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IB TOK 2022 syllabus: CORE theme: Knowers & Knowledge

IBO has upgraded and adapted the TOK curriculum.

'Knowing' words

The TOK guide actually calls these words ‘Linking Questions’ but they are neither questions nor is it necessarily obvious what they are meant to be linking. A better way to think of them is important ‘Knowledge Words’ that you should know and attempt to use in your essays and exhibition. These words are below:

  • Belief                                        Evidence                                   Interpretation
  • Certainty                                   Experience                                Intuition
  • Culture                                      Explanation                               Technology
  • Truth                                         Values

What is it about exactly?

Knowledge and the knower: “how we know what we claim to know?” This core theme challenges students to reflect on themselves as knowers and thinkers, and to consider the extent of the influences of different kinds of communities of knowers to which they belong.

Knowledge and Natural Sciences

Examples of knowledge questions

Scope

  • Why might some people regard science as the supreme form of all knowledge?
  • Should the natural sciences be regarded as a body of knowledge, a system of knowledge or a method?
  • Could there be scientific problems that are currently unknown because the technology needed to reveal them doesn’t exist yet?
  • Is human knowledge confined to what the natural sciences discover, or are there other important inquiries that are not covered by the natural sciences?
  • What knowledge, if any, is likely to always remain beyond the capabilities of science to investigate or verify?
  • Do the natural sciences rely on any assumptions that are themselves unprovable by science?
  • Is prediction the primary purpose of scientific knowledge?
  • How might developments in scientific knowledge trigger political controversies or controversies in other areas of knowledge?

Perspectives

  • How can it be that scientific knowledge changes over time?
  • What role do paradigm shifts play in the progression of scientific knowledge?
  • How does the social context of scientific work affect the methods and findings of science?
  • In what ways have influential individuals contributed to the development of the natural sciences as an area of knowledge?
  • Does the precision of the language used in the natural sciences successfully eliminate all ambiguity?
  • Does the list of disciplines included in, or excluded from, the natural sciences change from one era to another, or from one culture or tradition to another?
  • Does competition between scientists help or hinder the production of knowledge?

Methods and tools

  • Is there a single “scientific method”?
  • What is the role of imagination and intuition in the creation of hypotheses in the natural sciences?
  • What kinds of explanations do natural scientists offer?
  • Why are many of the laws in the natural sciences stated using the language of mathematics?
  • What is the role of inductive and deductive reasoning in scientific inquiry, prediction and explanation?
  • Does scientific language have a primarily descriptive, explanatory or interpretative function?

Ethics

  • Is science, or should it be, value-free?
  • Should scientific research be subject to ethical constraints or is the pursuit of all scientific knowledge intrinsically worthwhile?
  • Do we tend to exaggerate the objectivity of scientific facts and the subjectivity of moral values?
  • In what ways have developments in science challenged long-held ethical values?
  • Can moral disagreements be resolved with reference to empirical evidence?
  • Do human rights exist in the same way that the laws of gravity exist?

The difference between Knowing and Thinking