ToK - Emotion

1. Some key points: • The emotions are relevant to the search for knowledge because they provide us with energy, affect our thinking and are sometimes used to justify our beliefs • The six primary emotions of happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust are found in all cultures • Emotions are sometimes an obstacle to knowledge. Strong emotions can color our perception, distort our thinking and inflame our language • Rather than think of reason and emotion as opposites, it may make more sense to say that our emotions can themselves be more or less rational • Intuition is an immediate insight into something – sometimes valuable, sometimes to be treated with caution. ToK - Emotion

2. ToK - Emotion Reason Are we driven more by reason or emotion? Maths How important is intuition in mathematics? Language Is language used more to persuade or describe? Ethics Is ethics more a matter of the heart than the head? Natural Sciences What does biology tell us about the emotions? Emotion Arts Do the arts provoke emotions or purge them? Human Sciences How much of a problem is bias in the social sciences? History What role does empathy play in the historian’s work?

3. ToK - Emotion ToK Essay Prescribed Title 2008: “There can be no knowledge without emotion .... until we have felt the force of the knowledge, it is not ours” Discuss this vision of the relationship between knowledge and emotion.