Area of Knowledge: HISTORY

Who discovered America???

1. Find evidence for and against any claim made.
2. What is your conclusion on the discovery of America?
3. What do you think of History as an area of knowledge?

TOK Presentation

aashna, shubha and i(Ramya) will be working on our TOK Presentation together. our topic is:
Does god have a place in the future world.

Presentation Topic

As informed to me by a valuable member of our TOK class, Shloka Mehta, Shloka and I will be working alongwith Rahul Sheth for the TOK presentation.
The topic all three of us (rather, two of us.. no prizes for guessing which 2) have decided to work on is Topic 1:
"True knowledge can be gained only through experience"
We hope to bring out more than you'll expect from this presentation at the superficial level.

TOK Sample Essay-truth

“Truth is that which the community ultimately settles down” Charles Pierce. Analyse and evaluate this claim. To understand what truth is, we must know what not truth is. Hypothesis, theories and prophecies are not truth because they are only one person or group’s idea or claim which has not been empirically proved yet. So if truth does not comprise of these, the question arises that what does truth comprise of? This shall be discussed in this essay.
There are three main stages of finding truth. The first is people’s opinions. Truth is discovered only when people think about a possibility and experimentally verify it. Thus we see that if people did not opinionate and think of possibilities, truth could never be discovered. The second stage is experiments. Experiments are derived from either curiosity or disbelief. When people are curious about the unknown, they think of possible explanations or hypothesis. They also hypothesize when they do not believe a previously existing fact. These hypotheses are then experimentally verified to either give a back-up to the existing claim or disprove an existing claim, thereby creating new “truth”. The third stage is a change in the communities’ way of thinking. Once a hypothesis has been proved or disproved, it is important that others know about and believe it. If a fact has been disproved and nobody knows about it, it is futile as people will continue to believe the previous fact. Therefore, only when the community s aware and believes in a discovery can it be termed as truth. These three stages can be seen in any experiment. First a claim is made on the basis of observation and personal opinion. This is then verified experimentally and proved or disproved. Then a report on the experiment is written and published to let others know of the discovery. Only then is the discovery considered true.
To evaluate the statement made by Charles Peirce, let us break up the statement into four integral components. The first component is the word community. As seen earlier, the community is constantly trying to prove and disprove claims and existing beliefs, this being a result of their curiosity and skepticism. Therefore, the community itself is never fully satisfied with truth or facts. They continuously revise and confirm their knowledge, thereby showing that they can never know all truth. Yet, at any given point of time, it is the community that plays the key role in defining truth because it is the community that believes in that truth later on. When discussing the question of truth, we see that people are the deciding factor in defining truth. When there is doubt, it is the community that dispels it and formulates “new truth”. In this way, we can confirm that community does have the ruling hand in choosing truth.
The second component is the word “ultimately”. This word introduces the perplexity of time. It is an undisputed fact that time is never-ending. When a word such as “ultimately” is used, it gives us an idea that there is an ultimate time or an end to time, a contradiction to popular belief. Therefore, we can understand two very different opinions from this word. The first understanding is that Peirce believed in an end to time. The word ‘ultimately’ shows an ultimatum or an end to time. Yet, if time has an end, it would show that life too has an end, a highly debatable topic. The second understanding is that truth can never be settled because there is no ultimate time because it has no end. From this opinion, we see that truth is always transforming to fit the current belief system and scientific discoveries. This can be seen as true because through time, we have seen one fact after the other being transformed. For example, till the introduction of evolution, people believed in creationism as a reason for our existence. But, when the newer generation of people needed a more precise and definite reason and once fossils started to be discovered, the theory of evolution replaced creationism as the latest truth. From this, we see that time plays an important role in defining truth. We can also see that truth is ever-changing, and will be settled only when time comes to an end or at the time of the ultimatum.
The third component is the phrase “settles down”. It can be observed over time that people are never satisfied with what they know. They are constantly trying to find new strategies in business, mathematical laws or new facts in history. This shows that one is never satisfied with all the existing facts. There is a thirst for more knowledge that is never quenched. There is always scope for doubt and scepticism. Therefore, at no point in time do people settle down and believe one fact. They are always trying to know more. For example, up until recently, everyone believed that Neil Armstrong actually did land on the moon. When people started observing the footage more closely and examining it, they realised flaws such as the flag waving even though thee is no wind in outer space or the shadows of the astronauts facing the wrong direction. This kind of example shows that people are not so innocent as to believe everything that is told to them. Inquisitiveness forces the human kind to think beyond the realm of our understanding to explore new genres of knowledge and unearth more mysteries of life. Yet, if we see, at any point in time, truth is what everyone unanimously believes because there is none who can provide objective knowledge that contradicts the truth claim. If this is understood, we can see that at a given point in time, truth is a collectively believed piece of knowledge.
The last component is the ever debatable concept of truth. It must be understood that truth can never be doubted, but, because of our inquisitiveness there is no knowledge that is not doubted. Therefore, can it be assumed that there is no truth? From common understanding, we know that such a thing as truth does exist because it is a commonly used word. A common man may define truth as something that has been proven. But, there have been many cases where something that has been proven has been tested and found to be wrong. For example, the atomic structure was explained through the plum pie model. This was considered true till the atom was compared to the solar system in structure, which was a more appropriate example. Here we see the metamorphosis of truth over time. Therefore, we can understand that truth changes over time, and therefore is never permanent.
The statement made discusses the key factors that determine whether any belief is truth or not. From the previous paragraphs, we see how the community, time, and people’s curiosity play a key role in determining truth. With time, truth evolves and changes. Curiosity challenges and support truth. Community decided what they want to and do not want to believe and therefore decide truth. This is very clearly brought out in the statement made by Charles Peirce. Yet, I feel this definition of truth only applies to truth at any point in time. This is because there are many paradigm shifts that have taken place and continue to take place in different arenas of knowledge. If what we believe is truth right now is defined, then Charles Peirce’s statement would be an accurate explanation as it takes into consideration the changes that occur in facts through time. Therefore, i agree with the statement made by Charles Peirce that truth is that which the community ultimately settles down to.

