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Methods Imagination

Theory of Knowledge teaching materials

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Paul Keller
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14 views

Methods Imagination

Theory of Knowledge teaching materials

Uploaded by

Paul Keller
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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TOK Methods & Tools:

Imagination
If the imagination regards what is fictional, why is imagination
important for knowledge?
Starter:
Imagine yourself in 10 years’ time. You’re in your perfect career.
1. How did you make it happen? What are the key choices that
helped you achieve your dream job.
What are you doing when you imagine the future?
Immanuel Kant
1724-1804

“We do not see the world the way it is,


we see the world according to our instruments.”
What does the imagination do?
Kant claimed the imagination does two things:
1. Brings to mind something that is not present at the moment, factual or fictional.
Example: Imagining my cat lying asleep on my sofa.

2. Puts together different sensory experiences to make complex thoughts. These can then
be turned into rational propositions, leading to knowledge claims.
Example: Right now I’m having a flood of sensory experiences, amongst them I am picking
out important sense data and rejecting what is unimportant. I apply my ‘a priori’ (innate)
concepts to this to organise the sense data, creating thoughts, or rational propositions - ‘I
am in class thinking about link between knowledge and imagination’

The imagination draws together and makes sense of raw experiential data to create
thoughts; it’s the glue that links the sense data to pre-existing concepts or ‘schema’.
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How many basketball passes between white
T-shirt players do you count?
How does imagination shape the way we perceive reality?
How does imaginative fiction help us to
understand the real world?
How real are these entities?
How might technology change or extend how
we see the world?
• Q: What was the role of Galileo’s telescope in his discoveries?
• Q: How might this technology relate to imagination?
• A: Galileo’s telescope led to a paradigm shift in the way he imagined
the structure of the solar system
TASK: Why is imagination important for knowledge?
1. Imagination enables us to solve problems.
2. Imagination is needed for knowledge we can’t directly perceive.
3. Imagination allows us to makes connections between different types of
knowledge.
4. Imagination is essential for empathy.
5. Imagination allows us to be creative – some consider these concepts as
synonymous.
● In groups, complete your assigned task exploring through the context of an object
and an example the role imagination plays in the pursuit of knowledge.
● Create a new group populated by at least one person from the five original groups.
○ Discuss and answer the question: Which function of imagination is most
significant for knowledge? Be prepared to justify your evaluation.
Group 1: Imagination enables us to solve problems

Using one object and one researched example, one from the natural
sciences and one from ethics, explain how the ability to foresee, or
imagine the future and consequences, is important for these areas of
knowledge?

How does this ability contribute to knowledge generally?


Group 2: Imagination is required for anything we can’t
directly perceive
Using one object and one researched example, one from the natural
sciences and one from religion, explain how imagination and metaphor
are very useful in understanding abstract ideas.

How does this ability contribute to knowledge acquisition?


Group 3: Imagination allows us to make connections
between different types of knowledge

Using one object and one researched example, one based on


synaesthesia and another of your choice, explain how the imagination
allows us to link between different areas of knowledge (AOKs).

How does this ability contribute to knowledge generally?


Group 4: Imagination is essential for empathy

In order to think beyond the limits of your own immediate perspective


requires the imagination. Thus, if you try to ‘see’ or ‘feel’ the world from
the position of another person you must imagine it.

Develop one example and identify one object, one from the arts and
one from history, that demonstrate the idea of being required to
empathise with another person in order to acquire knowledge.
Group 5: Imagination allows us to be creative;
some consider these concepts as synonymous

Using one object and one researched example, one based on the Arts
and one from the natural sciences, explain the role of imagination in
the production of knowledge.

How does this ability contribute to knowledge generally?


Plenary: Evaluation

Which function of imagination is most significant for


knowledge? Explain why.
Key Points: Imagination
Kant’s description of the imagination is that it allows us to conceive of
things not immediately given in sense experience; and, it’s a function of
the mind that enables us to link or blend different simple ideas to
produce more complex ideas.

These two fundamental capacities are integral to knowledge


production in all the areas of knowledge and are central to empathy,
creativity, problem solving and understanding and devising metaphors.

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