Knowledge+Questions

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:

•Knowledge questions are questions **about** knowledge. That is, they are not questions of knowledge themselves but instead focus on the methods and mechanisms that produce knowledge—in TOK terminology they focus on ways of knowing and knowledge frameworks. In this sense knowledge questions are a little different from many of the questions dealt with in the subject classrooms. They are considered second-order questions in TOK.

•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.

•Knowledge questions are expressed in **general** terms. The question should not be local to a specific example but should use sufficiently general language. Where the line should be drawn is a matter of judgment, but the rough rule should be that in a TOK context the knowledge question should not use specialized vocabulary specific to a particular area of knowledge. “How can a physicist know whether the Higgs boson exists?” sounds like a good knowledge question in physics but is probably too specific to be a good knowledge question in TOK which is concerned with the more general matter of “how do physicists use theoretical predictions in producing knowledge?” Specific open questions about knowledge crop up within the subject disciplines and are properly dealt with there but they have to be made more general to be the raw material of TOK.

You can find knowledge questions underlying almost any issue. They are sometimes difficult to formulate precisely but they often lurk underneath popular and often controversial subjects that are discussed in the media, for example. It is a very useful exercise to try to tease out knowledge questions underlying articles in the media.

Here are two examples of a topic that has been discussed in newspaper articles and possible knowledge questions associated with the topic:

Example 1: Future population growth in Africa.
•**Not** a knowledge question: “How can we predict future population growth in Africa?” This is **not** a knowledge question because it is a technical question within the discipline of population studies.

•**Good** knowledge question: “How can a mathematical model give us knowledge even if it does not yield accurate predictions?” This is now sufficiently general and explores the purpose and nature of mathematical modelling.

Example 2: The placebo effect and its impact on the medical profession
•**Not** a knowledge question: “How does the placebo effect work?” An answer to this might involve a technical explanation in psychology.

•**Good** knowledge question: “How could we establish that X is an ‘active ingredient’ in causing Y?” This question is actually a rather general one about how we can know about causal links. It is a classic knowledge question.