Question 3: In the acquisition of knowledge, is following experts unquestioningly as dangerous as ignoring them completely? Discuss with reference to the human sciences and one other area of knowledge.

Guiding Questions

Essays on this question should be on the acquisition of knowledge, so perhaps it might be easier to discuss more on the users of knowledge

• What does following unquestioningly mean?

• Does it mean taking everything they say as the truth?

• Should we be using past knowledge? How can we trust it?

• What does ignoring completely mean?

• Can we not rely on experts? Why might they be wrong? Is there even a chance of them being wrong?

• Do we always have to go back to the start and build up the knowledge on our own?

• Who are the experts? 

• Specifically for each AOK and what makes them experts

• What makes it dangerous?

• Being wrong? 

• Not actually understanding the knowledge but just regurgitating?

Question Analysis

For this question, it is firstly important to note that the question is on the acquisition of knowledge and not production. This does not mean you cannot look at knowledge producers but it might be easier to also discuss more on the users of knowledge.

Moving to definitions, you will need to define what it means to follow unquestioningly and ignoring completely. Does following unquestioningly mean that we take everything experts say to be true? Does ignoring completely mean that we do not use any past knowledge and rely only on ourselves to build up all the layers of knowledge on our own?

Next we can discuss what we define as dangerous. Perhaps it could refer to us being wrong, or it could also refer to us being able to regurgitate information but not actually truly understanding the information. 

This leads us to a follow-up question which is whether we can and should use past knowledge. Firstly, how do we know that the knowledge out there from these experts is true. People used to think that the world was flat and that was their truth, but it turns out they were wrong so how do we know that the knowledge we have now is actually the truth? Are there any reasons we have to doubt experts and why might they be wrong? Additionally, imagine you are doing your IA and in your background information you cite a research paper on a topic you have not learnt before, does it mean that you have acquired knowledge because you seem to have an understanding of the concept or is it not because you are merely repeating what the paper says without a full grasp of what is actually going on. But on the flip side, as users of knowledge, will we even have the ability or time to build up all this knowledge on our own? It might be impossible and impractical, so ignoring might not be an option.

For this question, your points can cover both sides or even strike a balance between the two. It seems that both are very extreme so it is most likely that your conclusion will come to a consensus that you will need a bit of both.

Potential AOKs: 1 must be the human sciences, and the other could be the natural sciences, history, mathematics