TOK Atlas
Teacher account
Element 1 of 4

Scope

What this area of knowledge is about, what problems it takes as its own, and where its questions stop being answerable by its methods. Scope is where you examine why a discipline exists at all and what it deliberately leaves to others.

Knowledge questions

Each one is written to be argued about rather than answered. The areas of knowledge underneath are where it has somewhere to land.

  • 01Can a discipline be about something that cannot be observed?
  • 02Does every area of knowledge aim at explanation?
  • 03What questions can this area of knowledge answer that no other can?
  • 04Where does the subject matter of a discipline stop, and who decides?

Scope in each area of knowledge

Concepts that surface here

Evidence
What a field can find evidence for marks the outer edge of what it can be about. Questions whose evidence is unobtainable in principle do not become open questions within a discipline; they fall outside its scope, and often get reassigned to another area of knowledge or to no one.
Justification
The strength of justification a field demands is calibrated to what it is for. A discipline whose errors are expensive sets a higher bar than one where a provisional answer is useful, so justification standards are partly a statement about a field's purpose.
Explanation
Whether a field seeks explanations at all, rather than descriptions, predictions or interpretations, is a scope question. Mathematics proves, history accounts for, the natural sciences model, and the arts can illuminate without explaining anything propositional.
Truth
Areas of knowledge do not all mean the same thing by a true claim. Mathematical truth is truth within a system of assumptions, historical truth is answerable to surviving evidence, and asking whether a work of art is true requires a different sense of the word altogether.
Certainty
The certainty available in a field is a feature of the field, not a measure of its rigour. Mathematics can offer proof because of what it is about; the human sciences cannot, and reading that as a deficiency mistakes scope for weakness.
Responsibility
Disciplines disagree about where their responsibility ends. Whether a field's remit stops at producing findings or extends to their application is a scope question with direct ethical consequences.