ToK Essay 4 May 2023: Astonishing (revisited)

ToK Essay 4 May 2023 presents us with a quote from Bertrand Russell that it is “astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power”. This video is a short addition to my main thoughts on this essay title which can be found here.

Initially I thought that this essay title was about the relationship between the amount of knowledge we have, and the power afforded to us by that power. However, the more I think about it the more I think that the interesting, maybe central, point of this essay is about the affective adjective ‘astonishing’. Here are 4 arguments why this essay could be about the astonishment that Russell expresses:

1. Attitude to knowledge.

The quote is centrally about our relationship to knowledge, about our attitude to knowledge. It’s not about the measurable knowledge and the power commensurate to measurable power. The ToK Essay does not invite you to go into an autobiographical exploration of Bertrand Russell, so at the danger of tempting students to do so, let’s just briefly touch on Russell’s philosophy. Russell was a pioneer of the use of analytical logic in philosophy, in later life he became an anti imperialist, and was concerned with the use of power to subjugate fellow humans. As such he was wrangling with reconciling a philosophy based on logic against human behaviours based illogical prejudices or biases. 

In this context we can start to interpret the quote as implying a degree of complacency, self possession, even arrogance in our attitude to our knowledge. The astonishment may come from our complacency in not wishing to know more, or our willingness to act despite having such limited knowledge. 

Positivism and empiricism.

The key point is, I think, a commentary on the overwhelmingly positivist and empiricist age within which we live. The 20th & 21st centuries are periods within which positivism and empiricism have triumphed over all other forms of knowing to such a degree that the idea that a scientific fact is superior to any other form of knowledge is hegemonic, aphoristic and near absolute. Our context is so imbued with positivist empiricism that I even heard a Christian religious leader on BBC Radio 4 this morning use scientific proof in order to illustrate the limitations of faith based  belief. 

The potential dangers of positivist empiricism is that its premise is that everything has an explanation, and therefore, consequently, everything can ultimately be controlled. Or maybe, the premise is not the danger, but the exercise of that control with limited explanations (aka knowledge) is the danger. (for example Russell became increasingly concerned with the danger of nuclear weapons later in his life).

Arguably Positivist empiricism gives us a certain arrogance from our perceived place in the world and our ability to control that around us.

Human as progenitor rather than human as derivative - that’s astonishing arrogance. 

2. Context bound knowledge.

Russell starts with the premise that “we know so little”, we can fully understand his point - Science and Maths have shown us (through their particular methodology) that our knowledge is incredibly limited. Faith based knowledge, and indigenous knowledge systems, commonly posit that know little, and invite us to welcome that limitation. However, the experience of the positivist age is the exact opposite. Arguably, our lived experience of the modern world is that we know a lot, possibly that we are on the verge of knowing everything - listen to how people use phrases such as “it is a scientific fact”, “scientific research shows”, “that has not been scientifically proven”. It’s the use of science as absolute truth, universal truth - ie we know, or can know, everything.

So, if we take my first premise that most people assume that we know a lot (rather than a little) maybe the quote is implying that both our knowledge and power are incredibly context bound.

Context bound.

All knowledge is bound by its context. What we know today is everything that we know - the unknown is experienced as unknowable, and therefore it feels like we know a lot, or at least have the capacity to know all that we don’t know. 

However, the problem with this argument is that it treats knowledge as an external reality waiting to be discovered - it treats knowledge like unknown areas of a map that we are yet to explore (this is the symptom of the positivist empiricism from which we all suffer). We could take a more rationalist perspective, that knowledge is internally constructed. As such we are merely limited by our imagination, our open-mindedness, our ability to both observe and to identify that which is significant. In which case the astonishment may come from our limited inclination and impetus to construct more knowledge. To rephrase Russell again - It is astonishing that we live in an age in which we have so much power alongside such wilful ignorance. 

3. Assumption - Knowledge gives us power.

I interpreted the quote as implying that there could / should be a relationship between knowledge and power: Knowledge gives us power. A viable ToK essay could go down the route of looking at what types of knowledge give different types of power - this would be particularly effective if it were based in the Frameworks of the Areas of Knowledge. Again, if taking this approach I would strongly recommend linking it to the idea of astonishment.

However, we could also take a more critical approach. We could argue that the link between knowledge and power is tenuous at best, and possibly non-existent in some circumstances. 

This argument would be constructed around the idea that power comes from a wider range of factors than knowledge (eg attribution, habituation, compulsion, culture etc). 

Or conversely we could argue that the relationship between knowledge and power is inverse.

Starting from a premise that by knowing more we also become more aware of the extent of our ignorance we could argue that increasing knowledge can be disempowering. Again if we look at knowledge and power as being culturally contextual then to gain knowledge external to that cultural context could be disempowering (as power is culturally defined). Further, If we define power in terms of personal utility, satisfaction, even happiness we can construct an argument which is sometimes commonly put as ‘ignorance is bliss’.

If these arguments were to be applied to the Russell quote we can develop a set of counterclaims that it is not astonishing 

4. “...CAN…” it’s a proposition.

The quote proposes that little knowledge CAN give us so much power, so arguably Russell is not arguing that this is the current de facto state of being, it could be interpreted as a potential possibility. Now, that’s not how I originally read the statement - I originally read it as little knowledge AFFORDS us so much power, but it could be argued as a proposition.

If we interpret it as a proposition then the implication of the quote could be that there is not a direct causal link between knowledge and power - the arguments of perspective 3 swing back into view.

Further we can link this back to the dominance of positivist empiricism - in a scientific age - we have the opportunity to have so much power without necessarily having to gain so much knowledge. It could be posited as an argument for our current forms of knowledge construction. Maybe, it is astonishing that in an age characterised by the dominance of a posteriori reasoning  we use power in an a priori manner.

So, there we have it  - 4 arguments how this essay could be primarily about astonishment. Of course, there is no single correct answer to this essay title (nor any of the other titles). Your task is merely to write a well argued essay which provides a clear, coherent and critical exploration of the title. 

If you want more detailed notes on this essay you can pick up the detailed essay notes from this link.