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How do you write an effective counterclaim?


Pathos

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Ugh...I'm back again to ask more questions in regards to writing a TOK essay. Hence, as the topic title suggests, I was wondering how you write a really effective counterclaim and those that I seem to be putting together are very flimsy, and more like I am going off on a tangent as opposed to countering what I have just said :D

I have searched online for how to write a counterclaim, yet none seem terribly befitting of this essay... :)

Thus, any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you,

Pathos

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Well a good counterclaim depends on the claim you've made. It's literally anything which suggests the opposite of what you've said, so we can't really give you help!

If you want an example just to show you, one claim you make could be:

Knowledge comes from the world we see around us

... and the corresponding counterclaim would be:

Knowledge comes from within us

Examples for each might be "natural" numbers and ratios in mathematics versus seeing beauty in a piece of art, one showing externally derived knowledge and the other internally derived knowledge. Then to make it TOK-ish, obviously you talk about ways of knowing, areas of knowing, blah blah blah.

You're never going to be able to find something which will tell you how to write an effective counterclaim because a counterclaim isn't a thing in-itself, it doesn't actually mean anything because it can only exist on the back of whatever you said to begin with! All you're looking for are opposites.

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