Just a few caveats before I look at the essay titles from a “history perspective”. I was a TOK teacher for a good few years, leading teams in three different schools. So, I know a little about TOK: I carry the scars!
What I offer here are my immediate thoughts on the six essay titles, thinking about how history might be used as an AOK. I intend to inspire your own thoughts on the matter not to suggest an essay structure.
I don’t go into Knowledge Questions (though a few might slip in). To do so would destroy both my integrity and the integrity of your essay, and I won’t do that. If, however, you want to sign up for a tutorial to talk through your ideas, I would be happy to work with you. Same goes for TOK presentations if you haven’t already done them (or your history coursework for that matter). Its useful to throw ideas back and forth but I will make sure that the integrity of your work is kept intact.
So, for what they’re worth, my thoughts:
“Accepting knowledge claims always involves an element of trust.” Discuss this claim with reference to two areas of knowledge.
History will make for a useful contrast with maths or the sciences.
As far as History is concerned, trust is essential, but with some qualifications. Historians study the past. We were not there, usually neither were the historians that we read. What is more, History is always an interpretation of the past, it may deal in facts but it also deals with different viewpoints and downright uncertainties. It has to reach judgments, for example, on what made individuals or groups act in a certain way (or, indeed, not act). Or it seeks to explain the effects of an event deciding on which factors to place an emphasis. There are, therefore, value judgments to be made: “this” factor is more important than “that one”. So, we put our “trust” in historians. Why should we do that?
What is it we place trust in as students? We place our trust in the research undertaken by those historians who lead in different fields of study: the economic historian, the historian whose particular interests are imperialism, feminism, the Russian Revolution, WW2, the Cold War, or any of the other thousands of different areas of ‘particular interest’ We have to trust that they have been able to put aside their own beliefs and ideologies and reach a considered judgment.
Historians, as well as students, of course also ask ourselves how far we should trust a particular source (good old Paper 1!). Some, we consider more reliable than others. Why is this so? And what does it say about historical knowledge?
And though the focus is on trust, having explored trust, there is nothing wrong in a paragraph that also explains the need for a healthy measure of scepticism.
Within areas of knowledge, how can we differentiate between change and progress? Answer with reference to two areas of knowledge.
History is always looking at change (as well as continuity). But whether change is the same as progress is another matter altogether.
You really should make use of ‘Whig History’ an approach to history that though it is much derided is still, nevertheless, frequently adopted. ‘Whig History’ sees a path through history of continual progress, even if it goes through some bumps and makes some wrong turns. A ‘Whig’ approach will point to increased prosperity, science as constantly benefiting mankind, greater enlightenment, greater personal freedom, and greater democracy. If you have not come across it, check it out.
Of course, ideological beliefs will impact on whether progress is identified or not. Whether you are a conservative, a liberal, socialist, communist or anarchist, will colour the way you view change. Class might too, as might gender and ethnicity. Your religious beliefs will also impact on your judgement.
So how does the historian differentiate? Should the historian even try to do so?
Did Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, Mao or Castro (amongst many others) bring about progress as well as change? Did the Russian Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, the Cuban Revolution, the Vietnam War (or any other revolutions or wars you may have studied) bring about progress?
Change often leads to progress but also much suffering. Consider the impact of the industrial revolution as well as political revolutions. Even if there was progress, was the manner in which it was achieved worth the price?
These are some of the things we look at in history. As a TOK student, you also have to consider how we reach such judgments and whether they can be relied upon.
“Labels are a necessity in the organization of knowledge, but they also constrain our understanding.” Discuss this statement with reference to two areas of knowledge.
History is full of “labels”, and you will have to select those which interest you the most and enable you to get as much TOK mileage out of them as possible. I will give you a couple of examples but, in doing so, they only represent my interests in looking at them; you might well take a very different, but just as valid and maybe even more useful, path. There are thousands of others for you to consider. Just take your pick! The first question you should ask, though, is what purpose labels serve in history.
As far as organising our knowledge is concerned, we have themes such as economic, social or political history; or periods such as the Renaissance, Modern History, Weimar Germany or the Cold War; and we have events such as WW1 and WW2 or the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution.
As for putting a constraint on our knowledge, what interests me is the meaning we attach to our “labels”. Take democracy as an example. In the West, we have a very well-defined view of democracy based on competitive elections in which everyone has the vote. But does it produce representative government or government of, and for, the wealthy? Can a one-party state, whether communist, corporate or Islamic, as examples, be more representative? Remember, it’s good to be controversial in TOK, so long as the controversy is well-grounded. Does what the label represents to us direct constrain our judgment?
The way we individually label things is important in how we interpret history. Is revolution necessarily a bad thing? Is communism necessarily bad? Is capitalism necessarily good? We have to challenge our own perceptions on how we view these labels. Where did they come from? How did they come to help us see the world in a particular way? Are they themselves justified? How we label individuals is an issue too: was President Kennedy necessarily more trustworthy than President Brezhnev, for example?
