List of TOK questions

1. What counts as knowledge?

2. Are some types of knowledge more useful than others?
3. What features of knowledge have an impact on its reliability?
4. On what grounds might we doubt a claim?
5. What counts as good evidence for a claim?
6. How does the way that we organize or classify knowledge affect what we
know?
7. What are the implications of having, or not having, knowledge?
8. To what extent is certainty attainable?
9. Are some types of knowledge less open to interpretation than others?
10. What challenges are raised by the dissemination and/or communication of
knowledge?
11. Can new knowledge change established values or beliefs?
12. Is bias inevitable in the production of knowledge?
13. How can we know that current knowledge is an improvement upon past
knowledge?
14. Does some knowledge belong only to particular communities of knowers?
15. What constraints are there on the pursuit of knowledge?
16. Should some knowledge not be sought on ethical grounds?
17. Why do we seek knowledge?
18. Are some things unknowable?
19. What counts as a good justification for a claim?
20. What is the relationship between personal experience and knowledge?
21. What is the relationship between knowledge and culture?
22. What role do experts play in influencing our consumption or acquisition of
knowledge?
23. How important are material tools in the production or acquisition of
knowledge?
24. How might the context in which knowledge is presented influence whether it is
accepted or rejected?
25. How can we distinguish between knowledge, belief and opinion?
26. Does our knowledge depend on our interactions with other knowers?
27. Does all knowledge impose ethical obligations on those who know it?
28. To what extent is objectivity possible in the production or acquisition of
knowledge?
29. Who owns knowledge?
30. What role does imagination play in producing knowledge about the world?
31. How can we judge when evidence is adequate?
32. What makes a good explanation?
33. How is current knowledge shaped by its historical development?
34. In what ways do our values affect our acquisition of knowledge?
35. In what ways do values affect the production of knowledge?
36. How does language shape knowledge?
37. Is there sometimes an uneasy fit between mathematical models and the real
world?
38. Is mathematics invented or discovered?
39. Given the abstract nature of mathematics, how is it that it is so effective in
describing the natural world?
40. What is the value of mathematics for other areas of knowledge?
41. What is it about the methods of mathematics that guarantees that its results
are absolutely certain?
42. What constitutes a fact in history as an area of knowledge?
43. Is the value of historical knowledge determined by its possible application to
the present and future?
44. On what basis do historians select evidence?
45. How do historians determine the significance of historical events?
46. Is it possible for historical writing to be free from perspective?
47. What distinguishes a better historical account from a worse one? How can
historical accounts be assessed?
48. What is the role of language in history as an area of knowledge?
49. What knowledge is gained through the arts? What are the applications of the
knowledge produced within the arts?
50. How is knowledge produced within the arts?
51. To what extent are the methods of the human sciences “scientific”?
52. How can we judge whether one model is better than another?
53. How can we establish laws in the human sciences, given that humans have
free will and human behaviour is, therefore, less easy to predict?
54. To what extent can we speak of laws in the human sciences when we allow
for exceptions?
55. How can one eliminate the effect of the observer being part of the system in
the human sciences?
56. What constitutes good evidence in the human sciences?
57. How does one know in advance which factors (to measure, say) will be
relevant to the final explanation?
58. How can one decide when one model/explanation/theory is better than
another?
59. How can we build understanding about the world independent of the human
act of measuring it?
60. How can it be that scientific knowledge changes over time?
61. How can we know cause and effect relationships given that one can only ever
observe correlation?
62. What are the methods or procedures used in this area and what is it about
these methods that generates knowledge?
63. What are the assumptions underlying these methods?
64. What counts as a fact in this area of knowledge?
65. What role do models play in this area of knowledge?
66. What are the characteristics of a good theory?
67. What ethical considerations constrain the methods used to gain knowledge?
68. How do theories influence our observations?
69. Do the results always justify the means by which they were reached?
70. What is it about the method of an area of knowledge that allows it to make
predictions?
71. Do all areas of knowledge rely on evidence?
72. If a model is unable to provide predictions, can it still be useful?
73. To what extent do the concepts that we use shape the conclusions that we
reach?