Duplicate this page before you start, and write all your answers in your own copy.
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Why this lesson matters for your essay. Two of the six titles for your own exam session, May 2027, ask about exactly the kind of knowledge you will look at today.
Title 3: In the production of knowledge, how can knowledge be reliable if it is built on assumptions? Discuss with reference to the human sciences and one other area of knowledge.
Title 5: In the production of knowledge, when choosing one explanation over another, to what extent should simplicity be prioritized? Discuss with reference to two areas of knowledge.
Nothing on this page answers either title. But every case today is real, named and dated: the kind of evidence an essay needs. Look out for the 📌 marks, which show where a case connects to one of these titles. At the end, you will decide what the cases let you say.
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Last lesson asked whether a result about people still holds when someone else, somewhere else, tests it again. Today goes one step further back. Before the human sciences can study people at all, they have to take some things about people for granted. What are those things, and what happens when they are not true?
Start with a game.
Imagine that you and one other person in this room, chosen at random, are given 10 francs between you, in one-franc coins. One of you, the proposer, decides how to split the money. The other, the responder, sees the offer and decides. If the responder accepts, you both keep the split. If the responder rejects, you both get nothing. You play once, you cannot talk, and you never find out who the other person was. You will play both parts.
✍️ Write here, on your own. Do not talk, and do not look at anyone else's answers.
When everyone has finished, your teacher will collect the class's answers. Do not read on until then.
✍️ Write here: the class results.
| Question | Class result |
|---|---|
| The middle offer (the median) made by proposers | |
| The most common offer | |
| How many responders would reject an offer of 1 franc | |
| How many responders would reject an offer of 2 francs |
Now imagine a different kind of player. This player cares about one thing only: ending up with as much money as possible. And they know that the other player is exactly the same.
✍️ Write here, on your own. Work it out step by step.