(Eileen Dombrowski, from OUP blog) “Only art has the power to build bridges between communities,” asserts an art historian in response to a current exhibit in Srinigar, Kashmir. One of the hosts of the exhibition similarly affirms, “Art is dialogue and conversation about difficult subjects.” As TOK teachers, we have a world of examples to bring to class on art as an area of knowledge. However, this current one, treated in the following article with brief interviews and backstories, is powerful in prompting thought and discussion on the role of art in communicating and creating knowledge: The Kashmiri art bringing Hindus and Muslims together. Continue reading
(by Eileen Dombrowski, from Dombrowski, Rotenberg, Bick. Theory of Knowledge IB Course Companion. Oxford University Press, 2013.
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- analysis arts cause classification cognitive bias concepts/language confirmation bias critical thinking definitions emotion ethics evidence facts fallacies history human sciences imagination implications indigenous knowledge intuition knowing how knowledge claims knowledge questions language literature mathematics media memory methodology natural sciences perspectives psychology reason sense perception shared knowledge sources statistics symbolic representation truth ways of knowing
Dombrowski, Rotenberg, Bick. TOK Spanish translation. Teoría del Conocimiento, Libro del Alumno. Oxford University Press, 2015.
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the essential question of knowledge
The question “How do we know?” drives inquiry. When we ask it with the stress on the last word – know — it opens up overview questions on the very nature of knowledge and the forms it takes. When we ask it with the stress on the first word – how? – it takes an analytical edge applied to methods of giving answers. In this blog, we follow this question — sometimes seriously, sometimes lightheartedly — through issues and stories of our day.
