IB TOK ESSAY

Understanding is subjective; it depends on culture and experience. For example a person who was brought up in a very religious environment automatically knows that God exists. So if a person who was brought up in a completely different environment in other words, doesn’t believe in God comes and try and “confuse” by telling him his efforts of praying, fasting e.t.c were all for nothing he will not believe him. In his mind he understands and knows that there is a God but he doesn’t understand how the other person’s view of the world and life is, maybe he sees life as an accident as some people do. So religion is about subjective knowledge. If one knows religion through education then he is objectively knowledgeable but not necessarily religious. When one expresses opinions about something of which he has objective knowledge e.g reading books to someone who has subjective knowledge, the opinion will be thought missing. Another example is, if a person was half dead and has just recovered from it and is trying to explain for example that he saw two angels: the angel of life and death as most people do to another person who has never experienced it, he will not get a clear picture of it. Yes maybe the person being explained to have objective knowledge of how people see things when they are half dead or say the person is a doctor and knows about this but his “objective knowledge” is subjective.

Reasoning of cause varies across culture because people have different minds and think differently and take for example when people debate usually they come up with different explanation but in the end they will conclude at firm grounds. But is logic purely objective and universal? Yes a fact is a fact and the use of knowledge is subjective, the hunt of knowledge is subjective and the ability to receive knowledge is also subjective but the moment it becomes worldwide known and especially accepted it contains some elements of objectivity.

However, for it is taught that knowledge is subjective by science teachers and researchers and philosophers there are researchers who teach and can show that knowledge even scientific, is objective. In my point of view I think they have to be specific because even though they say that scientific knowledge is objective it contains some subjectivity. I think it therefore has both objectivity and subjectivity. This is my stark illustration of my argument: In science (chemistry, biology and physics) there are always laws. Let me take Sir Isaac Newton’s Universal Law of Gravitation and his story. When Newton was sitting under an apple tree, an apple fell on his head, and began to think the following lines: The apple is accelerated, since its velocity changes from zero as it is hanging on the tree and moves toward the ground. Thus, by Newton’s second law there must be a force that acts on the apple to cause it to accelerate downwards. Newton had the initial experience of the apple falling on his head and then thought about it and came up with an idea. He modified it and came up with scientific laws and later was accepted universally as a law. He had the subjective knowledge to himself, happened independent of observers and later proved it and became an objective knowledge. The subjective view does not reject the existence of the physical world. The physical world is the best hypothesis for explaining subjective data.