word count-1,279

TOK Sample Essay- Shloka

“Truth is that to which the community ultimately settles down to”
-Charles Pierce

Truth cannot be defined to in any certain terms. There are many versions of truth, there are degrees of truth and types of truth. The statement “tell me the truth”differs from the statement “the truth about …”. The community plays an important role in highlighting the difference between something false, and something correct, but because “community” tends to encompass a large number of people, there are versions of correct that emerge. The version of the correct events which seem to leave the least degree of uncertainty become what is proclaimed as “truth”.

Pierce’s perspective on truth is befitting one idea of what truth is. History shows us examples that directly reflect Pierce’s belief regarding what truth is. In the 16th century, Copernicus claimed that contrary to popular belief, the earth was not the center of the solar system. He noticed this by observing planetary motion and brought it to the attention of the Church, which chose not to believe this, insisting that the earth was the center. The community at that time did in fact believe that the earth was the centre and for the 16th century that indeed was the truth. Today we know that the earth in not the center of the solar system, but the sun is. This knowledge makes the 16th century belief into a lie!

Another example of the same is Nazi Germany. Hitler believed that gypsies, homosexuals and Jews were “genetically inferior”. The Nazi’s believed this as well, and propagated this belief. Society became convinced of this belief, and for that time it was ‘true’. Once again, truth had conveniently become what the Nazi community wanted it to be, despite having little evidence to promote it. The question that arises from these examples is why did the community settle to these version and take them to be truth. In both instances, there was one powerful figure who propagated an idea. Perhaps the cult of these figures (the Pope and Hitler) allowed for the permutation of belief. However, it cannot be denied that these versions fit in with the other assumption made at that time. Lets take for example the belief that homosexuals were genetically inferior, and analyse it using the truth tests of pragmatism and coherence. Was it a coherent belief? For its time it was, because there was little knowledge regarding the same, and people believed that loving someone of the same sex was something that was obviously wrong. Was it pragmatic? Yes, because when two people of the same sex came together they were incapable of reproducing. If they couldn’t reproduce, then the human race couldn’t continue. Considering that these people were probably saying that they didn’t choose to be homosexual, regardless of whether this was true or not, people ultimately attributed this to their genes. Then, it was in fact practical or pragmatic to believe that they were “genetically inferior”. Today, however, beliefs have changed, predjudices have been altered, and homosexuals are no longer considered to be genetically inferior. In fact, there is an ongoing argument as to whether homosexuality is the result of nature or nurture. In this instance, the community is divided regarding this. Does this mean that there is no truth, in keeping with Peirce’s belief? Obviously, that cannot be the case, as despite the argument, there has to be some truth. It just means that we haven’t found the truth yet.

