The production of knowledge is always a collaborative task and never solely a product of the individual.

Discuss this statement with reference to two areas of knowledge

First and foremost, we must address what we mean exactly by the production of knowledge. The idea of
knowledge itself is extremely broad and complex and if we were to dim it down it would be a series of skills, facts,
and information attained by a person through experience and education, the concept of being familiar and aware
of a certain idea. Therefore, the production of knowledge would be the involvement of at least a certain individual
in the pursuit of a deeper understanding of a particular concept or idea. I for one, believe that the production of
knowledge is and has been a collaborative task whether it be between two or more experts or even the simple
exchange of thoughts between two people. To further my hypothesis, I will be discussing the different areas of
knowledge that would apply collaborative endeavour into reaching a certain piece of knowledge such as science
and mathematics.

When we visit the idea of collaborative effort, we must first understand what collaboration is. According to the
dictionary, collaboration is the action of working with someone to produce or create something, and in this case
knowledge. It is known that some people or most tend to function at their best in moments of isolation, which
leads me to my first example, Albert Einstein. The question of ‘Did Albert Einstein work alone?’ has been
circulating for many years, often followed by the question “Why did Albert Einstein work alone?”. This made
me question whether working alone is the opposite of working collaboratively, and based on research and analysis
I have come to my first claim that the answer is no. Albert Einstein did work alone, however, as far as we know,
he discussed most of his ideas with Mileva Marić (his spouse) along with Michele Beso. I will also take into account
the knowledge he already possessed beforehand which he acquired in his earlier studies or education, the
involvement of learning from a teacher or from a class would have certain elements of collaboration as well. This
I would say would still fall into the category of working collaboratively as he is technically still working with
someone in order to produce knowledge. Despite this known fact, most would still say that Einstein did in fact
work alone, this proves that working alone is indeed not the opposite of working collaboratively as Einstein has
been considered to do both. So why do we ignore this and still claim that Einstein did work alone? I believe that
people do not consider his discussions with his spouse or with Beso and his education to be the act of working
together with someone as majority of the knowledge he produced was done by himself, which is why they are not
credited. Does this mean collaboration can be measured?

This prompts me to my next claim, that collaboration can indeed be measured. I believe that this very
measurement itself is what leads people to come to conclusions that most scientists tend to work alone. To
strengthen my claim, I will be going deeper into my AOK, mathematics, more specifically, Isaac Newton. Newton
is one of the many scientists who are known to be extremely lonely due to self-isolation. Most of his life’s work is
very infamous and most of them were accomplished through self-isolation, which is why he is known for being a
‘lonely genius’ who works alone. However, this is in fact is not entirely true, Newton did work together with
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in developing the infinitesimal calculus. Newton also had many competitors that
fueled his drive for achieving more. Although competition might not be an act of working collaboratively, I
would say that competition becomes motivation, and together with his hard work as a whole becomes
collaboration. This is because without his competitors, most of his work that we know today might not exist.
Even though it was just considered to be a very small amount compared to the rest of the work he has achieved, it
is still considered to be an act of collaboration. Since collaboration can be measured, it becomes relative, thus
Newton works relatively ‘alone’. From this I can claim that the production of knowledge will always be a
collaborative task.

To challenge my claim, I have asked myself the question, ‘Can knowledge ever be solely the product of one
individual?’. If we were to revert once more to the idea of producing knowledge and what would be considered a
production of knowledge, we would need to evaluate whether the simple but fundamental act of coming up with
an essay for school goes under the realm of knowledge production. For this, I will revert back to the definition of
knowledge which is anything that can be said to be either true or not true, or propositional knowledge. Since an
essay can consist of anything true or not true, I will say that writing an essay is indeed a form of producing
knowledge. Referring back to my question, I will counter it by using this very essay as an example I am writing
right now. If someone were to ask me ‘Did you work on this essay alone?’, I would say yes. Yes, indeed I have
worked on this essay by myself, however, this essay is not solely the product of just one individual. I had to do
research and I had to refer to different works created by other individuals and, most definitely, I had to have the
knowledge beforehand in order to support my whole essay, whether it be from my TOK classes or even by reading
the many sites I have came across online. This leads me to my last claim that ‘working alone’ is not the same as
‘solely producing a piece of knowledge’. From the many examples I have provided, in one way or another, they
can all be considered as ‘working alone’, even though I have validated the accuracy of that statement by proving
that they have in fact produced collaborative work. Working alone would be the act of working without anyone
else but producing knowledge alone is very different, putting emphasis on ‘working’ and ‘producing knowledge’.
I find it possible to work without collaboration, but impossible when it comes to the production of knowledge.
This is because collaboration is very broad and many things could lead to collaboration when it comes to
producing knowledge, even the mere simplicity of exchanging thoughts with a friend or an acquaintance, but it
is very easy for a certain individual to work alone, all things considered.

The reason why the production of knowledge will always be a collaborative endeavour and will never be solely
the product of one individual is because of the fragility of knowledge and how almost everything can affect the
way we perceive knowledge. Production of knowledge will always be affected by our surroundings, our
environment and our circumstances, and these factors will come under the idea of collaboration. Even the smallest
acts by other individuals could impact the production of knowledge of another, which is why I would still say
that everything could fall under collaborative work. Therefore, based on my analysis and from the research I have
gathered, I would have to say that the production of knowledge will always be a collaborative task.