May 2013 Can we know when to trust our emotions in the pursuit of knowledge? Consider history and one other area of knowledge.

[fatendestinny]

Hi,

Im a May 2013 IB candidate and for my TOK essay i chose prompt number 6:

"Can we know when to trust our emotions in the pursuit of knowledge? Consider History and one other area of knowledge.”

My KIs are:

To what extent is emotion a valid way of knowing

When and under what circumstances can we trust our emotions

For my history example Im using the treaty of Versailles and i was going to talk about how emotions were used in creating the treaty of versailles

(e.g. france wanted revenge so they made Germany pay a heck load of money, also they restricted Germany to only having 100,000 troops for the whole of germany which is quite pathetic and so on...) and im going to answer my first KI by saying that in this situation emotion is definitely a valid way of knowing but only if it is accompanied by some of the other AOKs such as Reasoning, they planned to bring Germany down to its knees so another war wouldnt start, and Perception, the Allied countries' perception on the war and how much germany should pay, (could i use language and say that without language this treaty wouldnt even have been able to be written?)

And my answer to my second KI, is that we should trust our emotions at all times but we must be aware of the situation and whether we can stay "unbiased" throughout the decision making process (France wasnt and so this is a bad use of emotions etc...)

but my main issue here is that when I told my TOK teacher about my plan he said the idea was good but the plan was wrong... he said that I need to look at it through a historians point of view and how a historian would use emotion to gain knowledge... and thats when i got really confused.. I also take IB History HL so he said that I could also see how i would gain emotion as a student reading from the history and see how that helps me see how the historian uses emotion to create knowledge... im confusing myself further by just typing out this paragraph.. Im so confused about what my teacher is advicing me about and i have gone to him again but it hasnt really helped....

PLEASE HELP ME UNDERSTAND!!!

[Sandwich]

I can see why you're confused! However I think I can see what your teacher means (and I agree with them). Basically you seem to have got a bit confused between two things:

1. History - looking back at things that happened in the past

2. Political decision making

If you think about it, when we look back at the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles WE ourselves are not using emotion to gain the knowledge. We're using language by reading accounts of what happened and reasoning to follow through on how the Treaty actually ended up causing a massive mess later on.

What you're describing is not about History but about what happened then. Emotions were used in creating the Treaty of Versailles but that's emotion informing judgement in political decision making. That's not an act of History (except for now when we look back on it), the emotions were used in an act of politics. So although it is a thing that happened in the past and therefore it is technically 'history', you need to distinguish between how we know things about History and how people knew things in a historical time. I hope that makes some sense. Your error is that you're not taking a historian's perspective, you're taking the perspective of the people making the decisions at the time. What History is about is how YOU acquire and evaluate all of the sources/evidence etc. to build up a picture of what did happen at the time - and you're not using emotion to do that, you're examining how people back then used emotions to inform an entirely different thing. History is about how we come to know things from the past. It's not how THEY knew things in the past. It's hard for me to find a really clear way to articulate it but fingers crossed you get what I mean!

Also remember that for your TOK essay you need to have multiple different examples and to bring in some personal examples. You should just be careful about using a single example for the entire essay.

[SerenaJade]

fatendestinny what is a KL? I'm also doing #6 for the Tok essay.

[alefal]

fatendestinny what is a KL? I'm also doing #6 for the Tok essay.

I think he wrote KI, as in Knowledge Issues.

[TykeDragon]

Well Sandwich and Alefal beat me to nailing all questions here

I'm doing this one as well, I think I'm going to be contrasting history with maths. And as Sandwich said, I'll basically be concluding that we can't gain knowledge through our emotions - the difference he distinguished between how the history was created, and how we can learn about it is an important one! Put it this way - you don't 'know' what the answer to a maths problem is because it makes you 'happy' when it looks like that or something - it is merely reasoning, and bits of perception and language!

Also yeah be careful about some of your examples... How about, instead of using the Treaty of Versailles, which I'm sure many many many history people mention, and make the examiner's eyes roll, how about you talk about something personal and individual - your own experience? That'll nail the Criteria B personal input

EDIT (added by Gaby):

Oh yeah I think my knowledge issues were something like:

Whether the evaluation of the reliability of emotion as a Way of Knowing varies between different Areas of Knowledge

Can we refer to a personal opinion as factual knowledge and not a belief?

any discouragement from these KIs? tok KI stuff isnt my strong point

[ChocolateDrop]

My advice is to add another Area of knowledge apart from History. Preferably something as far away from history. My head of TOK went on some TOK retreat thing, where they basically give TOK teachers hints on how their pupils can acheive higher marks. It was said that essays which explored very different areas of knowledge tend to get higher marks. So since histor is given in the question don't make your second AOK Arts as they're pretty close, instead choose something totally different to History to score higher marks.

