TOK essay example D: Student work

"The production of knowledge is always a

collaborative task and never solely a product of the

individual"

Discuss with reference to two areas of knowledge

Word Count: 1411

Theory of knowledge teacher support material 1

Dame Athene Donald said, "In science a genius never works alone,"1

suggesting that different perspectives and insights within these perspectives

need to be brought together to create knowledge. To discuss the statement

above it should first be interpreted: The production of knowledge can be

considered to be creating a new approach or understanding to the world. It is

also important to consider what is meant by collaborative and individual, as

this will influence our understanding of the statement. There can be more than

one definition. In this essay collaborative will be considered to mean working

along side or with at least one other person and individual will be considered

to mean working alone. These definitions set limits to the question. Other

limits to the question include the use of always and never which are specific

and suggest an absolute approach, which is hard to create in the real world.

In accordance with the statement in the area of knowledge of the natural

sciences the vast majority of discoveries and production of knowledge come

from collaborative work amongst scientist sometimes of different disciplines in

order to share their knowledge . For example the discovery of DNA where a

single scientist did not discover it but a group including most notably Watson,

Crick, Franklin and Wilkins.2 Even before they were involved other scientists

had already made headways into what DNA was, therefore they used

previous shared knowledge as a foundation and inductive reasoning to build

the understanding of the shape of DNA. Use of this shared knowledge was

1Athene Donald, The Guadian, 2013,

University Press, 2014) 109, 110

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 TOK essay example D: Student work

extremely important; without it they would not have been able to make their

discovery. Collaboration was vital to the success in this instance of the

production of knowledge.

Another example that proves just how important collaboration is for producing

knowledge in the area of knowledge of the natural sciences is the Golden Foil

Experiment that led to the discovery of the structure of the atom. 3 This

production of knowledge was down to a team of scientist not one individual, it

was a collaboration between Geiger and Marson who carried out the

experiments and Rutherford who orchestrated it. Rutherford shared his

knowledge to get the help of Geiger and Marson and together they used their

intuition and inductive reasoning to continue repeating the experiment until

they together fully understood what was occurring. They also had to use each

of their unique sense perception when observing the experiment. This

experiment shows us that at least three people were required to produce the

knowledge we have today of the structure of the atom. Overall in the area of

the natural sciences it appears that the production of knowledge does require

collaboration.

A counter claim to this in the natural sciences could be that there is an

element of the production of knowledge that is down to the work of an

individual. This can be seen in the discovery and production of penicillin.

There is a general misconception that Penicillin's success was solely down to

3Steve Woolley, Edexcel Interational GCSE Physics, (Harlow, Pearson Education

Theory of knowledge teacher support material 3

Fleming.4 To a certain extent this is correct as he discovered this by himself

by intuition working alone, as an individual. So the first step was taken by an

individual however he later shared his knowledge with Florey and Chain who

then worked out how to produce and use penicillin. Through Florey and

Chain's inductive reasoning from looking at the issues in past experiments

they were able to make penicillin useful in hospital and particularly in the war.

Therefore the production of penicillin was actually a collaborative effort

however it all stemmed from the work of an individual and the knowledge he

produced. However penicillin would not have been so useful had he not

shared his knowledge to be developed by a team. This challenges the

statement as it can be seen that the production of knowledge can stem from

the work of an individual but later collaboration will further the production of

knowledge and so it cannot be said that it is "always" collaborative and

"never" individual as it can be a mix.

A counter claim to the initial statement is that it can be suggested that

knowledge does not have to be produced collaboratively but can be produced

on an individual basis. This is can be seen in the area of knowledge of the

arts. Creating fictional stories can be considered the production of knowledge

by an individual for example the Harry Potter series by J.K Rowling. These

stories are created using her own imagination and the way in which she uses

language and different literary techniques in order to produce a new imaginary

world. These books are cleverly created using not only the area of knowledge

of the arts but also incorporating historical information with mythological and

4Andrew Allcot, David Mindorff, IB Biology Course Companion, (Oxford, Oxford

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religious references and different languages such as Latin in order to give the

books more depth and meaning. This example shows us that an individual can

produce knowledge using only their knowledge without any direct

collaboration from others. An artistic painting can be considered knowledge as

they often have hidden meanings and these are often done alone without the

help of others for example van Gogh's paintings or the progression of

Picasso's paintings. Artists generally work alone using their personal

knowledge to create their own knowledge/art using imagination to create

pieces of art that are all different, through their unique interpretation of

experiences. Their interpretation not only includes the use of imagination to

create it but also their emotion and memory of events this means that their

interpretation is entirely individualistic without direct help of anyone else.

Within the area of knowledge of the arts there is music and within this there

are composers. Composers generally work alone to create a piece of music

such as Beethoven and the piece Fur Elise. These sorts of pieces are created

using imagination and emotion to produce their own music. This makes the

pieces personal and unique as the knowledge is personal to the composer.

Showing that an individual without the help of others can produce knowledge.

A further counter claim would be that knowledge can often begin with an

individual's ideas but then this knowledge is furthered through the help of

others. This counter claim can be seen through the importance of shared

knowledge within the area of knowledge of the arts. This can be seen in the

domain of music within the area of knowledge of the arts, through the

example of songwriters. Most songwriters will create the lyrics to a song alone

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 TOK essay example D: Student work

using their imagination and often their emotion. Although some songwriters

will work alone they often share their knowledge and work in collaboration

with a singer in order to produce their music/knowledge. Therefore to start off

with their knowledge is personal using their emotion, imagination and

language to create lyrics often with layers of meaning. Then it is shared with a

singer in order to strengthen the meaning of the song. There is an aspect to

this where the knowledge is created by an individual but then shared in order

to improve the meaning of that knowledge. Similarly composers that create

pieces for orchestras such as Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky created his pieces by

himself but then he shared his knowledge with others who can perform it

helping create and interpret the original piece of music. As orchestra pieces

require a large number of people to play all the parts. This is another example

of how an individual's personal production of knowledge can become shared

and a collaborative effort; therefore knowledge is not always produced

individually.

This statement is made difficult to agree with through the use of the absolutes

always and never. It might be argued that in the area of knowledge of the

natural sciences all production of knowledge requires some element of

collaboration whereas in the area of knowledge of the arts there is a mixture

of collaboration and individual work and therefore not conforming to

statement. However it is important to consider the definitions of the key words

in the statement specifically that of individual as it could be suggested that

nothing is ever done on an individual basis as everyone is influenced by their

experiences. That impacts the meaning and scope of an individual and would

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 TOK essay example D: Student work

suggest that no knowledge can be produced solely by an individual without

some sort of external influence. However this is not the definition that has

been used in this essay therefore it can be said that sometimes, an individual

may produce knowledge alone.

Bibliography

Andrew Allcot, David Mindorff, 18 Biology Course Companion, (Oxford, Oxford

University Press, 2014) 109, 110, 307, 308

Athene Donald, The Guadian, 2013,

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/feb/03/teamwork-science-

transforming-the-world (January 19 2019)

Steve Woolley, Edexcel lnterational GCSE Physics, (Harlow, Pearson

Education Limited, 2011)

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