Experiments
The Arts
Name that Thinker
Theories
Knowledge and Truth
100
These two experimenters tested schema strength by exposing subjects to occasional anomalous cards in a deck.
Who are Bruner and Postman?
100
This Greek allegory suggests that humans are ignorant of the eternal truth.
What is "The Allegory of the Cave"?
100
These two linguists maintain that language carries a metaphorical worldview.
Who are Johnson and Lakoff?
100
This perceptual theory holds that humans perceive wholes rather than parts, even when the parts aren't all there.
What is Gestalt?
100
Riding a bicycle, your best friend, and that slavery played a role in the U.S. civil war demonstrate these 3 different types of knowledge.
What are knowing how (tacit knowledge), knowing a person or place (knowledge by acquaintance), and knowing that something is the case (propositional knowledge)?
200
These cells, which may hold the key to understanding empathy, were first discovered by accident, when a monkey mimicked the experimenter's gestures.
What are mirror neurons?
200
This work of fiction was written from the perspective of an autistic teenager.
What is "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime?"
200
These two linguists, pioneers in the field of sociolingustics, claim that our native language creates a lens through which we see and understand the world.
Who are Sapir and Whorf?
200
Godol's groundbreaking idea that a mathematical system cannot be proven to be free of contradictions.
What is the incompleteness theorem?
200
Plato's definition of knowledge, which we use as a basis for ToK.
What is justified, true belief?
300
In his TED talk, Dan Pink reports that giving an incentive to someone to do a complex, creative task actually does this.
What is decreases performance?
300
Based on Shaw's play "Pygmalion," this musical demonstrates the power of language to create social identity.
What is "My Fair Lady"?
300
This psychologist's seminal work, "Emotional Intelligence," set off a wave of new thinking about the role of emotions in our lives.
Who is Daniel Goleman?
300
This fiction writer and journalist argues in her essay "On the Torture of Others" that what we call things matters.
Who is Susan Sontag?
300
One school of thought insists that truth is eternal, immutable, and constant, while the other insists that truth is a human creation.
What are realism and constructivism? (or constructionism)
400
This groundbreaking physics experiment showed that in the quantum world, photons can act like particles and waves, introducing the idea that probability, not certainty, reigns at the quantum level.
What is the double slit experiment?
400
This play, later made into a film, illustrates the power of logic to override our personal biases and interpretations of facts, demonstrating through a fictional murder trial that things aren't always what they seem.
What is "12 Angry Men"?
400
This philosopher claims that science only progresses through periods of radical change, in which one paradigm is overthrown by another.
Who is Thomas Kuhn?
400
In his book "Frames of Mind," Howard Gardner argues that there are several types of this human feature.
What is intelligence?
400
These three truth tests tell us that something is true because it is consistent with other facts and theories, that it is true because it matches events in the real world, and that it is true because it works.
What are truth of coherence, truth of correspondence, and pragmatic truth?
500
This researcher claims to have found a neural shortcut that allows human brains to process an event emotionally and physically a split second before we process it intellectually.
Who is LeDoux?
500
Just as Einstein was revealing new physical truths describing relativity in the universe, Pablo Picasso was experimenting with this painting style to reflect the fragmentation and multiplicity of human perspective.
What is cubism?
500
This philosopher insists that all claims, especially scientific claims, must be falsifiable, meaning that they have to be testable propositions (i.e. they could theoretically be proven false).
Who is Karl Popper?
500
This ancient practice, which can be found in many cultures in various forms, attempts to calm the mind and flutter of emotions, so that truth and insight can arise.
What is meditation?
500
This human activity is, to constructionists, a way of knowing the world and consists of separating and labeling facts or events into groups with like features.
What is classification? (or categorization or creating a taxonomy)
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