Areas of Knowledge & Ways of Knowing // Personal & Shared Knowledge


In the past few classes, we have been thought lots of new content on the TOK subject. TOK stands for Theory Of Knowledge and makes you question everything in life. It is an overwhelming, confusing yet fun topic to learn about.

TOK Class #1
There are many ways of knowing, which all combine as The Areas Of Knowledge. The 7 ways of knowing should help us answer whether or not what we know is certain. What do we know? And how exactly do we know this is true? The 7 areas of knowing are reason, language, perception, memory, emotion, imagination, and faith. These factors are all connected to the different Areas Of Knowledge, which are: Mathematics, Natural Sciences, Ethics, The Arts, Human Sciences, and History. This leads to the question ''How do we influence knowledge?'' Part of our knowledge is based on who we are, meaning our mind and bodies. However, knowledge and the way of gaining it will continue to change over time, as we evolve over time. As for now, we learn things through academics, teachers, students, and experiences. As we grow to be independent, we will start to learn things through our own eyes rather than through others. Overall, these are the basics of the concept of TOK and will help us understand content of following classes.

TOK Class #2
Personal and Shared Knowledge was the main focus point of today's class. We also talked about how culture and time relate. Personal knowledge is mostly based on knowledge we have gained due to our own experiences, whereas shared knowledge is information available for everyone. They are different but can mixed with one another. Examples of personal knowledge are faith, ethnicity, and illnesses. Shared knowledge is more like politics, laws, and common sense. Both of them combined can be in ways such as religious groups in which your faith, even though it is shared, can be personal to you. The second part of the lesson was spent on time and culture. Time, in human culture, is an important factor that we must keep track of in order to see when and how we can do things. How quick people walk can possibly relate to their height or habits. Time is an abstract concept that we have developed ourselves in order to organise every day life.





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