[TykeDragon]

So like maths? And are we limited in our ways of knowing options for this title? As in, should we focus on emotion and not compare to language, reason, perception? Or talk about ALL the woks?

[Mary Tudor]

Hello everyone!

So basically I have to submit my TOK essay by the 20th of December. My Question is "Can we know when to trust our emotions in the pursuit of knowledge? Consider history and one other area of knowledge." For my other area I chose since art is a way of expressing your feelings. My question is what should I speak of in this essay exactly? like what sort of examples should I use for both art and history, and how do I relate them to each other?

[zuluas]

I have a rough plan. My intro would define trust and the problamatic nature of it and introduce emotion as a way of knowing. What im really struggling with is the knowledge issues,

The only two i have so far are:

• To what extent can emotion help or hinder our gain of knowledge?
  
• Effect of cultural background on emotion and pursuit of knowledge?
  

i was going to take the holocaust as an example and my grandfathers experience of world war 2.

But im really not sure if im going in the right direction.

WOuld appreciate some help please, thank you,

[Sandwich]

Well it is YOUR essay! Not ours. So you'll have to come up with your own essay contents.

To be honest it's extremely simple if you just engage your brain a bit. Can you think of examples where trusting our emotions in pursuing knowledge in HISTORY/ART has been a GOOD/BAD idea? Delete words as appropriate. Do a bit of thinking! It's so easy and obvious that you should start by trying to answer the question using your examples, that to not do so is more or less just laziness.

We'll help you feed back on ideas you've already had once you've put a bit of effort into your essay yourself, but unsurprisingly do not gift the whole contents of essays to people.

[fatendestinny]

Hi i did this question too and my tok essay was due last week i might be able to help you out here

take the key words,

trust, emotion and the most important "when"

create a KI with these words

something like to what extent is emotion a valid way of knowing--> you could say it can't stand by itself in the pursuit of knowledge because it has to be paired with perception to perceive the emotions, and reason to understand the emotions and the situation etc...

when and under what circumstances can we trust our emotions... is another Ki

well i guess this is help with the KI

for structure be simple and strong:

Introduction

1st Claim--> History

answer the 1st knowledge issue

answer the 2nd knowledge issue

counter claim--> history

answer the first knowledge issue

answer the second knowledge issue

come to a small 1-2 sentence conclusion

2nd claim--> (your chosen second AOK)

answer the 1st knowledge issue

answer the 2nd knowledge issue

counter claim--> to your second AOK

answer the 1st knowledge issue

answer the 2nd knowledge issue

come to a small 1-2 sentence conclusion

overall conclusion, finalize your answer to the KI

we can trust our emotions at blah blah time under blah blah circumstances

we can trust our emotions when its paired with perception and reasons etcc... and always relate it to the pursuit of knowledge..

i did something like this and it flowed smoothly

hope this helps

Edited December 11, 2012 by fatendestinny

[AnthonyXDD]

One example i can think of is think about some artists who in history chose to convey their emotions and knowledge in the form of art. Art can speak and represent different things towards everyone which helps lead to questions such as, what is the authors message? Why did he paint it this way etc. this helps leads to a pursuit of knowledge in what the painting was suppose to tell us.

[TykeDragon]

National anthems!

Just remember that it is a tok essay not an english essay, it needs constant reference to Knowledge issues, ways of knowing, areas of knowledge. Link and compare them alongside personal examples and analysed arguments/counter arguments.

Following those should score well in all criterias

[wireman]

Okay, so the word 'can' is really irritating me.

Should the final answer say whether it is possible for humans to know when to trust emotions? Does it refer to ability?

[sil_9]

Are these suitable knowledge issues for this title:

· Can emotions aid or disrupt our attainment of knowledge?

· Is it possible to determine if our emotions are reliable?

Also does anyone have any suggestions on a another appropriate area of knowledge and examples that could be used.

[Sarah Gao]

When I use an example from natural science area, should I talk about the scientist personal emotions blocked his way?

Edited February 24, 2013 by Sarah Gao

[zuluas]

I have written my essay and my teacher told me i had looked at the posotive force of emotion in history and natural science well.I however dont see how depend on the subject? And what does he mean when he says 'as humans are bound by our emotions, you need to consider whether this means that we should factor this into our understanding or whether we need to seek knowledge outside our own emotional boundaries'???

[zuluas]

is there anywhere online that the essay can be checked for free?