Joining me today are Dr. Rachel Oser: a Research Scientist & Teacher, Mr. David Fenwick: a Physics, Mathematics and Engineering Teacher, and Mr. Kevin Hoye, an English and fellow TOK Teacher. The prompt is this year’s essay Title 6:

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“Avoiding bias seems a commendable goal but this fails to recognize the positive role that bias can play in the pursuit of knowledge”

Questions we discuss:

* Why might avoiding bias be a commendable goal in the discipline you teach? What are some of the measures taken to avoid these biases in your discipline?

* The title seems to imply that it isn’t possible to avoid bias – do you agree? Are some biases therefore fundamental? In what ways?

* What positive role(s) might it play in the pursuit of knowledge in your discipline?

I really enjoyed this conversation, and I hope this gets you thinking about your own biases as well as the positive and negative roles they have in the disciplines you study.

Original music by Emily Osann

Guests: Dr. Rachel Oser, David Fenwick, Kevin Hoye

In this episode, I sat down and talked with my oldest daughter, who graduated last May from an IB school in Shanghai and is now studying Art at Parsons in New York. We discussed her experience as an IB student and she shares her perspective about TOK, CAS and IB in general. She also shares some honest advice in general about getting through IB and applying for Universities, as well as her experience and challenges as a Third Culture Kid in University. We share some good laughs in this episode, and I hope that you enjoy it as much as we did. Credit to Leah Osann and Xoai David for their beautiful vocal harmony, and Xoai on the guitar in their interpretation of No Surrender by Bruce Springsteen (hope the Boss won’t mind…)

Guest: L Osann

This episode I give an introduction to four main theories or perspectives on ethics: Virtue ethics, Deontological Ethics, Consequentialism and Utilitarianism, and Moral Relativism. I discuss these theories in relation to current situations such as the MeToo Movement and Self-driving cars. I love ethics... so this will be the first of several episodes looking at how ethics shapes knowledge in other areas.

Should we as a global society value knowledge produced with reason over all other ways of knowing? In this episode, I explore a little more about the strengths and limitations of reason in contrast with intuition, faith and imagination. Credit to the intro singer Kelsang Dorjee from Tibet with whom I had the pleasure of meeting and singing with a few years ago in Shanghai. Please visit my website at www.TOKtalk.org if you want to contribute to a future episode or have comments! If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review.

Welcome back for episode 2! In this episode I introduce my cohost, Hobbes and together we discuss the first way of knowing: Language. We ask and explore the questions: What's in a name? A word? How does language shape the way we think? Why does it matter?

Welcome to TOK Talk, a new podcast about Theory of Knowledge. What's that you say? Well listen to my first podcast to get a basic understanding, and stay tuned for more podcasts coming soon!