Terms and Thinkers - TOK Unit 1

This ‘truth test’ demands that you check whether a knowledge claim or idea matches what fits in with shared knowledge, linking it to rationalism.

• Coherence truth test

• Consensus truth test

• Correspondence truth test

• Pragmatic truth test

This ‘truth test’ demands that you check whether a knowledge claim or idea matches what the majority of people believe. The least reliable of the truth tests.

• Coherence truth test

• Consensus truth test

• Correspondence truth test

• Pragmatic truth test

This ‘truth test’ demands that you check whether a knowledge claim or idea matches what you personally see or know is really there, linking it to empiricism.

• Coherence truth test

• Consensus truth test

• Correspondence truth test

• Pragmatic truth test

This ‘truth test’ demands that you check whether a knowledge claim or idea matches what ‘works’ for you, and brings satisfaction. The most esoteric of the truth tests.

• Coherence truth test

• Consensus truth test

• Correspondence truth test

• Pragmatic truth test

Arriving at a certain conclusion, by taking a general premise, and applying it to a specific case. Generally found in the sciences.

• Justified true belief

• Deductive reasoning

• Proof

• Inductive reasoning

Arriving at a probable conclusion, by taking a specific premise, and applying it to a general case. Generally found in the sciences.

• Knowledge questions

• Pragmatic truth test

• Personal knowledge

• Inductive reasoning

Knowledge is accepted only if there is no further truth that, had the subject known it, would have defeated her present rationale for the belief.

• Justified true belief

• Personal knowledge

• Consensus truth test

• Shared knowledge

This deals with second order knowledge - ‘how’ we know, rather than ‘what’ we know.

• Proof

• Shared knowledge

• Correspondence truth test

• Knowledge question

Knowledge about the world that is based on our own experiences, and may be unique to us.

• Personal knowledge

• Shared knowledge

• Coherence truth test

• Proof

Indisputable evidence for something being the case. Some thinkers have argued that it does not exist in science.

• Shared knowledge

• Personal knowledge

• Justified true belief

• Proof