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KNOWLEDGE AND THE KNOWER—
WHAT COUNTS AS KNOWLEDGE?
PARABLE OF THE BLIND MEN AND THE ELEPHANT

CLASS ACTIVITY i
Ready… FIRE, AIM! — REVISITED

Start by reminding students about the very first activity performed in our TOK class—Explore mystery objects by touch alone. Recall that we attempted to identify a plastic Octopus, a Möbius strip made with modeling clay, and a fossilized knuckle bone of extinct Patagonia horse with varying degrees of success.

Today’s ice-breaking activity echoes that first session. Ask students to come to the front of the class, one-by-one, in silence, to identify, by touch alone, a mechanical part that has been hidden in a pillow case.

You can choose any object that is part of a larger whole. I found a brake disc from a 1994 BMW K75 motorcycle conveniently to hand. But you could choose any object. A bicycle chain, a microscope objective, or even a chess piece are familiar objects that come to mind.

Without revealing the object or allowing any further comment whatsoever, move on swiftly to the next activity.

CLASS ACTIVITY I - THE POEM

Select nine willing students for a dramatic reading of the John Godfrey Saxe poem. The class will no doubt recognize the Blind Men and the Elephant story from childhood picture books.

The Blind Men and the Elephant

I
It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

II.
The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me!—but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!"

III.
The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried: "Ho!—what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 't is mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!"

IV.
The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a snake!"

V.
The Fourth reached out his eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," quoth he;
"'T is clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!"

VI.
The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!"

VII.
The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a rope!"

VIII.
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

MORAL.
So, oft in theologic wars
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

John Godfrey Saxe (1872) 

Pachydermal caricature

Next, to capture the spirit of the poem, ask the class to sketch a cartoon of an elephant with a wall, a spear, a snake, a fan, a tree, and a rope in place of their respective anatomical features.

WARM-Up QUESTIONS

• Elephant societies are matriarchal because all the males leave the herd when they become sexually mature. Elephants have a 22 month gestation period. Elephant calves require constant maternal care or at least six months. Elephants have 2 nipples. Elephants communicate subsonically across many kilometers. Can you suggest an additional fun fact about elephants not perceived by the blind men?

• Differentiate between Loxodonta africana and Elephas maximus?

• What was in the pillow case?

  Three intriguing links

  Content from the following three links will add value if class discussion moves spontaneously in the direction of personhood and ethics.

GOING DEEPER

• What insights into knowledge acquisition can be made from reading the Parable of the Blind Men and the Elephant?

• Does it matter if our acquisition of knowledge happens in “bubbles” where some information and voices are excluded?

• What parallels can be made with regard to the human condition when comparing the Blind Men and the Elephant, Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, and The Truman Show (2008)?

• Differentiate between reductionism and holism?

HOLISM AND REDUCTIONISM

Further explorations of holistic and reductionist understanding can be found at Consilience of knowledge, in The Human Sciences, and at Politics divides in the Knowledge and Politics optional theme.

In Nature: an encounter with a real science journal, in The Natural Sciences, students select an arcane sentence from a real research article. Here is an example;

The total magnitude of the spin signal, obtained by integrating the spectrum in Fig. 4a, was found to be { [ Δf 1 (t)] 2} = 28mHz 2. Using this experimental value and the relationship { [ Δf 1 (t)] 2} = ( 4/ π) 2 { δ f c} 2 [ {A(t)} 2], we solve for { δ f c} using the assumption that [ {A(t)} 2] = 1. We find { δ f c} = 4.2 mHz, in excellent agreement with the value of 3.7 mHz expected from equation (1).

From Nature Vol 430: 15, July 2004

After overcoming the initial intimidation factor, it quickly becomes clear that sentences like these are neither jargon nor deliberate obfuscation, but a precise, detailed, objective, highly specialized vernacular in subject areas only fully understandable by “initiated” specialists in the field.

Another poem

The 1940 Louis MacNeice poem, Entirely will add extra value in the class discussions emerging from these Blind Men and the Elephant activities and generative questions. The poem is located at In praise of the poetic voice in the Knowledge and Language optional theme. Here are the first four lines just as a teaser:

If we could get the hang of it entirely
It would take too long;
All we know is the splash of words in passing
and falling twigs of song…