Theory of Knowledge - The Basics

The Basics

Theory of Knowledge examines what knowledge is and how it is justified. There are a few basic concepts that you should all be familiar with.

The map is not the territory

Knowledge is commonly compared to a map. It describes the world without being the world. Consider the different types maps: map, satellite, terrain, google earth. Each describes the school in a different way, but none of them communicates your actual experience of the place itself. Some of them enhance your experience (the terrain map gives height above sea level), others simulate (google earth) but none of them is identical.

Concepts for assessment

For the purposes of assessment it is important to understand the following ideas:

Knowledge claims

A knowledge claim is any statement that asserts something about the world. Another way of looking at it is to say that we make knowledge claims every time we claim to know something or act upon such knowledge.

For example, if I cook a dish, I am acting upon my knowledge of the recipe or cooking in general. There will be several knowledge claims I act upon, including my knowledge that the application of heat to meat will enhance its flavour.

Because TOK is about thinking critically about knowledge, we need to make knowledge claims explicit. That is why, even when we are dealing with real life situations where people are acting upon implicit knowledge, we identify clearly the knowledge claims they appear to be acting upon.

Real life situations

Real life situations and the bread and butter of TOK - they are the examples we analyse. Any example that comes from real life (i.e. is not a hypothetical situation) can be examined, although for the purposes of assessment, the more concrete the example, the better.

That means that we can examine global warming as a real life situation, but it would be better to examine actual articles or other sources about global warming.

Knowledge Issues

Knowledge issues are instances of ambiguity in knowledge or specific knowledge claims. For the purposes of assessment, they are usually phrased as questions. See attachment below, Understanding Knowledge Issues for examples.

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