Recommended e-Resources - The Core - Extended Essay and Theory of Knowledge
The information below relates to documents that are available from the ISD e-Resources. They have been carefully selected by your teachers and the LRC staff. Scroll through the list to find documents that are relevant to your current studies.
POLITICS AND VALUES, Idaho State Journal (Pocatello, ID) - Wednesday, August 15, 2012, by Alan Anderson
As I view the political theatrics of this presidential year and see the deception used by both sides to either gain or maintain power, I wonder if we realize it is each individual who will determine whether we succeed or fail as a nation.
This isn't a political battle between Republicans and Democrats or any other group. It is a battle that has always existed within us. It is altruism vs. narcissism... etc.
AVAILABLE AT: Newsbank
This isn't a political battle between Republicans and Democrats or any other group. It is a battle that has always existed within us. It is altruism vs. narcissism... etc.
AVAILABLE AT: Newsbank
A Guide to Grown-Up Thinking
Magazine article: from New Internationalist , October 2007.
Extract :
A simple antidote to the infantile habit of 'believing whatever we want to believe' can be found in philosopher Karl Popper's theory of scientific logic. This states that scientific theories don't become set-in-stone facts that are no longer open to question. What becomes accepted as scientific knowledge are only those theories that have survived the filter of what he called 'falsification'. And even these remain subject to a self-correcting process of constant review.
In this philosophy knowledge becomes a process of travelling towards the truth, rather than truth being a final destination at which you arrive, and then stop moving. But it can only function with theories that can be falsified. Those constructed in such a way that there are no circumstances under which they can be shown to be false have no ability to 'move forward'.
Applying this view of science to our own political and cultural beliefs is effectively declaring an 'open season' on all intellectual certainty. It dares us to question and, if needs be, abandon those core beliefs that give us comfort or reassurance. Possessing a belief system that can never be shown to be wrong is immensely powerful and reassuring-but innately dangerous. Any kind of dogma is the enemy of radical thinking.
The science writers Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan (1) suggested that the moral maturing of our culture represents a slow and precarious evolutionary path away from the blind obedience our prehuman ancestors felt towards the alpha male of the tribe-such an inbuilt urge remanifests itself in our deference to political and social leaders today.
What would a fully mature version of Homo Sapiens be like? One that thought independently, accepted its moral obligations to others, and had an adult ability to plan for a sustainable future..? Are we capable of evolving into 'Homo Ethicus'?
(1) Sagan, Carl and Druyan, Ann 'Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: A Search for Who We Are' 1993
Questia School, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questiaschool.com
Publication information: Article title: A Guide to Grown-Up Thinking. Contributors: Not available. Magazine title: New Internationalist. Issue: 405 Publication date: October 2007. Page number: 15+. © 2009 New Internationalist Magazine. COPYRIGHT 2007 Gale Group
On Human Values: A Lifetime of Ethical Inquiry Can Lead One to the Conclusion That Morality Is a Natural and Intrinsic Part of Human Life, Independent of Belief in God. We Are, the Theory Goes, Inherently Capable of Both Good and Evil, and Subject, to Varying Degrees, to a Set of Common Moral Decencies
Magazine article from Science & Spirit, Vol. 17, No. 4 (August 2006)
by Kurtz, Paul
Extract from article:
“I HAVE BEEN INTERESTED in moral questions for as long as I can remember. I became keenly aware of the need for social justice as an adolescent growing up during the Great Depression, when so many people suffered hardship. I even flirted with utopian visions of a perfect world--though I eventually became disillusioned with that quest. I enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War II in order to combat fascism. I was horrified by the devastation I witnessed: the Nazi Holocaust; Soviet tyranny; and the brutal bombing of open cities by all sides, including the Allies. As a GI in the European theater of operations, I was appalled by the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the death of tens of thousands of innocent civilians, but I could find few soldiers who agreed with me. They cheered the Allied victory and wanted to get home.
I began reading books that explored ethics, beginning with Plato's Republic, and was especially impressed by the Socratic quest for knowledge and virtue. Later, studying at New York University and Columbia University, I was influenced by American pragmatic naturalists John Dewey and Sidney Hook, who thought that the method of intelligence was the most reliable guide for resolving moral problems. I also read the logical positivists, whose scientific philosophy and critiques of metaphysics and theology I accepted, though I took exception with their defense of the emotive theory of ethics, which proclaimed that ethical statements were subjective and could not be verified. I took a course with A.J. Ayer, the leading English exponent of the emotive theory--and, as a smart-aleck undergraduate, argued with him, insisting that "the killing of innocent people was wrong," but I was uncertain at that time about how to justify that judgment. I was so intrigued by such questions that I resolved to devote my life to moral philosophy. I now consider myself to be an eupraxsopher, interested not simply in the love of wisdom (meta-ethics), but in the practice of wisdom. I believe there are moral truths, and I believe these truths can be drawn from ethical reflection. Philosophers from Aristotle to Immanuel Kant have defended the autonomy of ethics as a field of inquiry.
