of it. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kiara5 Posted January 18, 2013 Report Share Posted January 18, 2013 this is hard ... is there any TOK for dummies out there? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuba Matuawsky Posted February 6, 2013 Report Share Posted February 6, 2013 (edited) Hi guys I have chosen this topic and unfortunately deadline is really close. I have question: Do You think I can use Reductionism as an argument supporting this statement and Holism as a counter-claim for this topic? ( page 274/275 - TOK book, Lagemaat ) I'm just not sure if I understand it properly and if it fits. Please reply asap! I will be really gratful! Edited February 6, 2013 by Kuba Matuawsky Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nabz Posted February 6, 2013 Report Share Posted February 6, 2013 (edited) A pointer: Random things become a pattern as well. Examples are part of evidence or evidence itself sometimes which is enough to assert something as Hitchens said "that which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence"I came across a very good site while searching on my essay topic: Have a good look here:Keyword: General patterns' date=' particular examples, knowledge, understanding, only[/i']‘To what extent’ type of question requires you to discuss under which conditions you would agree or disagree with the quote. The disagreement or agreement may depend on ways of knowing, areas of knowledge, your interpretation of ‘patterns’ and ‘ particular examples’ or your interpretation of ‘knowledge’ and ‘understanding’.Knowledge issuesThe question assumes that it is possible to ‘see’ general patterns and particular examples, and that seeing is linked either to knowledge or understanding respectively. You may challenge these assumptions by raising following knowledge issues/questions:Can we separate recognising general patterns from particular examples? We have an ability to recognise patterns (based on your past experiences and conditioning) and only because of this ability we can later recognise particular examples as being part or distinct of patterns.Is there a dichotomy between knowledge and understanding?Having knowledge means you also understand justifications for beliefs. Consequently, knowledge and understanding are interlinked Edited February 6, 2013 by shad0wboss Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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