What Can We Know & How? Do I Know It or Believe It? (Ways of knowing)

What do we mean by “I know”?

• Claims to Knowledge
• Knowledge and Belief – Mini-Assignment
• The Basis For Knowledge (Man is the Measure, Abel Ch. 2)

What’s Up With This “Justified True Belief” Stuff?

• Belief & Truth – Justified True Belief
• What Can We Know? (Persons & Their World Ch 15 Olen)
• The Justification of Our Beliefs – Justification Chains, Web of Belief (Olen Ch 16)
• Knowledge Need Not Be Justified, True nor Believed

Occam’s Razor: How Can We Decide Between Competing Theories?

• Occam’s Razor Explained (:12 mins)
• The Mentalist: Flipping a Coin (:3 mins)
• Occam’s Razor & Why We Use It (:5 mins)

What Are Some Problems With Knowing?

• Plato’s Allegory of the Cave
  • “Alegory of the Cave” (Book 7)
  • “Allegory” TedEd Video (5 mins)
  • Allegory of the cave – explained
  • Plato’s Republic (FULL)

• Descartes: Certainty & Doubt
  • Descartes – “I Think Therefore I Am”supplement
  • On Doubt & Certainty – Rene Descartes Meditations 1&2
  • Overcoming Doubt – Descartes’ Approach
  • Descartes On Certainty and Doubt- 1st Meditation

• The Ascent of Man: Knowledge or Certainty (Jacob Bronowski) 50 mins
• Do Chairs Exist? (V-sauce YouTube :40 mins)

More Problems with “Knowing” in Our Everyday Lives

• Why People Fall For Conspiracy Theories (538.com)
• Understanding Numbers: Denominators Matter (Image)
• What If The Internet Was a Spectacularly Bad Idea? (INC)
• The Lithium Mine vs. The Wildflower (WIRED)
• Strategically Manufactured Ignorance & the Information Ecosystem (Data & Society)

And let us never forget that….

• Correlation is NOT Causation (a FUN take!)
• Correlation is NOT Causation 2

 

ISHMAEL (Stepping away a bit for a novel approach….)

• ISHMAEL Homepage
• Robin Wall Kimmerer: Objective Science Can Be Enriched By Indigenous Wisdom
• My Octopus Teacher (IMDB Film page)

 

PERCEPTION:

• • “Appearance & Reality” The Problems With Philosophy (Bertrand Russell)
  • TeacherMetzler – Psychology/Perception Page
  • Perception – in the minds eye
  • Lessons from Judas Priest Trial
  • “Powers of Ten” (Eames 8 mins)
  • Is Your Red the Same as My Red (VSauce :10 mins)
  • SOME PERCEPTION EXERCISES & Readings:
    • Perception quotes
    • Do THIS exercise, then do THIS ONE
      • You’ll understand the problem even before you’re done
    • What Are Your Assumptions?
    • The spider and the fly problem
    • Puzzles – mental flexibility and creativity
    • The Mouse Who Ate the Cheese
    • The blind men and the elephant
    • Perception – painters keep one eye on center canvas
      • Eye-Placement Principle in 500 years of Portraits
    • Different Cultures Define Happiness Differently (Atlantic 2021)
  • Joseph Campbell’s Woman Problem: The Heroine with 1001 Faces (The Atlantic)

LANGUAGE:

• • “Drowning”- Complexities of Language
  • Taylor Mali: “Totally Like Whatever, You Know?”
  • Melissa Lozada-Oliva (“Like Totally Whatever”)
  • The Big One- The F Word
  • Fun with language 1
  • Language Fun 2
  • Loose with language fun
  • language – Nothingness Poem
  • I Am Writing Blindly
  • language_quotes
  • language_questions
  • Jabberwocky – exercise 1
  • jabberwocky – exercise 2
  • Can Tone Indicators Help with Online Communication? (NYT)
  • GEORGE CARLIN on the English Language
    • Hot Water Heater
    • Baseball v. Football
  • “Who’s On First?” – Abbott & Costello (8 mins)
  • You are what you say – Robin Lakoff
  • BULL—- Between Truth and Lies
  • The Gift of Gab
  • “Meaning & Naming” (Man is the Measure – Reuben Abel CH 7)
  • The Human Language Series (Part 1 – Colorless Green Ideas – :60 min)
  • The Human Language Series (Part 2 – Playing the Language Game – 60 min)
  • Linguistics & Understanding the Brain (Pinker – :50 mins)
  • language and thought – Mackenzie
  • No, You Can’t Have My Pronouns
  • The One Word That Bars Trump From Pardoning Himself
  • “Banished” Words 2021-Covid Edition
  • Words Like “Racism” Have Lost Their Common Meaning (Atlantic)
  • Free Speech & Cheerleader Social Media Expression
  • Canceled: MIT Cancels U of Chicago Prof Lecture; Princeton Adds 
  • 3 Common Phrases That Mean Different Things to Men & Women (INC)
  • Gender Neutral Pronouns Aren’t New (The Atlantic)
  • Mansplaining At the Supreme Court (Atlantic)
    • Justice Interrupted: Gender & Language on Supreme Court (Northwestern U)
  • How Newsroom Leaders Wrestled with Covering a Tumultuous Year (NPR :9 mins)
  • Parkland Shooter Cannot Be Called “Animal” During Trial (CNN)
  • Prosecutors Cannot Use Word “Victims”, But Defense Can Use “Looters” (NPR)
  • Honestly, You Should Keep Using Verboten Terms (NYT)
  • “Woke” Went the Way of “PC” and “Liberal” (NYT)
  • Woke Words: A Linguist Explores the Words We All Grapple With (NYT)
  • Tone Indicators Online (NYT)
  • The Patriarchal Tradition That Just Won’t Budge- Father’s Last Names (Atlantic)

And How Might We WRITE About This Stuff?

• • ESSAY: Student as Source of Knowledge & Critical Analysis (Student Sample)

LOGIC:

• Crash Course Philosophy
  • CC Philosophy #2: How To Argue – Philosophical Reasoning (:10 mins)
  • CC Philosophy #3: How To Argue – Induction & Abduction (:10 mins)
• LOGIC Intro Questions
• Logic – A Summary
• Argument Terminology for Logic Chart
• The Requirement of Logical Rigor for Knowledge
• NECESSARY v. SUFFICIENT (Khan Academy)
• Love is a fallacy – Max Shulman
• Love Is a Fallacy (Fun High School Production – YouTube :14 mins)
  • Find ALL the Fallacies in “Love Is a Fallacy”
• Logic Puzzle #12 (From our Puzzles Page)
• Categorical Propositions – Logic
• Deduction Puzzles
• Brain Bogglers
• Syllogisms
• Syllogism Forms
• Induction- Caution, slippery when wet
• Logic Exercises
• Thou Shalt Not Commit Logical Fallacies!
• Don’t Fallacy Me Game (Reclaim Your Brain)
• Toulmin Model for Rhetoric
  • Visualization of Toulmin Model
• A Field Guide to Critical Thinking (James Lett)

AND AGAIN, let us never forget that….

• Correlation is NOT Causation (a FUN take!)
• Correlation is NOT Causation 2