JVLR TOK: Human Sciences

Knowledge Questions for Human Sciences

Scope

• Do the human sciences and literature provide different types of knowledge about human existence and behaviour?
• Are predictions in the human sciences inevitably unreliable?
• Is it possible to discover laws of human behaviour in the same way that the natural sciences discover laws of nature?

Perspectives

• To what extent is it legitimate for a researcher to draw on their own experiences as evidence in their investigations in the human sciences?
• Is it possible to eliminate the effect of the observer in the pursuit of knowledge in the human sciences?
• What forms of protection against research error and bias are available to human scientists?

Methods & Tools

• Are observation and experimentation the only two ways in which human scientists produce knowledge?
• What assumptions underlie the methods used in the human sciences?
• To what extent can the human sciences use mathematical techniques to make accurate predictions?

Ethics

• To what extent are the methods used in the human sciences limited by the ethical considerations involved in studying human beings?
• What are the moral implications of possessing knowledge about human behaviour?
• What values determine what counts as legitimate inquiry in the human sciences? Can knowledge be divorced from the values embedded in the process of creating it?

Want more questions? See HERE via the IBO

Key Concepts in the Human Sciences

Bias

• Do personal bias and cultural perspectives affect the conclusions formed by human scientists?
  • World Development Report on Mind, Society, Behavior, via The World Bank

Models

• What value or limitations do models bring?  
  • Hierarchy of the Sciences, via Wikipedia

Vocabulary & Terminology

Details via the IBO