IB TOK Guide

What is TOK? (Part II)

Part II: Unofficial but Logical Definition

Introduction
Okay, now that you know what TOK means for your IB grade, I'm gonna delve into what is TOK in terms of the subject itself, and why (I think) it exists. You've probably heard that TOK is 'bullshit' or that 'it's a watered down version of philosophy', both of which aren't wrong, but aren't precise enough to tell you why TOK is a part of the IB Diploma.

If you've had the (mis)fortune of studying the PYP (Primary Years Programme) or MYP (Middle Years Programme) offered by the IBO (IB Organization) then you've probably heard of the Learner Profile.
(For those of you who don't know what the Learner Profile is, it's a list of attributes that each IB student is supposed to have: IB students are supposed to be 'caring', 'open-minded', 'communicators', 'balanced' and 8 more other attributes which you really don't need to care about.)

I'm sure most of you know that behind the façade of 'curiosity and learning for fun', education is a business. And the IB's way of promoting their business, is to tell the world that they are cultivating 'balanced', 'caring' individuals to fulfill this ideal learner profile, hence making it the better education curriculum compared to e.g. A levels or AP programmes. In order to fulfill this philosophy of nurturing a well-rounded student and fulfilling all these personality attributes of being 'balanced' etc., the IB tries to demonstrate that through TOK, which is why TOK exists.

So, how does TOK work?
TOK is the IB's sickeningly-pretentious way of showing off to the rest of the world that they have 'balanced', 'curious' students who are aware of international and local news.

TOK involves using TOK terms/jargon (which I'll get to in the next chapter) to explain how we know what we know about different topics e.g. news, basic ideas.
TOK which stands for Theory of Knowledge, looks at the 'theory' of knowledge.

Not the content of the knowledge itself,
but HOW we gain the knowledge that we know (hence, theory of knowledge).

I know that that might not make sense to you, so I think that it's easier to understand what TOK comparing it to a language.
The IB wants to demonstrate that it has intelligent students with 'critical thinking skills', but anyone in the world, can write an essay analysing e.g. the historical accuracy of films and discuss it well, to demonstrate their 'critical thinking skills'.

Hence, in order for the IB to recognize that their students haven't just copied off analyses of certain topics from articles and websites, what the IB has done is that they've designed a language unique to the IB, in the form of TOK.

So, for example instead of analysing a topic e.g. the Death Penalty and explaining the pros and cons of the Death Penalty* (which is the 'knowledge') like any normal essay, the IB wants you to explain how you know the arguments (knowledge) for the pros and cons for the death penalty. So you'll explain that e.g. I know through the way of knowing of intuition that the death penalty is wrong because bla bla bla.

*(btw I'm using the death penalty for simplicity in this explanation, DO NOT use the death penalty in your real TOK assessments; it has been so overused you might as well be sending a signal to the IB to give you a low grade).

The ultimate aim behind TOK is to give an explanation of how knowledge (information of a topic you've chosen) is obtained. The IB wants to see that you can use their terribly convoluted TOK jargon which you can't copy off elsewhere because it doesn't exist anywhere other than in the world of TOK in the world of the IB, to answer the main question: How can we know what we know? And by answering this question, you will explain the ways knowledge is gained, derived, hence explain the theory of knowledge, but not the content of the knowledge itself.

That my friend, is what TOK is.

Summary:

TOK is the IBO's way of demonstrating that 'wowow we have the best, most intelligent students'.
The IBO wants to show off the fact that they have both intelligent and 'current-affair-aware' students and in order to test whether they have critical thinking skills, and alas the subject TOK was born.

TOK is a language that requires you to explain not the content of particular topics, but how the content (knowledge) of different topics was obtained. You need to explain how can we know what we know?
To do this, you use a variety of TOK jargon which will be explained in the following chapters.