ToK Essay Titles May 2021 Prompt 3
ToKTutor • 21 September 2020
Christian Angelology
At Christmas, when you go carol singing and bellow out at the top of your voice, ‘Hark the herald angels sing…’, it would be no surprise if you gave no thought to the fact that there’s a complex classification of angels within Christian religious thought. You thought you were just having fun but the label ‘angels’ signals something deeper
at work…
The three ‘spheres’ of angels is itself subdivided into another three ‘Orders’ or ‘Choirs’. Hence, we end up with nine different kinds of angel, each with its own set of jobs and powers within a hierarchy, at head of which is God.
The idea is, of course, that humans need something to mediate God’s intentions and plans, so the ‘hierarchy of angels’ acts as a kind of ‘celestial media network’ to transmit messages from God to us. Labelling each sphere and choir, is a way of making the complex process of divine messaging more coherent and simplified. Each part can then be seen separately but also as part of a whole machinery of godly communication.
The overall effect of such labelling is quite a beautiful – symmetrical – organised pattern of knowledge which enhances, rather than constrains the believer’s understanding of how God works within the world of His creation. The subsequent narrative built around such labelling is a way of making sense of the often ‘mysterious ways’ in which God communicates His Will for each individual human soul within the context of the wider Plan He has for them. And the labelling has also been a source of inspiration for the Arts, Ethics and Human Sciences…
It seems that ‘labels’ or concepts, language as a whole, are intimately tied with our thought processes. Human minds need to find order within a natural or supernatural world of randomness. Not only this, but there’s also a need to arrange the world, social or divine, into a hierarchy in which the different levels involve different authority statuses and responsibility. In this sense, labels highlight, to some extent, how knowledge is power…
Thinking about the various challenges involved when experts transfer knowledge between contexts creates various challenges for the experts who and whether or not they underestimated these challenges. Does the analogy of growing tomatoes help understand the question?
‘Fresh’ has the connotations of ‘new’ or ‘innovative’. And when something new arrives into the world, it’s usually accompanied by change. Often it’s hard to measure the impact of change until time has passed and we can look back with the cool, detached eye of objectivity.
Human beings are at the centre of the knowledge universe. This is why in your TOK studies everyone explores the ‘Core Theme’. Figure 3 pictures ‘Me as a knower and thinker’. Anyone who pursues knowledge, whether an expert or not, will at some point have to reflect on the fact that there are various factors, both internal and external, which either promote or constrain their endeavours.
Do we truly need custodians of knowledge, those who safeguard and preserve our collective wisdom throughout time?
Let’s look at two alternative senses in which knowledge might be acquired within ‘bubbles’. One within the Natural Sciences. The other with the Arts. In the former, we explore the notion of scientific 'paradigms'. In the Arts, we look at the notion of 'storyverses' or fictional worlds into which we imaginatively immerse ourselves...
HS experts are supposed to be trained to communicate difficult knowledge about mental health conditions and yet our expectations sometimes ignore the fact that diagnosing and treating mental illnesses is a messy business and not always easy. New tech allows experts to create visualisations which in turn can be helpful in communicating the complexities of a case and potential treatments...
Artists are like magpies who copy from other artists. This form of ‘copying’ is the broad sense of the term ‘replicability’ in this Title. From one point of view, such ‘replication’ leads to the creation of original works of art which make us see the world anew. From another point of view entirely, such copying borderlines on artistic plagiarism, fraud or forgery...
Exploring how a song about apartheid turned into an anthem, voicing the strength of those who have been marginalised from society, sometimes in a violent way. To what extent does such exclusion actually help build resilience and self-knowledge? How far is it harmful?
There is a branch of knowledge, akin to pseudo-scientific knowledge like ‘flat Earth theory’, in which one can seem to have absolute certainty and full confidence, because the truth of that knowledge is somehow ‘guaranteed’ or ‘underwritten’ by a higher power. Faith-based knowledge.
Now, consider a clichéd example when we seem to have the utmost certainty and confidence in knowledge and they both seem to be moving in the same direction: 2 + 2 = 4. On the one hand, this is something you cannot doubt, isn’t it? You know this with 100% certainty.. You might actually be very confident about your knowledge...