ToK Essay: Prescribed Title (May 2013): Question 5

5. “That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.”  (Christopher Hitchens).  Do you agree?

http://ted.com/talks/james_geary_metaphorically_speaking.html

What do the expressions ‘iron horse’, ‘floating mountains’ and ‘flying saucers’ have in common?

Answer: They are responses to something seen for the first time – an attempt to explain something unfamiliar and unknown and never experienced before.

The ‘iron horse’ was, allegedly, how a Native North American Indian described the first train that was seen moving across the North American plains. A ‘floating mountain’ (p. 17 of the pdf document; section: 'The versions of the vanquished') was, supposedly, how the native South American Indian spies described the oncoming ships of the Spanish invaders. And, ‘flying saucer’, as everyone may know, is how the Western media first publicised the phenomenon of UFOs. Now, imagine how each of these assertions were received by the general population: with understanding nods of approval and general acceptance? With undoubting certitude and unquestioning acknowledgement? Nope. Most probably with a lot of hilarity and not merely a pinch of condescending irony.

Now this is a slightly different take on the above title – some sceptics reject a belief, not simply on the grounds that it was asserted ‘without evidence’, but because the evidence presented is framed in highly metaphoric terms and is thereby somehow diluted as far as justification of a belief is concerned. The language of evidence, it appears, is crucial.

Consider the language of the Bible, for example. When justifying statements in the Bible, believers often argue that we shouldn’t take the words of the Bible too literally – it detracts from the essential message or teaching; whereas atheists sometimes argue that after you’ve stripped the metaphor away from the language, there’s nothing of substance left in the message.

And what do you notice about each of the above expressions? They are deeply metaphoric. Metaphor, it seems, is crucial to our ability to make sense of the world, especially our experiences of it. Metaphor fills the gaps, so to speak, in our more literal attempts to grasp order and meaning in what we see in our universe. The North American Indian, seeing a giant, metallic object, racing towards him, breathing smoke and screaming violently, can only grasp what he’s sensing by comparing this unbelievably strange experience in terms of something more familiar to him. Metaphor helps to suspend our incredulity about the world and reach for knowledge and understanding that slips through our more literal (rational?) approaches.

Which begs the knowledge issue: to what extent is imagination an integral part of making assertions? Or the more ethical KI: should evidence, grasped imaginatively and presented in metaphorical terms, be rejected with a corresponding rejection of the belief?

If the South American Indians had collectively accepted the ‘floating horses’ hypothesis, might they have taken more seriously the threat of the invading Spanish ships?

A what if question, the answer to which we’ll never be able to know...

Examples

The Arts/Economics

November : Q1 Can we have beliefs/knowledge independent of culture? Q4 What counts as knowledge in the arts ?

Click on the link to hear a clip of Rebecca Ferguson’s song ‘Nothing’s real but love’:

Let’s just look at the chorus lines a little more closely:

“No money, no house, no car, is like love...

It don't fill you up
It won't build you up
It won't fill you up
It's not love!

And nothing's real but love

No money, no house, no car, is like love...”

A fairly commonplace sentiment and quite overused in pop songs over the last decades, so at the risk of taking things too literally, just what does Ms Ferguson proclaim to know? That love is more valuable, more real, than material things? That love gives meaning to all those other things? Whose love? What sort of love? More ‘real’ or ‘valuable’ in what sense? In the best tradition of knowledge claims, the lyrics raise a greater number of knowledge issues than provide answers.

Now let’s juxtapose beside the song an extract from another literary work of art – a counter point to the sentiment that love is of greater value than money. It’s Francisco’s ‘money speech’ in the novel Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. You can listen to the extract here:



Here’s a corresponding sequence of lines:

“…To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is the loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money – and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it.” (http://www.working-minds.com/money.htm (August, 2012) )

There’s a complete reversal of the song lyric Implied by these statements about money, in both are embedded cultural ideas from which we cannot escape.  Can you formulate these in the form of searching knowledge issues?

A more interesting question is this: which belief do you find more compelling? Or, where does each belief lie in the scale of Believing Bullshit?

Examples

The Arts

November 2012 Q4: What counts as knowledge in the arts?



Click on the image to view a film by David Hathaway entitled ‘The Rape of Europe’. If you don’t want to watch the whole thing, start at about 58 minutes, where Hathaway summarises the earlier part of the film and makes his final point.

The purpose of the film is to explain the collapse of Europe and, it soon becomes clear, that the perspective from which this explanation is given is religious. Hathaway is introduced early on as an ‘International Evangelist.’ Now don’t let this put you off, because it’s not so much what he says that’s interesting for TOK, but HOW he says it.

