ToK Prescribed Titles (2009) Question 9

“The knowledge that we value the most is the knowledge for which we can provide the strongest justifications.” To what extent would you agree with this claim?


The essence of the Q: the key word here is 'justification'. Remember Plato's formula that knowledge is 'justified true belief' - what exactly does he mean? You might think about comparing and contrasting the word to 'verification' and 'proof', or even 'falsification'. What you should focus on are the methods people use to give reasons for their knowledge claims, the evidence they provide for their theories or beliefs about the world. Think about which methods lead to 'strong' justifications (do these involve reason, language?) and which to 'weak' justifications (do these involve emotion, perception?). Which AoKs deal in strong justifications and which on weak? We assume that the Natural Sciences and Maths deal in 'hard' evidence to support their theories, whereas the Arts and perhaps Ethics can only deal in 'weak' evidence.

Knowledge Issues: does all knowledge require justification? Is there any knowledge which is not strongly justified, but which we still value? Does reason (or logic) provide the 'strongest justifications'? Does emotion necessarily provide 'weak' justifications for our knowledge? Is there any knowledge we don't value (in spite of strong or weak justifications)? Can weak justifications ever be made stronger? And vice versa? How? Does a 'strong' justification for knowledge make that knowledge objective? Why?

Approaches: Think about how the scientific method in the Natural Sciences gives us 'proof' for our theories to a high degree of probability. You'll need to explore the problem of induction and perhaps Popper's idea of falsification. Do the methods of Human Scientists give 'proof' to the same degree of exactness? Think about any psychological or sociological experiments you're familiar with. What's the nature of philosophical proof? What methods do Historians adopt to prove their hypotheses about historical events? We value our historical knowledge so much, but is it always backed up by 'strong' evidence? Knowledge in the Arts, as we've already hinted, seems to be very subjective: people have different views about what makes a (good) work of art and can usually only provide personal opinion to back up their statements. Is there any 'objective' or 'strong' evidence we could provide to back up our knowledge about art works? Ethics is the same isn't it? To know whether we should allow assisted suicide in the United States is surely a matter of personal opinion and choice. Surely, this is too emotional an issue to be dictated by reason and argument. Finally, Mathematics: isn't the power of logic the ultimate of strong justifications? Mathematical formulae underpin all scientific theories about the world and even economic theories and business models have their mathematical components. This is why we value them, isn't it? If we don't get our cashflow predictions correct and don't know whether our monthly revenue projections will meet our fixed and variable costs, we can't project our potential profits and will be denied any potential loan to keep our business running. It all comes down to money then, doesn't it...?