TOK Essay Title #4 (May 2026)

Examples & Evidence for AOK of History
(Title #4)

History

Research the American History Association for TOK Perspectives​

I’m really surprised that History isn’t required for this title (or intentionally excluded). This is an easy for this title, so it’ll be some work to find a way to say Begin by exploring what the AHA says about how historians ought to work. Click here to read their guidelines, and focus on the context section.

​How Presentism & Its Approach Disagree with Title #4

There’s a great debate about presentism – interpreting history through the current perspective – that can add a lot of insights here. Get started by reading these resources, but you can find proponents and opponents of this, and look at both sides of the title!

Royal Historical Society             AHA

Scholarly Article (Paywall)        Podcast with Writers

​Defending Presentism and the Importance of the Current Context

Nothing like an article from the Harvard Department of History to impress your examiner, right? Check out the article!

​Why Presentism is a Bad Approach to Acquiring Knowledge

It’s great to be able to see official documents and positions by the experts, and this article from the Royal Historical Society would go directly against Presentism (as would most historians, I’d assume).

​​

The Annales School & TOK

I shared about the Annales school of historical thinking in another video, and it’s relevant here, too! This is a “lens” of studying history that is more focused on social and economic areas that can be studied (and more quantified) than other, more context-dependent, pieces of data.

​Critical Lens: People's History & Knowledge Acquisition

Learn about People’s History here. And though you don’t want to cite Wikipedia, of course, this page demonstrates how People’s History works on a singular topic. There are many topics that you can choose from here, but slavery is the one that I found. Here is a sample work that demonstrates this approach about the English Working Class. Here’s one about working-class early Americans.

The Arts

​Maman: Why Artist Intent & Context Lead to Understanding

I hate having to link to this artwork for…reasons that you’ll see…but this artwork is meant to convey a specific piece of knowledge: about the love that the artist’s mother had for her children. But this knowledge is conveyed in a very…um…interesting manner. Learn about the piece here…if you dare! There are many different ways to look at what context means in the arts. Here, the context is the artists message and intent. Also, it’s important to remember that this is about the pursuit of knowledge, which has less to do with the creation of art.

Varying Pieces of Knowledge Through Purpose and Context

When I discovered this example I freaked out. First, there’s a painting called Family Group in a Landscape. Let’s look at it first. Then, artist Titus Kaphar did a work, based on Landscape called “Shifting the Gaze.” What we have here is a completely different way of conveying knowledge. Here’s a commentary on the work. And here’s a TED talk by Kaphar. As we, the viewer, understand both works, how does our contextual understanding of both paintings help us to understand them better? Can we only understand these pieces if we understand the context? I’m not so sure. This brings many great directions that you can go!

How Portraits and Knowledge Can Be Political - an Important TOK Concept

Read this article about portraits (and paintings) of transexual people. Can we only understand what’s happening in the artwork if we understand the social context? This is similar, to the previous example, too.

Artistic Lenses - Which One Is Right? 

This will be the most mainstream perspective, which answers that context and knowledge are interrelated. I would learn about this, quote it, but use your own personal example here from an interaction with a piece of art. But it could answer the title in either way – you can either agree or disagree with the claim that knowledge is context-dependent.

The Death of the Author - Critical Lens for Acquiring and Producing Knowledge

I shared this example last year and it became the go-to example for people who didn’t want to research that much. But it’s an amazing example, just actually read about it! The Death of the Author is a concept within the Arts (especially literature) in which we believe that the reader’s response to the text is what matters the most. The reader is the knowledge producer (and pursuer) rather than the author. After reading from Barthes above, read a summary of it here.

​More Critical Lenses (TOK Teachers Love These!!)

Formalism and New Criticism are literary theories related to the Death of the Author and Reader Response method. They focus on the devices, techniques, and formal literary qualities that make up an artwork. People following this way of thinking would say that the real knowledge and understanding to be found in a novel, for example, is not found in the context but rather in how the text establishes itself as a standalone unit of meaning.

The Hermeneutic Circle in Knowledge Acquisition 

I’ll be honest, this is pretty complex. The Hermeneutic Circle partially disagrees with the title, because it disagrees with only but it still demonstrates how context is required. This process just says that something else (an understanding of the artistic techniques) are also required. Check out this great article here.

Human Sciences

​

What is the Scope of Reliable Knowledge in the Human Sciences?​

Though the Human Sciences want to produce knowledge that explains human behavior, is that even possible? This study shows how the same methods produce knowledge that is context-dependent. Another study had similar findings, studying Asian and Western people and their behavior.

The CHAT Lens in Human Science Research

​Cultural-Historical Activity Theory would say that if we are studying people and their behavior, we have to take their context into consideration. This article demonstrates an understanding of CHAT and how it would be applied.

The Necessity of Replication in Human Sciences and Economics​

In America there is a big debate about whether or not the Great Depression was ended by the New Deal (Roosevelt’s big government spending) or WWII. Which is right? We’ll never know. What other economic lessons can we not pursue without an understanding of the historic context?

Funding Bias as a Context in the Human Sciences

Learn about Funding Bias – how can the results of a study (in either science) me magically supportive of the group or company that is supporting the research?

Article 1       Example 2   Example 3  

Lysenkoism and the Importance of Context in Knowledge Acquisiton

This is technically an example from the NS, but it has a connection to the HS so I’d be fine using it for either. Soviet scientist Trofim Lysenko made insane scientific claims in order to fit within the beliefs of Marxism. This situation, and his claims, can’t be understood without the historic context. They are just silly otherwise. Read this article for more.