How to address knowledge issues in the essay

[frogger]

Hey guys!

Okay, so say your topic was something a long the lines of: Can we know something using only reason as a way of knowing. (that was off the top of my head, apologies) and then you come up with knowledge issue x,y and z. (Honestly can't think of one; what a great tok student I am :| )

Do you raise these knowledge issues and discuss them/nut them out, in amongst the discussion about whether we can know something only using reason? It all just seems a bit messy to me, and really hard to do in so little words

Or should you abandon the topic and focus on your knowledge issue? Or should I just write an essay disproving the existence of TOK and thus justify not actually writing the essay? I just don't know

Thanks in advance

[Guest Loco Mo Mo]

I can see what you mean; for a TOK essay, 1500 words is rather minuscule to say everything you want to. Especially when you're great at BSing and somehow magically end up with millions of words for the first draft.

Anyway, to the point: firstly, DO NOT abandon the topic for the essay! Sorry, just had to stress that. The prescribed titles i.e your topic should form the core of your discussion. Any real like examples/knowledge issues you come up with should be used as examples to stress to demonstrate a point more clearly. It will indeed be very hard to do in so little words so you have to prioritise. Choose the ones that think best apply to the point you're making.

For example, you could say: "It is indeed possible to know something using only reason as a way of knowing. For example, Mathematical knowledge can be gained purely from logical reasoning; 1 + 1 will always be 2 regardless of my emotional state...blah blah blah"

It's confusing, I know :/ Hope that helps a little though.