The Theory of Knowledge course requires you to study the core theme and any two out of the five optional themes in ToK.
Key Takeaways
- The optional themes in Theory of Knowledge are knowledge and politics, knowledge and religion, knowledge and technology, knowledge and indigenous societies, and knowledge and language.
- Your teacher may choose the theme they want you to explore, or they may leave it to you to decide what you will explore.
5 Optional Themes in TOK Explained
You’ll first work on knowledge and the knower (core theme) to evaluate your own view on knowledge, what it means to you, and your thoughts on knowledge.
Then, you'll follow this by working on two of any of the following optional themes:
1. Knowledge and Politics
There exists a relationship between knowledge and politics because knowledge brings power that shapes what we view as knowledge.
Political debates and election campaigns demonstrate how politicians and dominant groups deal with knowledge and facts.
Notably, mainstream media continues to use technology to air claims made by dominant group and politicians. Through careful analysis of political claims, we discover how skilled politicians manipulate facts to win people’s thoughts – but that doesn’t mean acts aren’t significant in politics.
Since knowledge requires credibility and responsibility, we must reflect on:
- The distinction between what is true and what is a lie
- The difference between facts and fiction
- Who possess and represents knowledge
- The circumstances under which we should trust expert opinion
Analyzing knowledge and politics as an optional theme in ToK will give you a unique and reasonable view on the current issues.
In particular, the theme promotes independent critical thinking on key concepts such as law, race, gender, value, society, and power.
Furthermore, understanding the political nature of knowledge can have a significant impact on an ethical perspective.
If we develop an understanding of the dominant groups by looking at real life situation examples, we can’t accept unethical political claims. Therefore, there is a strong relationship between ethics, knowledge, and politics.
2. Knowledge and Technology
The enhancement in technology has changed the way human beings access information.
Back in the day, we had to go to the local libraries to search historical journals for credible information.
Nowadays, it takes just a second to access the same information from Bing, Google, Yahoo, and Yandex.
Anyone with access to a computer and internet can share knowledge only. Unfortunately, free access to a wealth of information is equally overwhelming.
- How can you identify what information is accurate and what’s not?
- Is there a way to tell between structured but unsupported claims and well-founded knowledge?
Ideally, technology can as easily encumber our search for knowledge owing to the lack of restrictions to who can express and propagate knowledge.
In this respect, you’re likely to come across unreliable sources of information and claims without evidence.
Furthermore, humans hardly assess these claims for authenticity and clarity when they come across them, making it somewhat difficult and, at times, nearly impossible to determine what true knowledge is.
To be abundantly clear, the point of learning about knowledge and technology as an optional theme in Theory of Knowledge is to keep yourself from easy manipulation by what you come across on the web.
You must never accept anything you read, watch, or hear on the internet (online) at face value.
As far as knowledge and technology is concerned, you must refrain from selecting what you want to be your most conventional truth.
Instead, analyze yourself as a knower by examining how you deal with the information you get online and how you would share that knowledge.
Knowledge and technology as optional theme in Theory of Knowledge should equally help you to examine the justification of knowledge and the validity of the knowledge claims.
3. Knowledge and Indigenous Societies
In this optional theme in Theory of Knowledge, we look at how a community of knowers shape what we claim to know and accept as knowledge.
Even today, in an age where the western form of education focuses heavily on math, scientific methods, and reason, there exists indigenous societies that have a different point of view on what constitutes knowledge.
By learning about knowledge and indigenous societies in the Theory of Knowledge, you may come across unique themes of language and thoughts so much easily than you would through cognitive imperialism or globalization.
4. Knowledge and Religion
Since time immemorial, religion remains a source of knowledge for many communities and people.
Besides explaining our existence, religion stands out as the system of belief that gives us the guidance on how to live. Furthermore, it unveils what drives human behavior and it provides a sound explanation about the world.
Several arguments surround religion as a system of faith. The most common debate is the belief that religion offer human beings answers to every question. In this respect, religion should be the only knowledge map that humanity should possess.
In reality, though, the relationship between knowledge offered by a belief system and a believer is not only varied but also incredibly complex. In fact, the extent to which you accept the knowledge offers by a religious system depends on your perspective.
Equally, it depends on whether you’re willing to accept knowledge proposed by religion.
If one thing is for sure, it’s that religion offers a great wealth of knowledge worth exploring in this optional theme in ToK.
From it, we can understand how religion offers us knowledge and the extent to which it can do so.
5. Knowledge and Language
Knowledge and language as an optional theme in Theory of Knowledge explores the relationship between language and thoughts, power and language, and the effect of human language in relation to what we claim to know we know.
You will need to examine knowledge questions related to tools, scopes, perspectives, and methods and, at the same time, make a connection between the core theme, knowledge and the knower, and this optional theme.