The November 2025 TOK Essay Prescribed Titles have been released. Here they are below:
For historians and artists, do conventions limit or expand their ability to produce knowledge? Discuss with reference to history and the arts.
What is the relationship between knowing and understanding? Discuss with reference to twoareas of knowledge.
Should knowledge in an area of knowledge be pursued for its own sake rather than its potential application? Discuss with reference to mathematics and one other area of knowledge.
To what extent do you agree that however the methods of an area of knowledge change, the scope remains the same. Answer with reference to two areas of knowledge.
In the pursuit of knowledge, is it possible or even desirable to set aside temporarily what we already know? Discuss with reference to the natural sciences and one other area of knowledge
Is empathy an attribute that is equally important for a historian and a human scientist? Discuss with reference to history and the human sciences.
Scroll down to see our detailed explanations on how to tackle these prompts and some potential examples to inspire you on your own essay. This year, we invited Michael and Aika from the MyIBTutor team to contribute in explaining titles 3/6 and 2/5 respectively. Hopefully you enjoy some fresh voices and diversity of thought on your journey to write your TOK Essay. Book a TOK Essay review with these tutors (or me!) for more personalised advice on your essay.
Title 1
This prompt is quite approachable, as it aligns well with our conventional advice on structuring a TOK essay. Key terms should be carefully defined: "conventions" can have many interpretations, but generally refer to structures, frameworks, or established methodologies within an area of knowledge (AOK). Your essay should respond to whether conventions limit or expand the ability to produce knowledge. This rarely yields a black-and-white answer, so your response should offer a deeper understanding of how conventions can be both limiting and expanding, depending on the context and purpose of the AOK, supported by relevant examples.
A simple claim and counterclaim structure could involve first exploring how conventions limit knowledge production and then countering this with examples of how they can expand knowledge in one AOK, subsequently repeating the process for the second AOK. This approach will help you examine the scenarios in which conventions can facilitate or hinder knowledge production and allow you to conclude accordingly.
In history, a major convention is the use of the historical method to produce knowledge. This convention ensures that proposed claims are evidence-based and justified, rather than mere speculation. Historians must consider the available evidence to validate claims. While these conventions can be limiting by restricting how historical claims become knowledge, they are more likely to expand our ability to produce knowledge by ensuring that only substantiated claims are recognized.
For example, knowledge about the Holocaust has been essential in countering neo-Nazism and Holocaust denial. Corroborating firsthand survivor accounts with military records has been crucial in producing reliable historical knowledge that refutes false claims. The rigor of these conventions allows knowledge to withstand scrutiny and protects against unevidenced historical revisionism.
Counterclaims often highlight instances where evidence or contexts struggle to fit within existing conventions. One example is the marginalization of Indigenous perspectives in historical knowledge surrounding Aboriginal Australians. The preference for written sources often leads to neglecting oral traditions, such as Dreamtime stories, which limits the types of historical claims investigated. In response, there has been a growing emphasis on developing oral histories since the late 1990s (for further reading, see the Bringing Them Home Oral History Project).
In the arts, the initial impression may be that no rules or conventions exist, contradicting the idea of free creative expression. However, many structures and defined methods are present across various art forms. For instance, classical music from the Baroque era shares similarities with features that are distinct from the Romantic era. Established structures, such as the sonata form and movements like Impressionism and Cubism, imply underlying conventions.
While it may seem paradoxical that conventions require conformity, these constraints often enhance artistic knowledge. For example, haiku poetry’s strict syllabic structure enables poets to distill complex ideas into precise language, revealing insights that might not be appreciated in other forms. Thus, conventions in art can provide structure while allowing spontaneity and freedom.
Moreover, conventions can be broken, as seen in avant-garde art, architecture, and music that challenge norms. The HSBC Headquarters in Hong Kong exemplifies this: its structural supports are on the exterior rather than the interior, maximizing floorspace and exposing elements like escalators as part of the visual experience. The building also incorporates feng shui and features a “hollow” ground floor that acts as a plaza, showcasing its innovative design.
An old saying encapsulates this well: "You have to learn the rules so you can break them." This highlights how conventions in art can be both limiting and expansive. While the existence of conventions may seem restrictive, these limits often serve as catalysts for creativity, enabling the expansion of artistic knowledge through both conformity and innovation.
Title 2
This question encourages you to think deeply about the two concepts we often take for granted - “knowing” and “understanding”. While they may seem interchangeable at first glance, TOK challenges us to distinguish between them and explore how they interact within different AOKs. As students, you have probably experienced moments when you felt you “knew” something (like a maths formula) for a test, but later realised you didn’t fully “understand” it (why does the formula work?). That distinction, between surface-level familiarity and deeper comprehension, is at the core of this prompt.
