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Knowledge is nothing more than the systematic organisation of facts. Discuss this statement in relation to two areas of knowledge.

Project description
TOK (Theory of Knowledge) essay:

a. What areas of knowledge & ways of knowing should be investigated? This is broad question. It states how many WOKs/AOKs should be tackled (two AOKs). Given this, it would make sense to focus on two distinct AOKs, such as ethics and natural sciences, or the arts and history.

b. What’s the question getting at? The question asks students to consider the nature of knowledge within their two chosen AOKs. ‘Systematic organization of facts’ suggests quantitative knowledge; students must consider to what extent this is true, and then offer a counter-claim in which they discuss how much qualitative knowledge, and other forms of knowledge the particular AOKs consist of. Students should bear in mind that the title implies a process – ie, ‘organizing facts’, rather than a static type of knowledge – ie, ‘organized facts’; the two possible meanings could lead to different types of essays. A clear definition of ‘facts’ needs to be provided in the introduction, to give responses a firm footing.

c. What are the potential knowledge issues? To what extent can we build up a thorough understanding of the human/natural sciences by processing purely quantitative knowledge? To what extent does ethical knowledge involve the consideration of factual information? To what extent can we talk about ‘facts’ within the AOKs? Do facts provide us with knowledge?

d. What sort of real life situations can be drawn on? Real life situations can be taken easily from personal experiences related to the AOKs chosen, so students can think about the level of the understanding they have built up by dealing with systemized facts. Students will need to draw on real life situations that lead us to a consideration of the nature of ‘facts’, and the extent to which we can refer to ‘facts’ in the different AOKs – obviously, this depends on the AOKs chosen.

e. What are the difficulties and challenges of this question? Having said that, it depends on how students tackle this notion of ‘systemized facts’. If they do so in terms of ‘natural science consists of systemized facts’, they may have problems; if they do so in terms of ‘natural science consists of building up systemized facts’, they will be able to tackle the question more easily.

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