Hathaway uses a combination of biblical references and, importantly for Q4, a series of art objects, as ‘evidence’ to support his explanations for Europe’s demise. It’s sometimes hard to get beyond his impressionistic interpretation of the symbolism of these art works and to get hold of the central arguments, but the gist of Hathaway’s film is to defend the belief that everything that’s happening in Europe is part of a predetermined course of events leading to the second coming of Christ.

So how does he do this?

The film is divided into three parts. Each part focuses on tracing the connections between biblical references, art works and the modern re-invention of the symbolism associated with them.

Part 1: Explores the following two images:


Bruegel’s ‘Tower of Babel’



EU Parliament building, Strasbourg.

 The warning: Against European unionists who are invoking demonic symbolism with which to brainwash the population against Christian belief.

Part 2: Explores these two images:

'The Rape of Europa', Titian



‘Europa riding Zeus’ statue outside Council of Members in Brussels.

The warning: Against Muslims who worship a false god and are actively promoting the downfall of Christian belief.

Part 3: Explores these two artefacts:

The Altar of Pergamon, a sacrificial altar for satanic worship.

The Gate of Istar, supposedly a gateway to hell built in Babylon, renowned as the ‘Seat of Satan’

The warning: Against Germany whose leaders are planning, and in fact have always aimed, to overhaul Christian belief.

The overall connections: Babel & Babylon & the biblical resonance of the ideas associated with these.

We don’t know where this film would lie on the scale of Believing Bullshit (see previous post), but try to trace the strategies Hathaway uses to defend his beliefs. “Pressing your buttons” and "Piling up the anecdotes" are certainly two of them...

Finally, Hathaway’s film isn’t the only place where these connections between art and modern politics abound. Many websites seem to be devoted to tracing them and weaving a complex web of conspiracy theories around an interpretation of the symbolism associated with the art works.

It just goes to show how art can be used (and abused) to present someone’s version of ‘knowledge’.

TOK Essay: Prescribed Titles November 2012 Questions 2 & 6

This is not a book review, but perhaps the best thing we’ve read this summer – at least as regards TOK – is Stephen Law’s book, Believing Bullshit: How not to get sucked into an intellectual black hole, Prometheus Books, New York, 2012, 271p.

Law explores eight strategies used by people to defend their beliefs at all costs – usually at the expense of a particularly sound rational explanation. The book has one of the most lucid descriptions of the scientific method we have come across (pp37-8) and explores in detail the notion of the testing/refuting of statements of belief.

In fact, two entire chapters (Chapter 1: ‘Playing the Mystery Card’ and Chapter 2: ‘ “But it Fits!” and The Blunderbuss’), seem to be tailor made for Questions 2 and 6 of the Prescribed Titles for November 2012. In the first chapter, Law explores arguments used to justify belief in the traditional Christian conception of God and a strong counter argument in the form of the evidential problem of evil. In the second chapter, he examines the beliefs of Young Earth Creationists with numerous interesting passages on notions such as falsification, bias and, what is especially useful for your essay, the use of evidence/data in the confirmation of theories.

Law argues (pp75-8) that in order for a theory to be strongly confirmed by evidence/data, it must satisfy at least THREE conditions: it must make PREDICTIONS that are:

• Clear and precise
• Surprising
• true

It’s well worth spending the time on these chapters as part of your research into TOK Questions 2 & 6 of the November 2012 list.

Good luck – you still have two months to the deadline and this book should help guide you through.

ToK Essay: Prescribed Titles Nov 2012/May 2013

So now the Prescribed Titles for Southern and Northern hemisphere students have been split - it's SIX questions for each set of essays.  The deadlines will remain as usual - November for Southern henisphere schools and May for Norther hemisphere schools - but we don't know yet whether the questions will be the SAME.

It doesn't matter.  What matters is what you do and. most especially, HOW you approach your essay preparation and writing.

Below you'll find some handy hints courtesy of ibtoktutor.com to help you get your head around some of the problems that face students when writing their TOK Essays.

Some problems to avoid in your TOK essays 2012-2013

A series of snippets of advice on how to improve your TOK essays

Clichéd examples

These are examples that are over-used and well worn and usually don’t help to advance your argument.

They end up being over-described and largely stated as if understood without any real support for an argument or exploration of knowledge issues.

Examples to avoid by Areas Of Knowledge:

History: the holocaust (and World War 2 in general); Adolf Hitler; Stalin

N Science: flat earth theory; heliocentric theory; model of the atom

Maths: 2 + 2 = 4 (or other alternatives)

Arts: Picasso’s Guernica; Mona Lisa

Ethics: trolley problem (or its variations)

H Science: Piraha tribe’s lack of number vocab; Sapir-Whorf

Try to draw your examples from relevant personal experiences/reading and from REAL LIFE CURRENT AFFAIRS in different fields of knowledge.

For more handy hints like this on essay technique call on ibtoktutor.com

You can talk to someone directly through SKYPE or email them with your essay at info@ibtoktutor.com