Personal vs. Shared Knowledge: The Foundation
- Every piece of knowledge you encounter falls into two categories:
- Personal knowledge - messy, emotional, and completely yours.
- Shared knowledge - organized, systematic, and accessible to everyone.
- Understanding this distinction changes how you approach TOK completely.
Definition
Shared knowledge
What groups of people have figured out together, tested, and agreed upon
Definition
Personal knowledge
What you know from your own direct experience
Example
- Learning to drive
- Personal knowledge
- You know that hitting the brakes too hard in your dad's old Honda makes the car jerk forward.
- You learned this through experience.
- Shared knowledge
- Physics tells us that sudden deceleration transfers kinetic energy, causing objects in motion to continue moving forward (Newton's first law).
- Personal knowledge
Why Your Personal Perspective Actually Matters
- Here's what most students get wrong about TOK.
- They think it's all about abstract theories and shared knowledge. That's wrong.
- TOK explicitly wants your personal perspective because it reveals something crucial about how knowledge actually works.
Knowledge Is Always Interpreted
- Shared knowledge doesn't just sit there waiting to be absorbed.
- It gets filtered through your personal experience every time you encounter it.
Example
- COVID-19 vaccine data
- Clinical trials show vaccines reduce severe illness by 90%.
- Personal interpretation depends on your experience
- Three different perspectives:
- If your grandmother died from COVID, this statistic feels like a lifeline
- If you're young and healthy, this statistic might feel less urgent
- If you've had bad reactions to medications: This statistic comes with anxiety
Personal Knowledge Reveals Gaps
- Sometimes your personal experience shows you that shared knowledge is incomplete or wrong.
- And this is actually how most major breakthroughs happen.
- Someone simply notices their direct experience doesn't match what everyone else believes.
Example
- In the 1840s, shared medical knowledge said disease spread through "bad air." Dr. Semmelweis noticed that when he washed his hands between patients, fewer women died in childbirth.
- His personal observation contradicted shared knowledge. Medical establishment rejected his findings for decades.
Your Perspective Shows How Knowledge Gets Applied
- Shared knowledge tells you what.
- Personal knowledge tells you when, where, and whether to use it.
Example
- Customer Service Shared knowledge: "The customer is always right."
- Personal application varies:
- Luxury hotel manager: Follows this absolutely because their customers pay premium prices.
- Budget airline employee: Applies this selectively because unreasonable demands would bankrupt the company.
- Small business owner: Modifies this rule because they've learned some customers are genuinely wrong and damage the business.
Common Mistake
- Don't Confuse Personal Preference with Personal Knowledge
- Choosing chocolate over vanilla isn't personal knowledge about when to apply shared knowledge. It's just preference.
- Personal knowledge application involves using context and experience to make informed decisions about when and how to use what you know.
The Four Types of Personal Knowledge
- Experiential knowledge: What you've learned by doing something.
- Cultural knowledge: What you know from growing up in your specific context.
- Emotional knowledge: What you understand through feelings and relationships.
- Reflective knowledge: What you've figured out by thinking about your own thinking.
Example
Realizing you're more likely to believe news that confirms what you already think connects to questions about confirmation bias and the reliability of reason.
Balancing Personal and Shared Knowledge
- Strong TOK responses don't just include personal perspective.
- They show how personal and shared knowledge interact, conflict, or complement each other.
- Framework:
- Start with shared knowledge to establish context
- Introduce your personal perspective as a specific case
- Analyze what this interaction reveals about knowledge
- Consider alternative perspectives
Tip
- The "So What?" Test
- After including any personal example, ask yourself: "So what does this reveal about knowledge?"
- If you can't answer that question, your example doesn't belong in TOK.
Self review
- Can you think of a time when your personal experience contradicted something you learned in school?
- What did this teach you about the nature of knowledge?
- How do you balance your personal beliefs with shared knowledge when they conflict? What does this reveal about how knowledge works?
