STARTING TOK:
KNOWLEDGE QUESTIONS
Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1563) The Tower of Babel. Oil on panel. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
TOK centers on the exploration of knowledge questions. Knowledge Questions are contestable questions about knowledge itself.
Knowledge Questions are crafted with intention to be open, general and contentious. They are succinct, grammatical and use precise concepts and vocabulary. They provoke discursive evaluation rather than any single, definitive response.
The new Theory of Knowledge Guide provides no less than 385 suggested (non-prescriptive) Knowledge Questions in various guises for student exploration.
KNOWLEDGE QUESTION EXEMPLARS: “GOING META”
To what extent do we need art technique or art history training in order to appreciate an artwork?
What is the relationship between hands-on experimental work and theory in the natural sciences?
What do we mean by elegance in mathematical proof?
How should we approach academic history written under the auspices a totalitarian regime?
What is the role of intention in making ethical decisions?
Examine the Knowledge Question exemplars above and contrast them with the set of questions below. There is a nuanced difference. The Knowledge Questions above are complex, general questions about the nature of knowledge itself. The examples below are definitely questions about certain aspects of knowledge; but they are specific and remain firmly rooted in the real world. They are engaging questions that merit deep analysis; but they are not (in strict TOK parlance) Knowledge Questions.
WORTHY QUESTIONS ABOUT SPECIFIC REAL-LIFE SITUATIONS OR AREA OF KNOWLEDGE CONTENT
In economics, how do supply and demand determine the price of a commodity?
Why was the lock-and-key model for enzyme activity superseded by the induced-fit model?
Should I give money to this homeless person?
What metaphors in William Blake's Auguries of Innocence evoke the positive value of freedom?
To what extent was the siege of Stalingrad the turning point of the Second World War?
THE CRITICAL IMPORTANCE OF USING REAL LIFE EXAMPLES TO EXPLORE KNOWLEDGE QUESTIONS
Students soon learn that one of the most important aspects of doing TOK is supporting arguments using real-life, worked through examples. Analytical and interpretive assertions, counterarguments, and different perspectives contrasted in response to Knowledge Questions are most effective when justified by cogent, real-world examples.
In this way the student is encouraged cognitively to “zoom in and out” and, in so doing, travel back and forth across an imaginary line between the “second order” world of meta-thinking and the “first order” real world.
One way of differentiating knowledge claims from mere information is that knowledge explains and can be instantiated.
Jacques-Louis David (1787) The Death of Socrates. Oil on Canvas. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
TOK and PHILOSOPHY
TOK is not traditional text-based philosophy. Nor is it Epistemology with a major emphasis on the useful, but ultimately slippery and paradoxical, notion of Justified True Belief.
TOK Knowledge Questions are big questions; but they are not too big. Anchored in the real world they stop short of wild metaphysical speculation. Ever so often timeless philosophical riddles emerge naturally in TOK classes. It can be fun; even awe inspiring to allow students a first pass or brief encounter with them. This is more than playing tennis with the net down; as long as dizzy, aimless discussion is avoided; or better—elevated.
One way of framing the biggest (from the Western perspective: “Pre-Socratic”) metaphysical questions is to acknowledge that they are way beyond the scope of 100 hours of TOK. Their resolution may be forever beyond the grasp of mere human intellect and ingenuity.
Another way is to designate (and perhaps sanitize) them as part of the subject matter of Philosophy (as an academic discipline); or delve as they arise in the Religious Knowledge and Indigenous Knowledge Optional Themes.
SOME ENORMOUS PHILOSOPHICAL QUESTIONS
Why is there something rather than nothing?
What is the nature of time?
Does the universe have an ultimate purpose or meaning?
Is there God?