Theory of Knowledge-C/O 2025 Assignments

If you are allowed to watch Wag the Dog you will choose one of the questions from the Wag the Dog documentary. If you are watching Outsourced, then you will choose one of the questions from the Outsourced doc. Please take notes and refer to the film or doc in your essay. Citations must be included for the films and anything else you paraphrase, summarize, or quote. You may use any notes you took in class or articles that I have posted or shared as well as what you have gathered from Justice and the supplemental content I have posted for each chapter.

I have given you the lecture, a background vid on Rousseau, and a podcast for further in depth learning :)

Please read chapter 3 of Justice and then complete the form by Friday the 13th. For additional support on libertarianism, you can watch Sandel's Harvard lecture about chapter 3 and watch Penn's talk on Libertarianism (the first 9 minutes of the video). Please note, Penn gets political after 10 minutes into the talk. His views do not represent my views or the views of the school, but it is good food for thought.

Work with a partner or in a group of three. 
Choose one high-profile issue (gun control abortion, welfare, stem cell research, etc..). Consider two or three methods which could (or should in your opinion) be used to produce evidence for policy on that issue and could be used in the production of a final policy document (bill, brochure, pamphlet, etc...) . 
Identify problems or questions raised by the method.
 Use a real example of your issue so that you do not fall into generalizations. 
What conclusions did you reach i.e what else needs to be determined or studied or considered?
Put your process into a Slide. Remember, slides are not just words. Condense your thinking into one slide with visual and print. 
Cite all info that is included (including pictures).
One last caveat, each group must do something different in terms of a real life example.

Pick one of the two questions to answer. Be specific and answer the question completely.

Read Chapter 2 of Justice. Then answer the Google Form.
I included Sandel's lecture about the chapter. It starts about 27 minutes in. There is also a short podcast with Sandel for when you are stuck in traffic or need something to listen to.

Given access to the same facts, how is it possible that there can be disagreement between experts on a political issue?

With a partner, come up with a thesis statement to this KQ. Then…

Include  a  real-life example. Now do the same KQ but instead of ‘experts on a political issue’ ask the question about experts in another area of knowledge (art, history, math, natural sciences, and human sciences).

After reading chapter 1, please answer the following questions on the Google Form. I have attached a lecture from Sandel's class at Harvard if you are not a fan of reading as well as a digital summary of Plato's Analogy of the Cave if you want further knowledge on the topic. Additionally, Nigel Warburton (the author of your philosophy book) has a podcast called Philosophy Bites that cover different aspects of philosophy. I will link one that is somewhat relevant to this chapter (it is less than 30 minutes).

Think of or research a particular election process or a law passed, maybe one that is or has been very much in the news such as the US presidential elections. Can you think of examples from that election process or bill passed that you would use in an answer to the following knowledge question:
In what ways is factual evidence sometimes used, abused, dismissed and ignored in politics?
Please justify your answer to the knowledge question with a real life example and explanation of how it supports the above knowledge question with no more than 300 words. Please cite with MLA any sources (this includes images).
Do this on your own or in a small group and then let’s discuss your findings!

Most of our experience of and opinions regarding animals are shaped by pets – our own and our friends’. When drawing conclusions from these experiences, it is important to be aware of the bias of 
anthropomorphism, which is the tendency for humans to assign human traits to non-humans. This frequently occurs with our pets.Your task is to create an animal chart of knowledge. The title of the chart should be the species of animal you are analyzing and you should provide two columns: one with the heading ‘Evidence for knowledge’ and the other column with the heading ‘Critique of evidence’. Your task is to consider arguments/examples that would support the claim that animals have knowledge (list these in column 1) while simultaneously critiquing those claims (list the counter arguments in column 2).