In TOK, knowing is often linked to the possession of information or facts; things you can state, recall or recognise (ie. you might “know” gravity is 9.81m/s2). Understanding, on the other hand, implies something deeper. Perhaps, it is the ability to connect knowledge to a wider context, to explain underlying principles, and to see patterns or relationships. You don’t just know something is true. You also know why it is true, and how it fits into a broader framework. Perhaps even how to apply it to new situations. Clear definitions of these two terms will help answer “what the relationship is” between knowing and understanding. The distinction between your terms is important because it helps us ask: does knowing always lead to understanding? Or, can we understand without knowing certain facts first?
An interesting approach to answering this question is to explore whether “knowing” is a precursor to “understanding”. In many AOKs, you need a foundation of facts or terminology before building understanding. In the Natural Sciences, particularly chemistry, this progression is very familiar to students. Before you can understand why certain elements react the way they do, you first need to know facts like how many valence electrons each element has. This factual knowledge allows you to understand periodic trends like why noble gases are stable, or why alkali metals are highly reactive. Hence, sometimes knowing is often necessary before understanding can emerge. The scientific method itself tends to begin with the collection of data (knowing) before forming theories to explain that data (understanding). In this sense, understanding builds on knowledge.
However, not all AOKs work this way. The relationship between knowing and understanding heavily depends on the nature of the AOK itself. In History, the relationship between knowing and understanding is not always sequential. Facts in history are often subject to interpretation, re-evaluation and re-framing. Historical revisionism occurs because our “understanding” reshapes and refines what we thought we “knew” in the first place. This shows the relationship between knowing and understanding to be more recursive, like a loop, where understanding can lead to a revision of what you know. Particularly with revisionism in history, you could even explore whether knowing and understanding have an inseparable relationship - are they constantly influencing each other? Revisionism shows us that what we think we know can change when our understanding deepens.
Title 3
This question focuses on the discussion of the acquisition of knowledge, more specifically, what knowledge should be pursued for in an AOK. Defining the important terms first, the phrase “for its own sake” provides a vague and flexible definition, where students can argue in different directions. For instance, students can approach in the direction that acquiring and pursuing for new knowledge enriches the knower intellectually, or that acquiring and pursuing for the new knowledge enhances the understanding or increases the scope of the area of knowledge. This flexibility of definition allows for different interpretation and students can use different approaches to tackle the question, showing greater understanding of the TOK syllabus to the examiner.
On the other hand, the phrase “potential application” limits students to explore how pursuing certain knowledge can benefit real-life issues. This question involves a comparison between two opposing ideas, with the term “rather than” forcing students to discuss pros and cons between the pursuing knowledge “for its own sake” and for its “potential application”. Although prompting a “yes” or “no” response, the discussion towards the final conclusion through examples in the AOKs chosen is the most important.
However, in many cases, pursuing knowledge for its own sake may lead to future applications. In the question, the AOK of Mathematics is mentioned. Often considered the epitome of pure knowledge, mathematics is built upon rigorous logic and abstract concepts that may initially seem disconnected from real-world problems. At its core, mathematics is not always driven by practical application; however, many of its abstract concepts have transformed into practical use, such as the study of large integers in number theory, which thought to have no real-world usage, has become a staple tool in the encryption of messages.
Nonetheless, students should be aware that the two intentions, “for its own sake” and “for practical applications” to pursue knowledge may involve knowledge of different natures. In the human sciences, example of knowledge that is gained “for practical applications” such as cognitive behavioural therapy that was intentionally developed to treat mental health issues, which is structured to treat mental illnesses. Conversely, early theoretical work on human behaviour was researched due to the curiosity to understand how different factors in life shape behaviours, and does not have any “practical applications”. This shows that the two intentions cause the acquisition of knowledge in different areas, and often with different goals, which should be explored by students in this essay.
As is often the case with TOK titles, the comparison between pursuing knowledge for its own sake and for its potential application is not a straightforward one. It depends on the knowers, community of knowers and the area of knowledge involved. Some inherent natures of AOKs such as Arts may prompt for the need to pursue knowledge for its own sake as there may not be many real-life applications, but some AOKs such as Natural Sciences may prompt many real-life applications for knowers to pursue knowledge to tackle these needs.
Title 4
TBA
Title 5
This title raises an interesting question about the role of prior knowledge in shaping new discoveries. As students, we engage with different Areas of Knowledge (AOKs) that each approach knowledge differently. But is it ever possible, or even desirable, to temporarily set aside what we already know? On one hand, knowledge often builds upon itself, making it difficult to ignore existing frameworks. On the other, some of the most revolutionary discoveries and creative breakthroughs come from challenging or rejecting prior assumptions.
Since this prompt involves lots of moving parts, it is important to clearly define the key terms in the prompt:
“is it possible” addresses the feasibility of setting aside what we already know. Can we, in practice, set aside prior knowledge when pursuing new knowledge? Some AOKs rely on cumulative knowledge (e.g., Natural Sciences), while others allow or even encourage the rejection of past conventions (e.g., the Arts).
