5. “Areas of knowledge are most useful in combination with each other.” Discuss this claim with reference to two areas of knowledge.
This prescribed title is similar in some ways to a prescribed title from the November 2015 session: “No knowledge can be produced by a single way of knowing.” It might be beneficial to try and track down sample TOK essays on this prescribed title to see how students then approached this somewhat similar title.
Most useful – this is quite an interesting phrase to consider – how does one define when mathematics or history is “most useful”? Also, there may be little overlap between when one AOK is viewed as useful compared to another.
There are significant differences in opinion from one person / organization to the next when an AOK is most useful. For example, one type of art critic may view the arts as “most useful” when it addresses social issues while another type of art critic could view the arts as “most useful” when it is solely concerned with aesthetics.
In combination – Evaluate carefully how two AOKs act in combination work together. This may differ wildly between different RLEs even with the same two AOKs. Also keep in mind that in many RLEs one AOK may be much more important than other. Just because two AOKs are “in combination” doesn’t they play equal or similar roles in an RLE.