RELIGION AS AN AREA OF KNOWLEDGE 2

GOD MATTERS XS IB CLE 2012-2013 Full Name Kenneth Hungchiuming 4B Section LC#

Note: This is your digital worksheet. You will nd the instructions for todays module here. Perform the requested tasks using this Pages le. In other words, make it your own. Thank you!

Part One: YOUR Epistemological World Views Summarize here your ndings (even if tentative!) about your philosophies of knowledge: Absolutist, Relativist, or Rationalist? Domains Natural Science Item #s 1, 5, 14 YOUR Philo of K Rationalist Brief Reason + Remarks More denite domain or area of knowledge. Many possibilities or views but one tends to be more correct than others. One belief tends to surface to be more correct among others given reason and justications. Art is open to many interpretations and preferences. It is the more subjective domain so it leans to the relativist side of ideas being equally correct. Even though it is hard to admit that we have to choose the right decision in tight situations, one thing is still more right than another in morality. Religion is the most uncertain since it is the least tangible and the least contextualized with proof or evidence so it is hard to see what is more correct than the other thus leaving it to be equally correct.

Social Science

4, 8, 12

Rationalist

Art

3, 7, 10

Relativist

Morality

6, 9, 11

Rationalist

Religion

2, 13, 15

Relativist

Part Two: Ways of Knowing How important are the different Ways of Knowing in the different domains? Rank them from 1 to 5 according to importance, with 1 as MOST IMPORTANT. If you think there are other ways of knowing/judging, use the last column and specify.

Domains Natural Science Social Science Art Morality Religion

Sense Perception 2 1 1 4 4 1 2 4 1 3

Reason 3 3 3 3 2

Language

Emotion 4 4 2 2 1

Others? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Part Three: AUTHORITY and/or EVIDENCE/ARGUMENT When you justify claims, how much do you actually rely on External Authority and Direct Evidence for every domain? Assign a percentage to each one per domain (Just make an estimate, so NO decimal points--e.g., 25.2321%!). Make sure both total 100%. Domains % AUTHORITY 50 % EVIDENCE/
ARGUMENT

Brief Reason + Remarks

Natural Science

50

100%

A balance of the two is important. Authority and Evidence/Argument both inuence my justication of claims. A balance of the two is important. Authority and Evidence/Argument both inuence my justication of claims. Im not really a very artistic person so I believe more in the evidences/arguments rather than the inuence of the authority. Faith is a huge factor in terms of morality so evidence/arguments wont really be taken into a huge account or be available in the rst place. Faith is a huge factor in terms of religion as well so evidence/ arguments wont really be taken into a huge account or be available in the rst place. Authority teaches us what to believe. In Christianity, God may be the authority or the people God works through in the world like our parents, teachers, priests etc.

Social Science

50

50

100%

Art

40

60

100%

Morality

70

30

100%

Religion

70

30

100%

Why do you think there is no OPINION in Part Three? Opinion is not one of the ways to justify claims. Also, authority and evidences or arguments are external sources or inuences to justify claims as opposed to opinion which is more personal and internal. It may not be more reliable in terms of reason as compared to ones with authority or with evidences or arguments.

Some other learnings, comments, connections... After this activity, I learned that it is hard to choose a side between being an absolutist, rationalist, and relativist. It is difcult to choose only one side for these because it depends on certain specic situations to depend our choice on for the different domains. It is also challenging to rank the different ways of knowing since we are forced to indicate one way of knowing as more important than another even though some ways of knowing are needed together. Only by working hand-in-hand can we fully know a certain domain since they have to verify or check each other out. I also found out that Ive never really thought about what do I rely more on: authority or evidence/argument. It is interesting to note that in some certain areas more importance is given to authority rather than evidence/argument and vice versa. Again, it was also hard to allot the percentages since it could be a mixture of both. For example when authority gives evidences or arguments but I just considered the gure or inuence of authority as one variable without their arguments and arguments per se without who is giving the argument or evidence.