What the
TOK Syllabus has to say about … Perception
Key Quotations:
·
By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer
and enjoy in solitude. Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies—all these are
private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. Aldous
Huxley (1954)
·
‘Knowledge is the true organ of sight, not the eyes’ Panchatantra
saying
Overall Summary:
We perceive the world through our five senses: sense
perception is the active, selective and interpretative process of recording or
becoming conscious of the external world. Because sensory perception is an important
dimension of our understanding of the world, its function and scope should be
examined and critically evaluated. The following questions may help students
become aware of the nature and power of sense perception, and how it relates to
knowledge acquisition, knowledge claims, and their justification.
Questions about … the Nature of sense perception
·
In what ways does the biological constitution of a living
organism determine, influence or limit its sense perception? If humans are
sensitive only to certain ranges of stimuli, what consequences or limitations
might this have for the acquisition of knowledge? How does technology extend,
modify, improve or restrict the capabilities of the senses?
·
What possibilities for knowledge are opened to us by our
senses as they are? What limitations?
·
Is the nature of sense perception such that, as Huxley
suggests, sensations are essentially private and incommunicable?
Questions about … the Importance and limitations of
sense perception
·
To what extent do our senses give us knowledge of the world
as it really is?
·
Does the predominance of visual perception constitute a
natural characteristic of our human experience or is it one among several ways
of being in the world?
·
What is the role of culture and language in the perceptual
process? Given the partially subjective nature of sense perception, how can
different knowers ever agree on what is perceived? Do people with different
cultural or linguistic backgrounds live, in some sense, in different worlds?
·
How, and to what extent, might expectations, assumptions and
beliefs affect sense perceptions?
·
How, if at all, can factors that bias our views of the world
be identified? Is all sense perception necessarily theory-laden? Do knowers
have a moral duty to examine their own perceptual filters?
·
It is often claimed that information and communication
technologies are blurring the traditional distinctions between simulation and
reality. If this is so, what might be the consequences?
Links to the
Areas of Knowledge
·
To what extent is visual perception in particular a
justifiable model not only of all sensory perception but of human understanding
as well (in English, “I see” often means “I understand”)?
·
What is the role of sense perception in the various areas of
knowledge, for example, history or ethics? How does it differ across the
disciplines? Is it more important in relation to some disciplines than others?
Is there any knowledge that is completely independent of sense perception?
·
Does sense perception perform fundamentally distinct
functions in the arts and the sciences? To what extent does the artist make an
advantage out of the subjective nature of sense perception, while the scientist
regards it as an obstacle to be overcome?
·
What role does observation play in the methods used to
pursue knowledge in different disciplines? For example, are the conditions,
function and results of observation the same for biology and human science? If
not, what accounts for the differences?
·
What role does what we expect to see, or are used to seeing,
play in what we observe? For example, after learning about the structure of
cells from a textbook, how “neutral” might the observation of a slide under the
microscope be? Can we learn how to see things properly?