Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. What is epistemology, and what are some examples of epistemological categories?

Teaching Suggestion: Grant’s book argues that people should make a habit of re-examining their own ways of knowing—their epistemologies. Learning about the idea of epistemologies will offer students a valuable context for thinking about Grant’s argument. If your students are wholly unfamiliar with the term, you might offer them these or similar resources before they attempt to respond to this prompt. After they have had a chance to consider the information, students might list additional epistemological categories and discuss whether some “ways of knowing” seem to them to be more valid than others in particular contexts.

• This entry from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy thoroughly defines and explains epistemology.
• This chart from the University of Pennsylvania defines and discusses four common epistemological categories.
• This article explores an expanded way of looking at epistemological categories.

2. What is metacognition? How might metacognition relate to epistemology and epistemological categories?

Teaching Suggestion: Many students may already be familiar with the concept of metacognition; these or similar resources may be helpful in boosting or reviewing knowledge on the topic.