Knowledge Claims and Knowledge Questions

From the TOK Guide:

TOK is primarily concerned with knowledge questions. This phrase is used often in describing what is seen in a good TOK presentation or a good TOK essay. An essay or presentation that does not identify and treat a knowledge question has missed the point. It also occurs in the assessment descriptors that examiners use to mark the essay and that the teacher uses to mark the presentation. To put it briefly, the whole point of the presentation and essay tasks is to deal with knowledge questions.

Knowledge questions are questions about knowledge, and contain the following features

1. Knowledge questions are questions about knowledge. Instead of focusing on specific content, they focus on how knowledge is constructed and evaluated. In this sense, knowledge questions are a little different from many of the questions dealt with in the subject classrooms. In this way, they are considered second-order questions in TOK.
2. Knowledge questions are open in the sense that there are a number of plausible answers to them. The questions are contestable. Dealing with open questions is a feature of TOK. Knowledge questions underlie much of the knowledge that we take for granted. Much of the disagreement and controversy encountered in daily life can be traced back to a knowledge question. An understanding of the nature of knowledge questions can allow a deeper understanding of these controversies.
3. Knowledge questions should be expressed in general terms, rather than using subject-specific terms. For example, instead of a question focusing on a specific model in development economics, such as the Harrod-Domar model, a knowledge question might focus on the reliability of modelling as a method of gaining knowledge in economics.

The possibility of a lack of unanimity in answering TOK questions can be initially challenging for students. After all, in mathematics a student getting a different answer to his or her neighbour can be a cause for concern, prompting the thought that one or other has made a mistake. In a TOK question it is perfectly conceivable that the answers differ. What is important is that the analysis is thorough and that there are good reasons to back it up. It is possible that both conclusions are true. It is tempting to explain the plurality of good answers to knowledge questions in terms of a type of truth relativism: “it is just a matter of perspective”. A more likely explanation is that different interpretations of key ideas account for the different conclusions or that the weighting of different factors in the argument differ.

Another challenging aspect of TOK is the requirement that a knowledge question is somehow more general than the particular examples which illustrate it. This requirement springs from the idea that TOK deals with second-order questions.

For example:

In physics, one deals with questions about the material world. In TOK, we ask questions about knowledge in physics. How can the physicist be sure of his or her conclusions given that they are based on hypothesis and experiment? The student in TOK is not talking in physical terms because he or she is not talking about the physical world but the discipline of physics. Therefore, it is necessary to use a different, more generalised vocabulary. The physicist uses terms like particle, energy, mass and charge. In TOK, the student uses terms such as hypothesis, experimental data, interpretation, anomaly, induction, certainty, uncertainty, belief and knowledge. So knowledge questions should employ these terms, not the terms of physics.

Is it a Knowledge Question?