Human beings are capable of either good or evil. We are potential moral beings; how we develop depends on a complex of biogenetic and social influences, including parental care, belonging to some community, ..”
Questia School, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questiaschool.com
Publication information: Article title: On Human Values: A Lifetime of Ethical Inquiry Can Lead One to the Conclusion That Morality Is a Natural and Intrinsic Part of Human Life, Independent of Belief in God. We Are, the Theory Goes, Inherently Capable of Both Good and Evil, and Subject, to Varying Degrees, to a Set of Common Moral Decencies. Contributors: Kurtz, Paul - Author. Magazine title: Science & Spirit. Volume: 17. Issue: 4 Publication date: July-August 2006. Page number: 35+. © 2007 Heldref Publications. COPYRIGHT 2006 Gale Group
Notes on Karl Popper
Magazine article from Modern Age, Vol. 49, (Winter 2007 )
by Brantingham, Philip
Extract:
THERE ARE TIMES when any philosopher worth his metaphysics yearns nostalgically for the good old days. By the "good old days" one means the days of the Presocratic philosophers of Greece. Those esteemed thinkers, who dwelt chiefly in Asia Minor during the sixth and fifth centuries B.C., seem to many modern philosophers to have lived in a great and primordial era of Western thought, a time when "wild and crazy" ideas floated around the Mediterranean--to be eventually passed down to the modern world.
In that age, long before Plato and Aristotle, cosmology and mathematics were king. The names of Parmenides, Anaximander, Thales, Anaxagoras, Heraclitus, and Empedocles, to name but a few major thinkers, were well known. These men had an almost mystical relationship with nature and continually ruminated on the origins of things.
Even though their writings have come to us only in fragments or sometimes as quotations cited in later writers, we have a good idea of what they were thinking. The idea of atoms as the building blocks of nature was bandied about, and the composition of the universe was contemplated--an attempt was even made to dismiss the ancient gods. Concerning the elements, Heraclitus proposed that there were four elements: water, fire, air, and earth.
So it was an amazing world, that of the philosophers from Ionia. It was attractive in that it seemed to be a free-thinking time, in which the ideas produced were based purely on empirical study, that is, on observation, as well as open speculation.
This world greatly appealed to the contemporary philosopher, Karl Popper (1902-1994) evident in his posthumously published book on the Presocratics titled, The World of Parmenides (1998). In this book, he sought to prove that scientific knowledge and scientific theory were far more experimental and intuitive than had been guessed. Being fascinated with the roots of science and the limits of scientific theory, Popper found the Presocratics ideal subjects of examination.
Popper's interest in scientific theory in fact has come to be his great claim to fame. But he also delved into political philosophy, and his books, The Open Society and its Enemies (1945) and The Poverty of Historicism (1957), have drawn increased interest in our day. In fact, his name now vies with those of Friedrich von Hayek (1899-1992) and Isaiah Berlin (1907-1997) as being that of a major spokesman for political freedom.
In The World of Parmenides, a collection of essays, Popper proposed something that now seems obvious: "I suggest that scientific theories are inventions that differ from myths mainly in the adoption by science of the critical approach." This "critical approach" was Popper's chief tool in writing about science, as well as politics and philosophy.
Questia School, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questiaschool.com
Publication information: Article title: Notes on Karl Popper. Contributors: Brantingham, Philip - Author. Magazine title: Modern Age. Volume: 49. Issue: 1 Publication date: Winter 2007. Page number: 37+. © 2009 Intercollegiate Studies Institute Inc. COPYRIGHT 2007 Gale Group.
What Is Philosophy, Anyway?
Magazine article from USA TODAY, Vol. 134, No. 2730
by Kreyche, Gerald F.
THE LAYMAN'S VIEW OF PHILOSOPHY is hazy at best and proves to be the greatest conversation stopper at a party. Many think it has something to do with the clergy or religion. They are not quite sure of what it is, but they are certain that it is an abstract subject.
