emmak

Bouss, on May 26, 2009 - 01:52, said:

Okay, for instance, emotion. Firstly I'd say how we come to know things through emotion and that we never seem to know things directly through emotion, emotion always goes with another way of knowing (generally describe how we come to know through emotion). I might talk about emotion and how it can prevent us finding the truth (personal example of say, anger or jealousy, from my own life/famous example like Galileo being stifled when he tried to tell everybody about the world). Then I could talk about how it helps us find the truth (e.g. 'intuition' telling us when somebody is lying, picking up on emotional cues to work things out, or art being partly accessible only through emotion and connecting with artwork). As I've potentially used an example from science and an example from art, I can briefly score my TOK brownie points by showing I know the difference between them-- art is interpreted through emotion, but emotion as a way of knowing is not central to science, with brief reference to the scientific method.

That way you've talked about ways of knowing, areas of knowledge, links between the ways and areas, difference between two areas with reference to ways of knowing AND also answered their question.

That sort of thing is what I'd do

Bouss, on May 25, 2009 - 01:49, said:

I would defnitely structure your essay out before you write it, and actually I'd agree with your structure. Something along the lines of:
- definition of truth
- definition of belief and how it differs from 'truth'
- way of knowing #1 with example from area of knowledge
- way of knowing #2 with example from area of knowledge
- #3 w/example
- #4 w/example
- summary, conclusion

Make sure you have that introductory section, though.
http://uwcac.org.uk/...tentips_e_2.htm <-- I found that site very useful when writing mine

TRUTH:
Is generally a sensory perceived phenomenon, reinforced by human consensus. Something is accepted as truth when there are no reasonable grounds why it should be doubted. Truth is being certain. When the ancient Greeks believed that the sun was a god in his flaming chariot, they believed it to be true, but did not know it to be true because it was not justified. Truth implies justification. There are many things about our world we can now justify as being true, due to new technologies, but there are still innumerable things that we actually only believe to be true, with no real justification. For example, we often take for granted the belief that space is infinite. We see is as cold hard fact, but really, we don't actually know, we just believe it to be true.

So truth generally requires:
Support from all 4 ways of knowing (as above)
Consensus among nature and humanity
No standing contradictions
Reasonable justification that the truth is 'permanent'

Otherwise, we just believe it to be true.

I already done with my TOK essay. And since you are asking for opinions, I suggest that you first chose your Area of Knowledge. Any two will be fine.
In this case may be you can talk in term of History and Natural Science. And bring in the Ways of knowing that mostly related to this AoK. You can chose anything like as you mention reasons, emotion, language,...
As long as you can find a suitable example, you can write it on. It is better if you can chose example that you experience by your self. Last time , I heard my TOK teacher told us that IBO is looking for originality and something that is closely related to you. It shows how far you are into TOK.

Well, all the best.

p/s: Sorry if I not really answering your questions...