Mr. Kuykendall's online classroom
Martin Heidegger is considered by many to be the greatest philosopher of the 20th century and is a personal favorite of mine! His work centers around existentialism, and specifically, phenomenology, an area of philosophy. We’ll read Heidegger as we progress through the course, however reading …
In TOK, we examine the ways in which language affects cognition and constructs knowledge. However it’s equally important to understand the way in which our culture, beliefs, and values are reflected in the language we create. Read the excellently written piece by American Author Colson …
Thus far in TOK, we have analyzed the following Ways of Knowing: Perception Emotion Reason Language Your task, is to identify an Ethical Choice…this could be something real from your life like “not cheating on a test” or it could be something that is real …
Language One of the learning outcomes from the language unit of study in TOK is understanding and appreciating the power of language to persuade, inform and induce emotion. Memes are a part of our culture now. They can inform on profound ideas such as the …
Last class, we had a great discussion regarding the Platonic dialogue, “Crito” as an examination of Reason. However through the course of that conversation, we examined Socrates’ arguments rationalizing his decision to accept his punishment of death. Plato writes: “It is not just for you …
Journal Entry for Reason Below: Attempts have been made to identify universal, self-evident and incontrovertible laws of logic, such as the law of identity (for example, ―an apple is an apple‖) or the law of non-contradiction (for example, ―nothing can be an apple and also …
In our study of Reason, we discussed its reliability as a way of knowing and the degree to which Western intellectual thought (and Reason as a whole) owes much to Socrates and Plato. Thus, we’re going to take the time to read one of Plato’s …
After our conversations yesterday, I immediately thought of the short story, “Ones who walk away from Omelas” by Ursula Le Guin. Read the story linked here: ones who walk away from omelas And then answer the following questions in your journal as “journal entry #3”: …
In this course, a goal of ours will be to nurture within you the ability to look at all truth claims with a critical eye. This does not mean that my goal is to turn you into a perpetual contrarian as some believe is occurring: …
This is what TOK is all about…this post. When the average person reads the follwing interview with Jaden and Willow Smith, they come away thinking, “Wow. psycho.” I’m not saying that emotional response isn’t valid, nor am i saying it’s valid. What I am suggesting …