Essay+Topics

1. To what extent is truth different in mathematics, the arts and ethics? 2. Examine the ways empirical evidence should be used to make progress in different areas of knowledge. 3. Discuss the strengths and limitations of quantitative and qualitative data in supporting knowledge claims in the human sciences and at least one other area of knowledge. 4. How can the different ways of knowing help us to distinguish between something that is true and something that is believed to be true? 5. “What separates science from all other human activities is its belief in the provisional nature of all conclusions” (Michael Shermer, www.edge.com). Critically evaluate this way of distinguishing the sciences from other areas of knowledge. 6. All knowledge claims should be open to rational criticism. On what grounds and to what extent would you agree with this assertion? 7. “We see and understand things not as they are but as we are.” Discuss this claim in relation to at least two ways of knowing. 8. “People need to believe that order can be glimpsed in the chaos of events" (adapted from John Gray, Heresies, 2004). In what ways and to what extent would you say this claim is relevant in at least two areas of knowledge? 9. Discuss the claim that some areas of knowledge are discovered and others are invented. 10. What similarities and differences are there between historical and scientific explanations?
 * TOK Essay Titles November 2009-May 2010**

IB TOK Essay Questions for November 2008/May 2009
1. Science is built of facts the way a house is built of bricks: but an accumulation of facts is no more science than a pile of bricks is a house" (Henri Poincaré). Discuss in relation to science and at least one other area of knowledge. 2. When should we trust our senses to give us truth? 3. Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of reason as a way of knowing. 4. "Seek simplicity, and distrust it" (Alfred North Whitehead). Is this always good advice for a knower? 5. "In expanding the field of knowledge we but increase the horizon of ignorance" (Henry Miller). Is this true? 6. Compare and contrast our approach to knowledge about the past with our approach to knowledge about the future. 7. "Moral wisdom seems to be as little connected to knowledge of ethical theory as playing good tennis is to knowledge of physics" (Emrys Westacott). To what extent should our actions be guided by our theories in ethics and elsewhere? 8. To understand something you need to rely on your own experience and culture. Does this mean that it is impossible to have objective knowledge? 9. "The knowledge that we value the most is the knowledge for which we can provide the strongest justifications." To what extent would you agree with this claim? 10. "There can be no knowledge without emotion....until we have felt the force of the knowledge, it is not ours" (adapted from Arnold Bennett). Discuss this vision of the relationship between knowledge and emotion.