The Problem of Knowledge 1

Pages 3-9

Table of Contents

• Quotes p. 3• Introduction p. 4• Common sense p. 4-7• Certainty p. 8-9– Language p. 8– Perception p. 8-9– Reason p. 9– Emotion p. 9

Quotes• Read the quotes on page 3• Write down in your journal your favorite 3

quotes.• Write one reason why you like each quote• (After 5 minutes)– Make groups with three students each– Share your favorites for five minutes– Don’t forget to share your answers

• Each group chooses three favorite quotes they all can agree on and shares them with the class.

Introduction• This world is crazy!• Lots of amazing things have happened – especially

nowadays• What should we believe?– Do aliens actually exist?– Are there UFO’s?– Will the world end in 2012?

• You might think knowledge is static or unchanging. This is not true!!

• What would you have learned in school if you lived 500 years ago?

Introduction (continued)

• If all of time (15,000,000,000 years) were just 1 year long (365.25 days/8766 hours/525,960 minutes/31,557,600 seconds) we humans have existed for only the last 1.5 hours/90 minutes/5400 seconds of it!

• We only learned to make fire during the last 14 minutes/840 seconds of it!

• Recorded history is only the last 10 seconds!• So all of history that we have recorded is only .0000316% of

the time that the universe has existed!!!• There are 10 times more stars than there are grains of sand

on all the beaches on our planet Earth!!!• What do these last two things mean? We haven’t been

around very long and we are very small in the universe.• Therefore how much do we really know about anything at

all?

Common sense• Knowledge IS NOT just organized common sense• Common sense is just vague (unclear) beliefs

which have not been tested.• We all use this common-sense guide to help us

understand the world. This common sense way of getting around the world is done using a mental map.

• To understand a mental map look at this map:

Common sense (Continued)

Common sense (continued 2)• What is wrong with this map?• It’s called the Mercator Projection• How is it inaccurate?• Look at it again:

Common sense (continued 3)

Common sense (continued 4)• Why is Europe in the middle?• Why is Greenland so big?• Why is Antarctica so big?• Why is the northern hemisphere at the top and

the southern hemisphere at the bottom?• Why is Europe bigger than it actually is in reality?• Now look at this more accurate map called the

Hobo-Dyer Equal Area Projection ->

Common sense (continued 5)

Common sense (continued 6)• Why are our maps so different?• Common sense is distorted! It’s not always

accurate!• Our mental maps come from our personal history,

family, culture, religion, and nation.• A map can never perfectly describe reality. In

order to do so it would have to be as large as the real territory. Because we cannot make maps this large (or they become useless!) we call this idea the paradox of cartography.

Common sense (continued 7)• It is the same with your mental map. It can never

accurately describe the reality of the world.• The main idea here is that THE MAP IS NOT THE

TERRITORY. A map can never accurately be a perfect guide to reality or it is no longer a map.

Certainty• We need to abandon our mental map and sort it

out so that we are only looking at the information that is certain.

• How do you know things?• Ways of knowing:– Language– Perception– Reason– Emotion

Certainty - Language• What can we believe from communications?• Is the source of information reliable?– Books– The news (media)– Internet– Parents– Friends– Family– Supposed “experts”

Certainty - Perception• Perception is the ability to see, hear, or become

aware of something through the senses.• This forms our personal experiences• However sometimes the senses make mistakes• How certain is our:– Sight– Hearing– Taste– Touch– Smell

• Look at the picture of the tables on page 9. Do they appear to be the same size AND shape? If you think they do not your sight has just deceived you!

Certainty - Reason• Reason (verb) – to think, understand, and form

judgments by a process of logic: "humans do not reason entirely from facts"; "the reasoning behind the review”.

• Philosophers claim that reason is more certain than emotion, language, or perception.

• Mathematics is based upon logic and reason.• Our study of Theory of Knowledge is an

investigation into knowledge using reason and logic.

Certainty - Emotion• Can we sometimes know things from intuition?• in·tu·i·tion/ int(y)o)oˈiSHən/• Noun: The ability to understand something

immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.

• A thing that one knows or considers likely from instinctive feeling rather than conscious reasoning.

• We don’t have to think about emotions – they just sort of happen AUTOMATICALLY

• There are MANY PROBLEMS which come from gaining knowledge using emotion only.