“Statistics conceal as much as they reveal.” Discuss this claim with reference to two areas of knowledge.
Statistics themselves don’t ever give us the complete picture, they never tell us the whole story. But “concealing” suggests a deliberate act of hiding, whereas “revealing” suggests a more helpful purpose. But we must begin with a key question when looking at statistics: What is (or was for historians) their purpose? A question that should almost be automatic for historians when looking at any historical source!
When looking for examples, it is relatively easy to go to data emanating from one-party states and argue that they concealed more than they revealed. But I would strongly urge you to also use data coming from democracies. They also try to hide bad news and direct people to more positive interpretations. In one-party states we tend to call it propaganda; in democracies we call it government “spin”. But it’s much the same thing!
As for what statistics reveal, various economic data can show us that an economy is backward, advanced or modernising; retracting or booming. And that is important, but there are limits to what it tells us: it doesn’t tell us why. It doesn’t tell us about a government initiative or the role played by entrepreneurs. Data on wage rates is of limited use without data on the cost of living. Unemployment goes up, goes down. OK but do unemployment statistics on their own tell us why? We have to put them together with other data or different evidence and make a judgment. A rally was attended by 100,000 people, maybe a million people; but were they put under pressure to attend? Historians have to look beyond the data itself.
And on the subject of economic data, I always think of Eric Hobsbawm’s point that unemployment, though an economic statistic, is a human experience. Think about that for a moment. What lives behind statistics is human life. So, for a statistic to be really useful the historian has to bring the two together (a chance for TOK students to contrast reason with emotion as Ways of Knowing perhaps).
Some questions to ask ourselves besides, ‘What are they not telling us?’:
Who compiled the statistics, and why?
How was the data compiled? There is a whole range of questions attached to this.
How is the historian, economist, sociologist using them?
Is there contradictory data?
Is there anything significant about the start and end dates?
The date at which social data was compiled may also be important.
If the data is a reflection of public opinion, what do we know about how the data was compiled?
There is also the matter of what data the historian chooses to present her, or his, interpretation of history. Perhaps different data would tell a different story.
A final comment for this question, and here I’m speaking as a TOK teacher rather than a historian, avoid like the plague, the “damned lies and statistics” quote. Unless, of course, you have something really original to say about it. Thousands will be using it, and very few to good effect.
“Areas of knowledge are most useful in combination with each other.” Discuss this claim with reference to two areas of knowledge.
This is made for historians! For history demands that we use other Areas of Knowledge and that we have a sound understanding of them too: economics, sociology and politics are just the more obvious examples.
How can you explain the Wall Street Crash, for example, without a sound understanding of how capitalism worked in 1920s America? How can you even begin to study the impact of a policy on society without knowing how societies are made up, for example by class, gender, ethnicity or age? How can you understand the two sides of the civil wars in Russia, Spain, China or countless other places without understanding the opposing ideologies? How can you understand the concept of the cult of personality without a little understanding of its psychology? And so on, and so on.
And whilst a combination of areas of knowledge help us to understand history better, history returns the favour by helping us understand today’s events better. Conflict today usually has its routes in history. Take the Black Lives Matter movement as a social example. Or colonial histories as at least a part-explanation for so many of the world’s trouble spots today. A study of fascism might help us value democracy. Studies of wars might help us value peace more. And so on, and so on.
“Avoiding bias seems a commendable goal, but this fails to recognise the positive role that bias can play in the pursuit of knowledge.” Discuss this statement with reference to two areas of knowledge.
Historians should, of course, strive for objectivity in their attempts to explain the past. But biased evidence is often a good thing. If I want to really understand Nazi Germany, can I avoid, should I avoid, reading Hitler’s speeches or Goebbels diaries? Even if I should “fact check” as we say today, any claims that are made. I also need to understand why its supporters were attracted to it (think about bias and emotion as a WOK). To take another example, to understand why Germans were so unhappy with the Treaty of Versailles I need to know what they were being told before, during and immediately after WW1. Though as an historian, I also need to understand the justifications the authors of the treaty gave.
Bias in the form of propaganda also helps historians understand how authoritarian regimes were able to maintain power. Of course, other factors came into play, repression and the whole paraphernalia of the police state, even popular policies, but our understanding will be incomplete without looking at propaganda too.
Historians can, of course, also have their own bias. They may be Marxists and so have a bias towards Marxist explanations, or else determinists of another ilk. They may be feminists, Whig historians, they may think that history is created by individuals, the ‘Great Men’ approach. There are a good number of other different ways of approaching history too. And it gets more basic than this. For the historian selects the evidence she chooses and the way in which they are interpreted, and decides on the hierarchy of factors. For the sake of your history as well as for TOK purposes, you might also want to think about the way historians use language (a Way of Knowing, of course) to get their point across. So, lots to make use of with history and bias!
Good Luck with your essays! I hope this was useful for you.