TOK class 1/24
--------------
We discussed chapter 2 of Man is the Measure by Abel.
In that chapter, we highlighted the difference between
knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description.
Essentially this corresponds to the difference between
knowing how vs. knowing that, respectively.

You may know how to complete a particular task, (say hit
a tennis ball), but you may not know the mechanics behind
the task. (You may not be able to explain it to someone else...)
A natural question becomes, if you know HOW to do something,
can you eventually be able to describe how you do that something?
(Another way to phrase the question is, "are there tasks that
we can complete, yet never be able to describe fully what we are
doing?")

Next we talked about the differences between knowledge and experience,
and whether one necessarily led to the other. Knowledge can not duplicate
experience. Even if you know clinically what goes on in a particular
medical procedure, you can not know what the experience of going through
that procedure is like until you actually do. Similarly, not all
experience will necessarily lead to knowledge. While most people who are
knowledgeable DO have a wide range of experiences, there are those with
many experiences that may not be very knowledgable, by relative standards.

Next, we discussed propositional knowledge. In particular, we discussed
whether it was possible to know something without being able to express
that knowledge in language.

Then we looked at 4 conditions that must hold in order for us to be able
to assert, "I know that..."

1) The statement must be true.
2) I must believe the statement to be true.
3) I must have sufficient evidence for that belief
4) I must have no evidence to the contrary.

Finally, we started listing reasons to justify propositional knowledge.
Here is the list of 9 types of reasons given by Abel:

1) Sense perception
2) Logic
3) Intuition
4) Self-awareness
5) Memory
6) Authority
7) Consensus
8) Revalation
9) Faith

This list is similar to the one we came up with before, but this time we 
analyzed the first few categories in more depth and detail.