TOK Unit 4 Quiz 2

Which of the following is an example of objectively existing phenomena in history?

• Intentions of a nation leader when crossing the border of a neighboring country
• Significance of a treaty between two nations
• Causes of war
• The written order given by a dictator to suppress a riot

Which of the following involves historical interpretation?

• Selecting evidence to be used in analysis
• Inferring causal chains of events
• Identifying historical significance of events
• All of the above

What is the defining characteristic that makes a perspective different from an opinion?

• Perspectives are more well-developed and less casual than opinions
• Perspectives belong to academicians, they cannot belong to laypeople
• Perspectives have an explicitly stated vantage point (“this is where I’m looking from”)
• Perspectives are shared by many people, for example it could be a school of thought or an accepted theory

A perspective-free account of the past does not exist. It suggests that history cannot be objective, but only if we define historical objectivity as:

• Correspondence to facts
• The most acceptable of existing rival interpretations
• Observing ethical standards of history-writing
• All of the above

According to Bevir (1994), an “objective fact” in history is an interpretation that we currently find more acceptable than the existing rival interpretations. When we compare rival interpretations, we can use six criteria. One of them is accuracy. Name any of the other five criteria (just one word)

Which of the following is not a characteristic of heteroglossia?

• The presence of multiple historical perspectives
• An honest dialogue between perspectives
• Selecting the correct perspective as a result of comparison
• The presence of incommensurable perspectives

The idea of using different perspectives to help students embrace history more holistically:

When we say that historical objectivity is defined by how honest the historian was in the process of history writing, we are erasing the border between epistemology and

• Politics
• Psychology
• Ethics
• Ontology

A problem in history is that a historical fact already has an element of interpretation in it, influenced by the historian’s perspective. A similar problem in natural sciences is known as:

• Underdetermination of theory by facts
• Theory-laden facts
• Incommensurability of facts
• Counterfactual thinking

“There is no such thing as truth, only dialogue of perspectives”. Which concept is consistent with this statement?

• Historical objectivity
• Historical interpretation
• Ethics of history writing
• Heteroglossia