There is a constant quest for the truth, and no one can ever know for sure that they have found it. Versions of truth do exist, but who can claim to know the whole truth? Recently, it was discovered that Ivan Pavlov when writing about his famous classical conditioning experiment, mentioned that he called the process classical conditional, or something to that effect. However, during translation, that was altered to conditioned, giving it a sense of permanence. Although there might seem to be little difference, the fact is that many in the psychological community are not aware that the terms they attribute to Pavlov were not really used by Pavlov himself! This leads to the emergence of language, and its importance in knowing the truth. To understand the importance of langauge in knowing the truth, lets consider the field of science. In sciences, such as physics or chemistry, it is important to define every term, every action before an experiment is carried out. This is done to ensure that should the experiment be repeated somewhere else, there is no confusion or ambiguity as to the results found or apparatus used. For example, take the terms EMF (elctromotive force) and consider PD (potential difference). Both these terms are commanly used when discussing electricity, and although the units for both are the same, they mean to different things. This is like a sub-distinction, but its necessary to correctly and accurately describe the state of an electric circuit. In keeping with the idea that truth can be that which is correct and accurate, language plays a crucil role to help reduce some part of the uncertainty related to knowing something as an entity.

While on the subject of science, it is hard to ignore that most of science itself is not based on concrete proof. The most basic theory of science would be the molecular the theory, and the belief that all matter is made up of molecules, which are the smallest independent units. Later, the atom was discovered, following which nucleons were discovered, leading to creation of the Atomic Theory, which has also not been proven. Despite this, both these theories have formed the foundation for the development of newer beliefs, and the knowledge about the everyday working of things. The main criterion for a scientific theory seems to coherence, as all these theories fit in with each other, leading to the creation of an acceptable argument about the working and functioning of day to day life. Should any evidence be discovered countering these theories, the community will be thrown into a state of chaos, as fundamental beliefs will be challenged.

So what would be the repercussions of a chaotic community? In fact, what is community? Community, is what I consider to be a large group of people who interact with each other. There are various communities, such as psychological or scientific or theosophical, and people can belong to more than one community. Community encompasses caste, culture and religion. To unleash chaos in a community would mean to live in a form of dystopia, where nothing makes sense, where the world morphs into an unsolvable riddle rather than a puzzle with a missing piece. All that remains is the answer, but without the questions that help us understand what we were trying to find. There would be no system of belief, no logical foundation, not even education. And every man would have his own form of mosaic knowledge, put together on the basis of experience.

Keeping this mind, Charles Pierce’s statement appears to both highly profound and ironic. It is profound because it acknowledges the importance of having a common system of beliefs, one which can be called the “truth” because majority of a community believe in it, and because it allows for the progression of knowledge. It epitomizes the concept of truth for convenience, where we might choose to appropriate parts of a theory or parts of a working model to create a new one. Its not unlike creating a new recipe, when we know which ingriedients we like, and which complement each other. Its all a question of finding the balance, finding something that is believable but has its own ambiguous shades which prevent it from being countered. However, the statement is ironic because it acknowledges that sometimes the the “truth” is nothing but common belief, with little to verify it. Peirce’s statemet essentially suggests that while the community’s version of the truth might not be the truest truth, it is that which is easy to believe, defend and develop on.