The story is told of a philosopher who lived next door to a family with lots of children. He had a cement driveway put onto his property but, before it dried, the kids were all over it with their handand footprints. Going to the father of those kids, the philosopher complained about their mischief. "What's the matter, Mr. Philosopher?" asked the father. "Don't you like children?" Replied the philosopher,
"Yes, I like children, but only in the abstract--not in the concrete." There is no question that philosophy has its abstract moments, but we must acknowledge that the world in which we live is run not so much by …
Questia School, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questiaschool.com
Publication information: Article title: What Is Philosophy, Anyway?. Contributors: Kreyche, Gerald F. - Author. Magazine title: USA TODAY. Volume: 134. Issue: 2730 Publication date: March 2006. Page number: 82. © 2009 Society for the Advancement of Education. COPYRIGHT 2006 Gale Group
Magazine article: from New Internationalist , October 2007.
Extract :
A simple antidote to the infantile habit of 'believing whatever we want to believe' can be found in philosopher Karl Popper's theory of scientific logic. This states that scientific theories don't become set-in-stone facts that are no longer open to question. What becomes accepted as scientific knowledge are only those theories that have survived the filter of what he called 'falsification'. And even these remain subject to a self-correcting process of constant review.
In this philosophy knowledge becomes a process of travelling towards the truth, rather than truth being a final destination at which you arrive, and then stop moving. But it can only function with theories that can be falsified. Those constructed in such a way that there are no circumstances under which they can be shown to be false have no ability to 'move forward'.
Applying this view of science to our own political and cultural beliefs is effectively declaring an 'open season' on all intellectual certainty. It dares us to question and, if needs be, abandon those core beliefs that give us comfort or reassurance. Possessing a belief system that can never be shown to be wrong is immensely powerful and reassuring-but innately dangerous. Any kind of dogma is the enemy of radical thinking.
The science writers Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan (1) suggested that the moral maturing of our culture represents a slow and precarious evolutionary path away from the blind obedience our prehuman ancestors felt towards the alpha male of the tribe-such an inbuilt urge remanifests itself in our deference to political and social leaders today.
What would a fully mature version of Homo Sapiens be like? One that thought independently, accepted its moral obligations to others, and had an adult ability to plan for a sustainable future..? Are we capable of evolving into 'Homo Ethicus'?
(1) Sagan, Carl and Druyan, Ann 'Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: A Search for Who We Are' 1993
Questia School, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questiaschool.com
Publication information: Article title: A Guide to Grown-Up Thinking. Contributors: Not available. Magazine title: New Internationalist. Issue: 405 Publication date: October 2007. Page number: 15+. © 2009 New Internationalist Magazine. COPYRIGHT 2007 Gale Group
On Human Values: A Lifetime of Ethical Inquiry Can Lead One to the Conclusion That Morality Is a Natural and Intrinsic Part of Human Life, Independent of Belief in God. We Are, the Theory Goes, Inherently Capable of Both Good and Evil, and Subject, to Varying Degrees, to a Set of Common Moral Decencies
Magazine article from Science & Spirit, Vol. 17, No. 4 (August 2006)
by Kurtz, Paul
Extract from article:
“I HAVE BEEN INTERESTED in moral questions for as long as I can remember. I became keenly aware of the need for social justice as an adolescent growing up during the Great Depression, when so many people suffered hardship. I even flirted with utopian visions of a perfect world--though I eventually became disillusioned with that quest. I enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War II in order to combat fascism. I was horrified by the devastation I witnessed: the Nazi Holocaust; Soviet tyranny; and the brutal bombing of open cities by all sides, including the Allies. As a GI in the European theater of operations, I was appalled by the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the death of tens of thousands of innocent civilians, but I could find few soldiers who agreed with me. They cheered the Allied victory and wanted to get home.
I began reading books that explored ethics, beginning with Plato's Republic, and was especially impressed by the Socratic quest for knowledge and virtue. Later, studying at New York University and Columbia University, I was influenced by American pragmatic naturalists John Dewey and Sidney Hook, who thought that the method of intelligence was the most reliable guide for resolving moral problems. I also read the logical positivists, whose scientific philosophy and critiques of metaphysics and theology I accepted, though I took exception with their defense of the emotive theory of ethics, which proclaimed that ethical statements were subjective and could not be verified. I took a course with A.J. Ayer, the leading English exponent of the emotive theory--and, as a smart-aleck undergraduate, argued with him, insisting that "the killing of innocent people was wrong," but I was uncertain at that time about how to justify that judgment. I was so intrigued by such questions that I resolved to devote my life to moral philosophy. I now consider myself to be an eupraxsopher, interested not simply in the love of wisdom (meta-ethics), but in the practice of wisdom. I believe there are moral truths, and I believe these truths can be drawn from ethical reflection. Philosophers from Aristotle to Immanuel Kant have defended the autonomy of ethics as a field of inquiry.
Human beings are capable of either good or evil. We are potential moral beings; how we develop depends on a complex of biogenetic and social influences, including parental care, belonging to some community, ..”
