TOK Unit 1 Key Concepts

The first unit in TOK was an introduction as to why we study the subject. From what I have gathered thus far, I learned that the course is about questions on knowledge itself, thinking deeply about how we know things that we know. In addition, the purpose of TOK is not to know how to answer the knowledge questions but rather be able to formulate said knowledge questions. The diagrams below are taken from the class presentation to better illustrate what I have learned. As a class, we spoke about the following: 

1. Areas of Knowledge (AOKs)
2. Ways of Knowing (WOKs)
3. Knowledge Claims
4. Knowledge Questions
5. Personal and Shared Knowledge

Firstly, we spoke generally about what we know about knowing and the knowledge frameworks that we can use to analyze the knowledge claims that we put forward. We use this analysis to then formulate knowledge questions. We looked into the eight Areas of Knowledge (AOKs) which are specific branches of knowledge which are distinctly separate areas in which we can draw knowledge from. For example, within the religious knowledge system AOK, it focuses on offering an answer to the questions revolving the meaning and purpose of life. People who have different religious beliefs would have different interpretations as to what they believe their purpose in life is because people draw on a range of religious systems. For many people, the knowledge drawn from their religious knowledge system has a substantial impact in their lives as it permeates many other aspects in their life such as their understanding of the other AOKs, their values and beliefs and their actions.

We also spoke about the Ways of Knowing (WOKs) which questions how we know what we know. The aspects that might influence our understanding of knowledge. Similar to the AOKs, there are also eight ways of knowing. We were posed the following question: How do the WOKs contribute to our understanding of the AOKs? In retrospect, I realised that the WOKs help us analyse how we are able to know things that we know in each of the AOKs. With a continuation of the example from above, faith, one of the WOKs, is one of the ways that I know that the religious knowledge system that I believe in is true. The way I gather knowledge from my religious knowledge system is simply having faith that it is true – the dictionary definition of faith, “a strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.”

We then questioned knowledge claims and knowledge questions, also known as first-order and second-order questions respectively. As a class, we established that a knowledge claim is simply things that people claim they know whereas a knowledge question involves questioning how you’ve come to know what you know, understanding the backstory. These questions are generally more broad and open in their nature for both the questions and their answers which allows them to be applicable in a variety of fields and scenarios. They are simply questions about knowledge itself.

The diagram below depicts five different questions – which of them are knowledge questions? The top two questions are not knowledge questions simply because they are too specific which means they can’t be applied to various scenarios and they do not question how you have come to know what you know. The bottom three are thus, examples of knowledge questions.

Lastly, we tackled personal and shared knowledge – what they are and how they can be identified. Personal knowledge is the “knowledge which has been acquired by the individual based on their own experiences, efforts, and conclusions.” This means that this type of knowledge depends heavily on experiences and personal history of the individual which influences their perspective. This makes the knowledge less easy to share because it is very much dependent on a single individual. Share knowledge, on the contrary, is the “knowledge which is held communally, by groups which will vary in size depending on the type of knowledge being explored.” This means that this type of knowledge spans greater than the individual and reaches more of a group audience, however, it still may not be available to those outside one particular group. That being said, shared knowledge is more likely to evolve and develop as the more the number of people aware of the shared knowledge increases, the more the knowledge is built upon.