Glossary, September

Glossary for TOK



Acquaintance: To know something about someone because you know them well e.g. you may know your friend is tired because you recognise their moods.

Authority: To know something because someone you regard as important has told you so. e.g. A historical fact by a famous historian.

Empathy. To know something by being able to put yourself into that situation in your imagination, "to walk in another mans mocassins".

Empirically. To know something by testing and using your 5 senses. e.g. Plants transpire water through their leaves - you test by placing a plastic bag over the plant and collecting the water vapour. You see the evidence, you can also touch it.

Experience. To engage in new discoveries for body and mind. Empriricists believe all knowledge must be based on the test of experience.

Faith:To know without empirical evidence. e.g. to know their is an interventionist God.

Instinctive: Hard wired mental and physical responses, capabilities and actions. e.g breathing, fight or flight responses.

Logically. To know via sound reasoning, it can be deductive or inductive logic.

Memory: To know something because you remember the event or instance.

Metaphysical: Questions in philosophy concerned with big problems, e.g. What is the meaning of life, Why am I here, Is there a God?

Paradigm. A collective way of thinking.

Paradox. A logical conclusion that is unsatisfactory. See Xeno's paradox

Philosophy. Simply put, a love of learning, knowledge and wisdom.

Plato. Early Philosopher, the first to write down and record philosophical ideas in Ancient Greece.

Sagacity. To act wisely, like a sage, with vision and creative imagination.

Practice. To know something by trying to learn over and over again, many times. e.g. to know how to juggle.

Serendipity. A chance occurence and opportunity that is acted upon with sagacity.

Socrates. Original Greek Philosopher.

Socratic method. A questioning technique whereby a moral opinion is obtained from the person under question. This opinion is then exposed by deconstructing the root of the belief.