You must not forget to address if it is “desirable”. Even if setting aside what we know is possible, should we do it? Would temporarily disregarding past knowledge lead to better outcomes, or would it hinder progress? Different AOKs have different perspectives on whether ignoring prior knowledge is beneficial. For example, in history, is it helpful to ignore previous narratives about a historical event when analyzing new sources, or would it make it harder to develop a full understanding?
Additionally, the prompt does not ask whether we should permanently reject prior knowledge, but rather whether we should "set [it] aside temporarily" How long is temporary? Paradigm shifts in the sciences don’t erase past knowledge but rather redefine its applicability. Similarly, artistic movements often reintroduce old techniques in fresh ways.
Another key element in the prompt is "What we already know". What counts as “already known”? Is it universally accepted knowledge (ie. scientific laws), widely practiced traditions (e.g., classical artistic techniques), or personal knowledge (ie. an individual’s past experiences)? Regardless, it might be important to consider the biases “we” may have regarding the things “we already know” and evaluate whether it is desirable or possible to detach from those biases.
Looking at the Natural Sciences, scientific progress is largely cumulative. Each discovery refines prior understanding. For example, in chemistry, we first learn the octet rule, but later, we discover exceptions like expanded octets (e.g., SF₆). We don’t discard the rule entirely; we adapt it. However, major scientific breakthroughs often require temporarily ignoring existing models. When Copernicus proposed the heliocentric model, he had to set aside the long-accepted geocentric theory. Likewise, Einstein’s theory of relativity challenged Newtonian physics, which, while useful, couldn’t explain extreme speeds or gravity. These paradigm shifts show that while science usually builds on prior knowledge, temporarily ignoring may be necessary for progress.
Unlike in the Sciences, where setting aside knowledge must be done carefully, in the Arts, it is often desirable. Artists actively seek to disrupt norms to create new forms of meaning. If every artist followed the same techniques as their predecessors, there would be no room for innovation, and the scope of their knowledge would not expand. Many artistic movements have emerged precisely because artists challenged existing rules. For instance, when Impressionist painters like Monet ignored the traditional techniques of realistic painting, they were able to explore light and color in a way that created an entirely new art movement. Likewise, jazz musicians ignore classical structure to improvise, leading to new and unpredictable compositions. Here, setting aside old conventions isn’t just desirable—it’s the whole point.
Ultimately, in some AOKs, setting aside knowledge is difficult and even counterproductive, while in others, it fuels progress. The natural sciences show that ignoring prior knowledge is rare but sometimes necessary for breakthroughs. In contrast, the arts thrive on disruption, making it both possible and desirable. Whether we should set aside what we already know depends on the context. Sometimes, knowledge must be challenged for new ideas to emerge.
Title 6
Empathy is defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another person. This question again prompts for a comparison between two areas of knowledge, and the specific wording of this question is very important. In particular, students must be aware that the question is directed towards knowers within the AOK, namely a “historian” and a “human scientist”. Students must utilise the perspectives of these people and the responsibility and roles they have within their respective AOKs. Also, the phrase “equally important” is difficult to make a judgement on, as there are often many aspects where empathy is more important for a certain AOK. Instead, students are prompted to explore the cases where empathy serves as an important attribute for a historian or human scientist, and make several judgements for different scenarios.
Looking at history as an AOK, a historian serves the role of compiling factual historical events and presenting a narrative to audiences, contributing towards the AOK by providing their individual perspectives. The attribute of empathy in this AOK serves its purpose in the communication and creation of the narrative, where the ability to understand the feelings of people in those historical events can allow for a more nuanced presentation of the narrative, creating knowledge that accounts for the feelings and emotions of the people at the time, which is an important aspect of historical knowledge, and informs of the intentions and reasoning behind some of the events and actions.
For the human sciences, human scientists need empathy as a tool to holistically understand the intentions behind human behaviour, in order to justify phenomena observed. For example, in economics, economists need to understand the emotions to better grasp the needs and wants of people, thus modelling what seems to be irrational phenomena with an emotional or behavioural justification. Empathy in this case serves as a tool to discover more knowledge to understand real-life phenomena, which is very important for human scientists to generate new knowledge.
However, comparing and quantifying the importance of empathy for historians and human scientists is unrealistic, as there are no agreed-upon measure of their respective importance, because empathy serves different purposes on different areas of knowledge. Nonetheless, there are aspects of the two AOKs which technically do not require empathy, that is, the factually-confirmed historical events for history, and the quantitative analysis of data in human sciences.
Overall, the word “equally” in the question is impossible to give a subjective and balanced answer. One can argue for the importance of empathy for historians, as narratives would be incomplete or biased if the emotions and intentions of people of the past were not adequately understood. One can also argue for the importance of empathy for human scientists, as human emotions and feelings provide a large reasoning to many phenomena that human scientists try to explore. Students in this essay question can focus on how empathy contributes towards different aspects of the AOK, ranging from the acquisition, communication and interpretation of knowledge, thus judging the relative importance of empathy within the AOK.
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