Blog 19
DUE: Saturday, September 14, 2013 by Midnight
First, let me say how much I loved all of your responses to Blog 18. You are all reflective and articulate and I love how each of you sheds light on different ideas. It was so interesting to read about how you all relate to collective and personal knowledge differently and also how much you all value self-awareness, but how it is something at which you continue to work (we all do, trust me!) However, you were able to write so well about these things and bring up ideas I'd never considered. Thank you! I am a lucky teacher to learn so much from you!
Now, for this week's blog:
Early in your TOK experience, we talked about the Paradox of Cartography. Among the points that are important to recall are the following:
-There is no such thing as a perfect map
-There is no such thing as a flawlessly accurate map
-There are different ways of looking at a map (which way is up? what country or territory is at center?)
-Maps must constantly change due to many variables: changes in power, borders, boundary, or geographical landscape.
-And most importantly, in its entirety, the Paradox of Cartography and all of the points in this list are metaphors for knowledge, concepts, ideas, frameworks, and paradigms.
It's mind-blowing! Right?
Think specifically about the Human Sciences we've discussed briefly in class (anthropology, sociology, psychology, economics, etc). Extend this metaphor to one of these sub-categories of the Human Sciences by bringing our attention to an example in which the Paradox of Cartography applies. Does it help or hinder this area of the soft-sciences? Is it broadly applicable or just to your specific example? How can a metaphor like this (and trust me, the Human Sciences is chalk-full of metaphors!!) help us comprehend something conceptually abstract in the Human Sciences? Think about R. Abel's Man is the Measure and his explanation of Verstehen. Does this metaphor apply even to this broadly applicable philosophy?
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