ToK Essay #5 May 23: Visual Representations

The video guide to ToK Essay #5 May 23: Visual Representations has been posted on YouTube today (and is linked below). This essay was a real challenge for me to summarise in a short video. When I wrote the Essay Guide Notes (linked) I found it to be a very wide ranging subject, and the notes ran to over 6,300 words !

Visual Representations.

The focus on visual representations seems fairly straightforward, they're tangible things such as maps and graphs. However, the knowledge links are a little more obscure in this essay than in the others. The essay question specifies that we look at visual representation in terms of the communication of knowledge. This lends itself to the purpose, and maybe, context of knowledge. I also played around with ideas such as the simplification of knowledge (harking back to a PT a few years ago), but this seemed to be a potential diversion.

There's such a wide range of visual representations that students can look at, in some ways it's a possible diversionary danger. It's important that students stay focussed on whether those representations are 'helpful' in communication. I have tried to think of 'helpful' in terms of the purpose and context of knowledge.

The Knower & Knowledge.

The focus on visual representations in the communication of knowledge seems to link well with the core theme of The Knower & Knowledge, and that's mainly where I ended up. It gives us good links to the ToK Concepts of Interpretation, Explanation and Evidence. The (re)introduction of The Knower into the ToK course gives students a lot more scope in their ToK Essays to go beyond the production of knowledge that they were largely constrained to in the last syllabus.

You can find the video guide for Essay #1 linked here.

You can find the video guide for Essay #2 linked here.

You can find the video guide for Essay #3 linked here.

If you want more detailed notes on the Knowledge Questions and arguments raised in the video then please check out the detailed notes available here.

If you want help with your ToK Essay or Exhibition then please check out the Student Support page linked here.

You can always contact me at Daniel@ToKToday.com,
stay Tok-tastic!,
Daniel