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Who WANTS TO KNOW?
SMART APES

MIND ON THE HOOF

In order to have students thinking in an unfamiliar frame about personal knowledge, I remind them that we are animals—“mind on the hoof.” This is a strange, discombobulating empirical fact, that for most of us, going about sophisticated lives, is hidden in plain sight. We are very smart, very social, very communicative primates, but primates nevertheless. Since we were born almost entirely helpless, we had a great deal to learn and we benefited from extensive parental care. Even minimal nurturing interactions, essential for mere survival as an infant, ensure that any given human individual has experienced formative learning in a specific linguistic, historical and social context and—only too literally­—has lived to tell the tale! 

Astonishing Predicament 

We live in the interim between the contingency of birth and the certainty of death. Randomly, we have been tossed into a specific time period and place. We do not choose our particular geographic, historic, linguistic, cultural or socio-economic backdrop. 

By the time we develop enough cognitive awareness, to recognize any of this, the particularities of our own lives (manifest in a male or female body not of our choosing) are already well and truly underway. We have no conscious memories of our own beginnings and cannot start again. We are already here and cannot erase our formative experiences. There are no golden dawns and there is no single, foundational point for our accumulated knowledge. 

In short we find ourselves in medias res—already in the thick of the action!

CAPABLE AND FALLIBLE

As smart apes, but apes nevertheless, we are the product of contingent interacting historic and biological events. We are finite because our lifetimes have a beginning, a middle and an end. We are socially, linguistically and culturally embedded. All this entails having much to learn. Our knowledge acquisition is both personal and shared. Our finitude, particularity and biological heritage ensure that we are both capable and fallible, metaphorically, “between beasts and angels!”

POSITIVE KNOWLEDGE

Once understood and appropriated by students the capability/fallibility dualism is a powerful notion that can be used in various TOK contexts. Appreciating the positive aspects of knowing is a great example. A skeptical mindset, with regard to limitations and bias, is a central part of the TOK critical thinking toolkit. But focusing almost entirely on the weaknesses and fallibility of knowledge claims loses sight of our capability. There are many positive aspects of knowledge and there is pleasure in finding things out. The accumulated edifice of shared human ideas—loosely, the Areas of Knowledge—merits nothing less than awe and astonishment.

COUNTERCLAIMS AND ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVES

Another benefit of appropriating the tension between capability and fallibility is that counterclaims are always looming. A student addressing a straightforward knowledge question like, “if we can be fooled by optical illusions is it reasonable to be skeptical about all sense data?” might begin (in the fallibility domain) by describing a compelling optical illusion and conceding the need for caution. The student might also point to the limiting factor that our senses respond only to stimuli falling within a predetermined range. The student might counter (switching to the capability domain) with the fact that our senses are not always fallible and could provide an array of examples of how specific senses are highly successful as portals to a lifetime of vivid experience.

Seen in this light, default recognition of capability and fallibility inherent in all flavors of individual knowledge, and knowledge embedded in communities, will generate a cascade of alternative perspectives and counter arguments; and will ensure a lively "to and fro" that characterizes TOK exploration at its most sophisticated level. 

CoNTINUOUS QUESTIONING

Since we lack a God’s eye view we must embrace fallibilism. Even our most insightful and reliable explanations, and astute knowledge claims are—now and forever—open to improvement. It’s conjecture and refutation—constant questioning—all the way down.

This is an ontological and epistemological strength, not a weakness!