Word Count: 1,340 words

TOK Sample Essay- Somiran

"Truth is that to which the community ultimately settles down" (Charles Peirce). Analyse and evaluate this claim.
Truth is often very closely associated with beliefs. Each person's beliefs are influenced by a number of environmental factors. The family structure, social and religious ideas and even cultural background plays an important part in defining an individual's belief. All these factors which influence our beliefs, in a collective form, can be called “community”. The truth, as we know it today, is nothing but something we are comfortable with. Something which seems to easily fit with the rest of our beliefs (Coherence truth test) is thought to be true by a majority of us. This general pattern of long-standing beliefs being accepted as the truth has greatly changed the way we perceive things to be. Often times, only because we so strongly believe in a particular idea, we refuse to be open minded to any answer other than ours. It is possible that we know is not true at all, yet since it is the easiest way of knowing things, we feel good about it. This brings us to the questions about the ways of knowing and their limitations. The truth is not evident to us in many cases and factors such as perception, emotion and language form obstacles in our way of attaining the truth. Emotion stops us from seeing a situation objectively and perception shows us what we want to see, not what actually is. Thus truth, in its true form, becomes elusive.
We often see that what a "community ultimately settles down to" is accepted as the truth. This is a problem encountered in the way of knowing related to the social sciences. Various assumptions are made under which conditions are studied (in subjects like psychology and economics). The so called "truth" that we obtain from these studies is thought to be universally acceptable and people forget the assumptions that were laid down before drawing any conclusions. However, it is the idea which gets most readily acknowledged by society which finally contributes to the truth.
In the natural sciences as well, various things which the community has been accustomed to has been thought to be true and often used as the foundation for further analysis and evaluation. The atomic model of chemistry which consists of a nucleus in the centre containing nucleons and being orbited by electrons is a hypothesis. No scientist has seen an atom till today yet the atomic model was created and is used as the basis for all the studies pertaining to atomic bonding, nuclear physics and nanotechnology. Thus the community, over a period of time, has ‘grown’ into this system of knowledge. It is completely coherent with all other theories in chemistry and thus, practically speaking, there is no reason to change this. This gives us an examples of how what the community believes to be true may actual be more beneficial to us than the actual truth itself. What if we were to discover the non existence of nucleons and presence of something totally different? What if these findings could not be generalised into a body of knowledge? Thus, accepting the current atomic model (which may not be true) is convenient.
However, there are cases where the morphing of beliefs with the truth may not be best for people. This particular applies in cases of strong belief such as religion or superstition. High levels of religious fanaticism often arise from age old beliefs and customs which are accepted to be the “right” way of living. In the process of strongly believing in superstitions, people often end up narrowing down their outlook on the world. Also, there is a general belief among people that whatever the majority believes is right. It is not impossible (even though it may be highly unlikely) for a whole sect of people to be completely blind to the truth. For example, people in the Middle Ages believed that the Earth was flat and that the Sun revolved around the Earth among various other things. There had to be a time when there was a certain individual who denied the communal belief and went on to discover the truth. Thus accepting whatever is told to us and whatever is laid down in front of us on a platter is not always the best thing do. Many of the things we know today may also be untrue and there might be a time in the future when these beliefs are destroyed.
This brings us to the question of why do we accept whatever meets the eye to be true? It is hard to point out the truth in an objective manner. There is no way of knowing the absolute truth about the universe, our lives, or the things that happen around us. What we humans, over the years, have done is created various models, made generalizations and drawn conclusions in the patterns we see around us. We know that every time a ball is dropped from a cliff, it will (and most definitely will) fall into the valley below. This, we now call gravity. We can see that the sun rises in a particular direction every day (which we call east) and sets on the opposite end of the sky (which we call west) every evening. Thus we reach the conclusion that our planet rotates about its own axis in a particular direction.
All these conclusions which humans make are, to the greatest extent, corresponding with our other beliefs. If someone was to define gravity as a repelling force rather than an attractive one it would not be coherent with the fact that objects fall down to the earth when left from a height above it. However, to make it coherent, one could lay down the fact that gravity is a repulsive force from the sky. Thus anything that is taken closer to the sky would be repelled from it by this force called “gravity”. As we can see, coherence is important in shaping up which of our beliefs are finally accepted as true. Another one of the truth tests is the pragmatic test which states that anything that is practical to believe in is the truth. This too seems to fit in with all the assumptions we make in the different areas of knowledge. They apply to the world around us and thus these theories are practical. Often times, religious beliefs fail this test of pragmatism since killing people or discriminating against them based on which god they believe in is by no means practical!
Thus it is clearly evident that there are various barriers we face in attaining the truth.The idea of Peirce that "Truth is that to which the community ultimately settles down" is accurate to a very large extent. I believe that what Peirce says here is something that humans have been doing for a very long time. As mentioned before, truth can hardly be classified or defined in an objective manner. Then what is the truth? Peirce succeeds in answering this question in a very practical way. Humans do settle down to a convenient and practical sort of reasoning which fits perfectly into the picture of the world. It takes a lot of time to displace these beliefs from our minds that have been so well moulded in with the rest of our beliefs. Community chooses its own truth based on whatever works best for them. This is exactly what Peirce says. The process of settling down to a certain belief over time does lead to it being called the truth.

1265 words!

"Truth is what the society ultimately settles down"

"Truth is what the society ultimately settles down for" Charles Peirce
This is not true because the society is very large and has so many castes and so it would be very difficult to make all individuals to collectively agree to a particular issue. There are however some claims like "the earth is flat" that whole societies agreed to.