Richard P. Feynman on Uncertainty
• “I think it's much more interesting to live not
knowing than to have answers which might be
wrong. I have approximate answers and
possible beliefs and different degrees of
uncertainty about different things, but I am
not absolutely sure of anything and there are
many things I don't know anything about.”
Constructing a Knowledge Issue
A step by step guide
AOK/ WOK
Linking questions/ words
Mathematics
Belief
Ethics
Certainty
Natural Sciences
Culture
Human Sciences
Evidence
History
Experience
The Arts
Explanation
Interpretation
Sense Perception
Intuition
Language
Justification
Emotion
Truth
Reason
Values
Steps
1. Take one or two
words from column 1
2. Take one or two
words from column 2
3. Relate them to the
real-life issue or
topic under
discussion in the
form of an open
question
AOK/ WOK
Linking questions/ words
Mathematics
Belief
Ethics
Certainty
Natural Sciences
Culture
Human Sciences
Evidence
History
Experience
The Arts
Explanation
Examples
Interpretation
Perception
Intuition
Language
Justification
Emotion
Truth
Senses
Values
• Real- life question issue:
‘Wikipedia says that Bangkok is in Thailand
• KI:
‘How can I use reason to know whether information from an internet source is
accurate and reliable?’
AOK/ WOK
Linking questions/ words
Mathematics
Belief
Ethics
Certainty
Natural Sciences
Culture
Human Sciences
Evidence
History
Experience
The Arts
Explanation
Examples
Interpretation
Perception
Intuition
Language
Justification
Emotion
Truth
Senses
Values
‘The choice of the phrase “all men are created equal” instead of “all humans...” set
back women’s rights 200 years.
KI:
‘To what extent does the choice of words to express ideas subconsciously alter our
understanding of them?’
AOK/ WOK
Linking questions/ words
Mathematics
Belief
Ethics
Certainty
Natural Sciences
Culture
Human Sciences
Evidence
History
Experience
The Arts
Explanation
Examples
Interpretation
Perception
Intuition
Language
Justification
Emotion
Truth
Senses
Values
‘My homeopath says the contents of this bottle will cure me, but my doctor says they
will do nothing at all.’
KI:
‘How reliable are scientific methods when used to test apparently incompatible claims
about how the world works?’
So, is it a knowledge issues?
Is the SUBJECT of the questions about
knowledge? Or how we know something? Or
what affects our belief of something? Our
perception of something? Etc....
X Is the subject a topic that could have a clear
answering talking about a ‘real’ thing