WOK+Linking+Questions

 **Emotion** **Language**
 * Ways of Knowing Linking Questions**
 * What part does emotion play in the acquisition of knowledge? Does the role of emotion vary across the different areas of knowledge?
 * Should emotion play a role in the evaluation of knowledge claims? Are there circumstances under which, in order to evaluate a knowledge claim, one should ignore or, alternatively, pay special attention to one’s emotions?
 * Is an action morally justifiable if it feels right? What part do, or should, emotions play in the formation of moral judgments or political judgments?
 * Can emotions be classified as good or bad? Can there be correct, or appropriate, emotional responses? Is it correct to be horrified by accounts of torture?
 * Is faith purely emotional or is it possible to provide a rational justification for religious belief? Is emotion a source of spiritual knowledge?
 * Do people act their way into feeling or feel their way into action? What is the relationship between emotion and experience (for example, in CAS activities)?
 * How did your feelings or emotions affect (positively or negatively) your ability to perform, to make decisions or to reason in regard to particular CAS activities? How did you deal with such situations?
 * To what extent is it possible to overcome ambiguity and vagueness in language? In what contexts might ambiguity either impede knowledge or contribute to its acquisition? Does the balance between precision and ambiguity alter from one area of knowledge to another?
 * What do we gain, and what do we lose, when we name something? Do different areas of knowledge manage differently the balance between particularity and generality?
 * Reason **
 * To what extent do you agree with André Gide’s view that, “L'illogisme irrite. Trop de logique ennuie. La vie échappe à la logique, et tout ce que la seule logique construit reste artificiel et contraint. //Donc// est un mot que doit ignorer le poète, et qui n'existe que dans l'esprit.” [Lack of logic annoys. Too much logic is boring. Life escapes logic, and everything built on logic alone is artificial and limited. //Therefore// is a word that the poet must ignore, that exists only in the mind.]?
 * Susan Sontag said that, “Thinking is a form of feeling…feeling is a form of thinking.” Are they related in this way?
 * How does the role of reason compare with the roles of the other ways of knowing? Why might some people think that reason is superior, and what consequences does holding this position have for the knowledge pursued and the methods considered appropriate in the pursuit?
 * Does the role of reason affect the degree of certainty in, or the social status of, the various areas of knowledge? What are the implications of the answer to this question when disputes arise among practitioners and between cultures?
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 90%;">Attempts have been made to identify universal, self-evident and incontrovertible laws of logic, such as the law of identity (for example, “an apple is an apple”) or the law of non-contradiction (for example, “nothing can be an apple and also a non-apple”). Are these actually laws in the scientific sense of the term, or are they axioms? How do logical axioms compare with axioms in mathematics, and with the underlying beliefs we take for granted in other areas of knowledge? What is the role of reason in ethical principles and their justification? Is reason more important to acting morally than other ways of knowing?


 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Sense Perception **
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 90%;">To what extent is visual perception in particular a justifiable model not only of all sensory perception but of human understanding as well (in English, “I see” often means “I understand”)?
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 90%;">What is the role of sense perception in the various areas of knowledge, for example, history or ethics? How does it differ across the disciplines? Is it more important in relation to some disciplines than others? Is there any knowledge that is completely independent of sense perception?
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 90%;">Does sense perception perform fundamentally distinct functions in the arts and the sciences? To what extent does the artist make an advantage out of the subjective nature of sense perception, while the scientist regards it as an obstacle to be overcome?
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 90%;">What can be meant by the //Panchatantra// saying, “Knowledge is the true organ of sight, not the eyes”? Is it necessary to have clear ideas to see?