In this episode, I sat down with DP Design Teacher Donna Gee and DP Global Politics Teacher Bill Kyzner to discuss TOK Exhibition Prompt 5: What counts as good evidence for a claim? It really got me thinking about the significance of this question in my own personal knowledge about myself and the world, but also in a bigger sense about claims being made in today’s very heated political world. We stayed focused in this talk about evidence and claims within Design and Global Politics, but I cannot stop thinking about how perspectives play a very significant role in just how much evidence is enough to be “good” enough, and the implications this has on all kinds of knowledge communities. There really is so much more to be said about this prompt. I’m gearing up to do a reflection episode, so if you have comments or things you’d like to add, please send me a message via the contact page at www.TOKTalk.org.  

And thank you thank you thank you to Bernard Wun for his lovely guitar licks on this track!

Do good explanations have to be true?
Today’s topic is a previous TOK Essay title:  “Do good explanations have to be true?” To help me explore this question, I am joined by four fellow IB & TOK Teachers: Mr. Bill Kyzner representing Political Science, Mr. Francis Wynne, representing the Classics, including Latin Language & Greek Mythology, Mr. Jordan West-Pratt representing Natural Sciences, and today I’ll be representing the Arts.

Questions we discuss in relation to Natural Sciences, Political Science, Classics and the Arts:

• What does each discipline seek to explain? What might a “good” explanation look like (as opposed to a “bad” one)?
• Are there some explanations in your subject that are good but not necessarily true?
• What is the role of truth in each discipline?

Three things that stand out to me after this conversation:

1.  I was really struck by Mr. Wynne’s example of explanations in Greek Mythology that he argues are “good” and metaphorically true, but not literally true. I like this idea of different layers and kinds of truth.
2. Mr. West-Pratt’s distinction of the role of truth in Natural Science - that truth in philosophy of science being different than the practice of science… For a practicing scientist, there is no distinction between a good explanation and a true explanation - they are one and the same. Whereas philosophers of science are not necessarily truth seekers but model builders.
3. I was disturbed by the idea that truth may be irrelevant in Political Sciences. However, upon reflection, I think this is very much because of our overly liberal use of the word “truth” as a word to describe one’s understanding of reality in this discussion. I do still think there is room for further exploration of the role of truth, perhaps especially as it comes to description of facts and how this then translates into interpretations in different political lenses. Certainly, there is a danger as accepting anyone’s perspective as “subjective” truth, especially in today’s political climate.

Finally, I still am left wondering about the relationship of truth to the goodness of an explanation, and how that might differ depending on the audience of the explanation - who is the explanation for? what is its’ purpose? and does that determine what makes it good rather than its truth quality? There’s still much to be considered here. A title like this one seems so simple, and yet so complex once we start to unpack it.

No matter if you’re a TOK student, teacher or knowledge enthusiast, I hope that our discussion got you thinking about the relationship of good explanations and truth in your areas of interest or expertise. Tune in again next time for the next episode of TOK Talk.

Thank you to the random street performer in Shanghai for the intro and outro music.