Potential+Arguments+to+Explore+in+Title+4

Back to Title 4

__Arguments and Examples to Consider __

Arguments for this question are going to vary depending on how you view the key terms and assumptions in the title and the knowledge issue(s) you choose to explore. Below are a couple of ideas you could consider:

Here are some examples of shared knowledge influencing personal knowledge.
 * Within the question you can examine how shared knowledge influences personal knowledge and visa versa; how personal knowledge influences shared knowledge.**
 * **Art:** Exposure to current artistic trends might influence the thinking and imagination of an individual artist (or musician or novelist).
 * **Natural Sciences:** Immersion in the biological sciences and medicine might enable one to understand better one's own medical conditions.
 * **Human Sciences:** Access to the fundamentals of psychology might allow an individual to develop a deeper understanding of his/her own states of mind. To what extent are we influenced by the beliefs of others? (Conformity studies in Psychology)
 * **Ethics:** A course in ethics or moral theory might allow a student better insight into his/her own ethical and moral outlook. How does the ethical codes of the different knowledge communities we belong to influence our own moral decisions? (i.e. religion, professional associations- Hippocratic oath, your school, your culture, the laws of China/your home country)
 * **History:** Reading a history of one’s own nation might give a deeper understanding of one’s own past.

Here are some examples of how personal knowledge can contribute to shared knowledge.
 * **Natural Sciences:** Individual research can contribute to advances in the natural sciences. Paul Dirac’s personal insight led to his discovery of the equation for the electron. The form of the equation suggested the existence of a particle that was the counterpart of the electron bearing a positive charge. But Dirac’s work had to be validated by the established procedures in theoretical physics first before it was accepted as knowledge by the scientific community.
 * **Arts:** Individual artists can contribute to the development of a genre. Steve Reich’s accidental discovery of the effect of two recordings of a violin going out of phase with each other led him to use this technique in his creation of minimal music. This technique is now widely used in many different musical genres.
 * **Human Sciences:** Adam Smith’s perceptive realization that the market was a mechanism that, under certain conditions, could transform the self-interest of producers and consumers into a socially optimal allocator of scarce resources became a standard method of analysis in classical economics. His insight may have been intuitive and triggered by his own highly individual style of thinking, but it passed the test of peer scrutiny and is now economic orthodoxy.

Questions and Counterclaims to be explored: 1. From an individual point of view, shared knowledge is considered to be a form of authority. **Why and what are the implications of this..role of authority/authority worship.**

2. What influences and shapes personal knowledge. A knower can belong to a particular group that possess a particular perspective:


 * family groups
 * religious groups
 * groups associated with particular academic fields, such as mathematicians
 * groups associated with particular views within an academic field, such as neo-classical economists
 * groups sharing a particular culture
 * groups sharing particular artistic knowledge, such as sculptors
 * groups sharing particular interests, such as fishing
 * political groups
 * national groups
 * ethnic groups.

The membership of a particular group is likely to provide a particular perspective on the world that could be quite different to other groups.Therefore how do we know that the shared viewpoint is producing reliable, valid knowledge? Thus leading to questions regarding the role of relativism and universal acceptance of shared knowledge in different AoK.

3. Is there any personal knowledge that cannot be shared?

This might be because it is not so easily put into words as this type of knowledge depends crucially on the experiences of the individual whereas shared knowledge does not.

Examples of personal knowledge include:


 * knowledge I gain through practice and habituation, such as the ability to play football, ski, play the piano, dance, paint portraits and so on
 * knowledge of my own personal biography through my memory
 * knowledge of my feelings and emotions
 * knowledge of the world around me gained through my senses
 * unique knowledge that I have constructed as a result of a detailed exploration into an aspect of an existing AOK.

Each type of knowledge identified above is personal and is usually not communicated (and if it is, it is not accepted by the community) and so remains in the realm of personal knowledge, not shared knowledge.

4. What about the role of paradigm shifts and the impact this can have on personal knowledge. It is suggested that shared knowledge is not static. As our methods of inquiry change and develop, so the knowledge they produce changes. These changes might be gradual, but there are occasions when they might be sudden shifts in thinking...what impact does this have on the relationship between shared and personal knowledge?

__Development Activities__ 1. Explore the potential arguments using the TOK Essay Planner. Can you create a position statement on your selected Knowledge Question?

2. Research 3-4 examples in each of the AOKs and attempt to articulate in 1-2 sentences how this example demonstrates your knowledge issue at work. Create a priority example list.

3. Attempt to add three examples to each AOK that you have experienced or are interested in further exploring.