Questia School, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questiaschool.com
Publication information: Article title: On Human Values: A Lifetime of Ethical Inquiry Can Lead One to the Conclusion That Morality Is a Natural and Intrinsic Part of Human Life, Independent of Belief in God. We Are, the Theory Goes, Inherently Capable of Both Good and Evil, and Subject, to Varying Degrees, to a Set of Common Moral Decencies. Contributors: Kurtz, Paul - Author. Magazine title: Science & Spirit. Volume: 17. Issue: 4 Publication date: July-August 2006. Page number: 35+. © 2007 Heldref Publications. COPYRIGHT 2006 Gale Group
Notes on Karl Popper
Magazine article from Modern Age, Vol. 49, (Winter 2007 )
by Brantingham, Philip
Extract:
THERE ARE TIMES when any philosopher worth his metaphysics yearns nostalgically for the good old days. By the "good old days" one means the days of the Presocratic philosophers of Greece. Those esteemed thinkers, who dwelt chiefly in Asia Minor during the sixth and fifth centuries B.C., seem to many modern philosophers to have lived in a great and primordial era of Western thought, a time when "wild and crazy" ideas floated around the Mediterranean--to be eventually passed down to the modern world.
In that age, long before Plato and Aristotle, cosmology and mathematics were king. The names of Parmenides, Anaximander, Thales, Anaxagoras, Heraclitus, and Empedocles, to name but a few major thinkers, were well known. These men had an almost mystical relationship with nature and continually ruminated on the origins of things.
Even though their writings have come to us only in fragments or sometimes as quotations cited in later writers, we have a good idea of what they were thinking. The idea of atoms as the building blocks of nature was bandied about, and the composition of the universe was contemplated--an attempt was even made to dismiss the ancient gods. Concerning the elements, Heraclitus proposed that there were four elements: water, fire, air, and earth.
So it was an amazing world, that of the philosophers from Ionia. It was attractive in that it seemed to be a free-thinking time, in which the ideas produced were based purely on empirical study, that is, on observation, as well as open speculation.
This world greatly appealed to the contemporary philosopher, Karl Popper (1902-1994) evident in his posthumously published book on the Presocratics titled, The World of Parmenides (1998). In this book, he sought to prove that scientific knowledge and scientific theory were far more experimental and intuitive than had been guessed. Being fascinated with the roots of science and the limits of scientific theory, Popper found the Presocratics ideal subjects of examination.
Popper's interest in scientific theory in fact has come to be his great claim to fame. But he also delved into political philosophy, and his books, The Open Society and its Enemies (1945) and The Poverty of Historicism (1957), have drawn increased interest in our day. In fact, his name now vies with those of Friedrich von Hayek (1899-1992) and Isaiah Berlin (1907-1997) as being that of a major spokesman for political freedom.
In The World of Parmenides, a collection of essays, Popper proposed something that now seems obvious: "I suggest that scientific theories are inventions that differ from myths mainly in the adoption by science of the critical approach." This "critical approach" was Popper's chief tool in writing about science, as well as politics and philosophy.
Questia School, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questiaschool.com
Publication information: Article title: Notes on Karl Popper. Contributors: Brantingham, Philip - Author. Magazine title: Modern Age. Volume: 49. Issue: 1 Publication date: Winter 2007. Page number: 37+. © 2009 Intercollegiate Studies Institute Inc. COPYRIGHT 2007 Gale Group.
What Is Philosophy, Anyway?
Magazine article from USA TODAY, Vol. 134, No. 2730
by Kreyche, Gerald F.
THE LAYMAN'S VIEW OF PHILOSOPHY is hazy at best and proves to be the greatest conversation stopper at a party. Many think it has something to do with the clergy or religion. They are not quite sure of what it is, but they are certain that it is an abstract subject.
The story is told of a philosopher who lived next door to a family with lots of children. He had a cement driveway put onto his property but, before it dried, the kids were all over it with their handand footprints. Going to the father of those kids, the philosopher complained about their mischief. "What's the matter, Mr. Philosopher?" asked the father. "Don't you like children?" Replied the philosopher,
"Yes, I like children, but only in the abstract--not in the concrete." There is no question that philosophy has its abstract moments, but we must acknowledge that the world in which we live is run not so much by …
Questia School, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questiaschool.com
Publication information: Article title: What Is Philosophy, Anyway?. Contributors: Kreyche, Gerald F. - Author. Magazine title: USA TODAY. Volume: 134. Issue: 2730 Publication date: March 2006. Page number: 82. © 2009 Society for the Advancement of Education. COPYRIGHT 2006 Gale Group
