Core theme · compulsory
Knowledge and the knower
The compulsory core theme. It turns the enquiry back on the student: what they already believe, where those beliefs came from, which communities they inherited them from, and what happens to their knowledge when they notice this.
IA prompts that fit this theme
The wording is the guide’s, exactly. A student who changes a word of it loses marks, so quote it as it stands.
- IA prompt 04On what grounds might we doubt a claim?Turning the question inward: which of your own beliefs have you never had grounds to doubt, and why not?
- IA prompt 12Is bias inevitable in the production of knowledge?The core theme's central difficulty, since a knower cannot audit their own bias using the faculties that carry it.
- IA prompt 17Why do we seek knowledge?A first-person question before it is a general one, and a good entry point into the core theme.
- IA prompt 20What is the relationship between personal experience and knowledge?The most direct route into the core theme, since personal experience is the knowledge a student has most of and can check least.
- IA prompt 21What is the relationship between knowledge and culture?Asks the student to locate the communities they inherited their knowledge from.
- IA prompt 24How might the context in which knowledge is presented influence whether it is accepted or rejected?Foregrounds the knower as an audience whose acceptance is shaped by more than content.
- IA prompt 25How can we distinguish between knowledge, belief and opinion?Forces a student to sort their own convictions into three piles, which is harder than stating the distinction.
- IA prompt 26Does our knowledge depend on our interactions with other knowers?Tests the picture of the solitary knower that students usually arrive holding.
- IA prompt 34In what ways do our values affect our acquisition of knowledge?Acquisition is the knower's side of the values question, which makes this the core-theme partner of prompt 35.
A school selects two of the five optional themes alongside the core theme. All six themes.