International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge Essay
Prescribed Title:
1. "Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not"
(Pablo Picasso). Explore this distinction with reference to two areas of knowledge.
Personal code: hlt648
Session: May 2020
Word count: 1599
Prescribed Title number: 1
Declaration:
I declare that this work is my own work and is the final version. I have acknowledged each
use of the words or ideas of another person, whether written, oral or visual.
, The author's words captured in the quotation depict him as a visionary whose thinking does
not follow the general scheme. His factual interpretation and meaning entangled in those
sentences will remain undisclosed, nonetheless one may come to consider a uniform
comprehension, possible to be used in the further analysis.
The idea may be broken down to a few distinct concepts. The first sentence refers to
some of the Ways of Knowing (WOK) - the Sense Perception, as the observer perceives and
analyses 'what is' as a tangible object, or the Reason, as the observer takes into
consideration a theory or idea thought to be true and subsequently critically evaluates it. To
the contrary, in the second sentence the words 'what could be' refer to yet a different WOK -
Imagination, as the onlooker takes into account the ideas, usually abstract, which do not yet
exist outside their mind and assesses them. The questions posed - 'why' and 'why not',
adhere to different methods of acquiring and expanding knowledge, respectively by
questioning the existing concepts and by striving to derive new ones, which presumably
breeds varying outcomes.
The scope of this essay is focused on distinguishing between those two methods,
establishing their relation with a universal range of topics and appropriately appraising their
usefulness in the process of producing new knowledge of diverse nature.
One of the areas of human knowledge where asking questions has always been of
utmost importance is the Religious Knowledge Systems. The greatest thinkers, philosophers,
but also ordinary people have been consistently concerned with the fundamental inquiries
regarding human existence, including the meaning of life, purpose of our being, and
presence of some higher entity, boundless and infinite, called the Absolute.
In Christianity the core dogmas had hardly ever been challenged amongst the
believers for several centuries, until the philosophy of Scholasticism gained popularity in the
Prescribed Title:
1. "Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not"
(Pablo Picasso). Explore this distinction with reference to two areas of knowledge.
Personal code: hlt648
Session: May 2020
Word count: 1599
Prescribed Title number: 1
Declaration:
I declare that this work is my own work and is the final version. I have acknowledged each
use of the words or ideas of another person, whether written, oral or visual.
, The author's words captured in the quotation depict him as a visionary whose thinking does
not follow the general scheme. His factual interpretation and meaning entangled in those
sentences will remain undisclosed, nonetheless one may come to consider a uniform
comprehension, possible to be used in the further analysis.
The idea may be broken down to a few distinct concepts. The first sentence refers to
some of the Ways of Knowing (WOK) - the Sense Perception, as the observer perceives and
analyses 'what is' as a tangible object, or the Reason, as the observer takes into
consideration a theory or idea thought to be true and subsequently critically evaluates it. To
the contrary, in the second sentence the words 'what could be' refer to yet a different WOK -
Imagination, as the onlooker takes into account the ideas, usually abstract, which do not yet
exist outside their mind and assesses them. The questions posed - 'why' and 'why not',
adhere to different methods of acquiring and expanding knowledge, respectively by
questioning the existing concepts and by striving to derive new ones, which presumably
breeds varying outcomes.
The scope of this essay is focused on distinguishing between those two methods,
establishing their relation with a universal range of topics and appropriately appraising their
usefulness in the process of producing new knowledge of diverse nature.
One of the areas of human knowledge where asking questions has always been of
utmost importance is the Religious Knowledge Systems. The greatest thinkers, philosophers,
but also ordinary people have been consistently concerned with the fundamental inquiries
regarding human existence, including the meaning of life, purpose of our being, and
presence of some higher entity, boundless and infinite, called the Absolute.
In Christianity the core dogmas had hardly ever been challenged amongst the
believers for several centuries, until the philosophy of Scholasticism gained popularity in the
