Fall 2011 Wisdom Course Class Notes A

Sept 12, 2011 (2)

• Hall, Chapters 1 and 2: "What is Wisdom?" and "The Wisest Man in the World"
• Sternberg, "Understanding Wisdom"
• Robinson, "Wisdom Through the Ages" (Sternberg)
• Discussion of Philosophical Method

Themes in today's readings

• note definitions of wisdom and lists of wisdom attributes
• some initial reference points in Greek thought on wisdom.

Hall, Chapters 1 and 2: "What is Wisdom?" and "The Wisest Man in the World"

• opening story, point about wisdom

• his approach, p. 16 - definition of wisdom, bot. 17 --

• Hall's initial theoretical definition: bot 18 -- read & note

• Ch. 2: Socrates & Axial Age

• Axial Age Hypothesis, 23 -- for more on this, see the wiki page, "Axial Age"

Greek

• Contrast between Pericles and Socrates, p. 28

• both selling "deliberation" as a virtue
• Socrates' treatment of emotion unique

Confucius

• 6th century BC China
• characteristics of confucian ideas of wisdom

Buddha

• 563-483bc, India
• "awakening" vs. "wisdom"

Robinson, "Wisdom Through the Ages"

This one of several mini-histories of wisdom we'll look at.

• note on Homeric concept --- p. 13-14: Greek concept of soul/nous

• distinctions among sophia, phronesis, episteme

• Aristotle's concept of wisdom. idion ergon/ prohaireseis / hexeis

• comment on his gloss of stoics.

• Christian split (influences): Aristotelean vs. Platonic

• Aquinas: quote on p. 20 -- "perspective shift" is a common theme in wisdom accounts

• Scientific revolution as challenge to ancient conceptions of wisdom and divinity

Discussion of Philosophical Method

We need to start talking about what it means to do philosophy. We'll start today with a quick review of argument theory and then introduce more philosophical methods over the next few classes.

Sept 14, 2011 (3)

Socrates' personal quest for wisdom in the Apology

• follow the biographical story Socrates tells about the Oracle at Delphi

• note Socrates' practice, described as a "relgious duty"

• Socrates' realization.

In class, we'll develop several hypotheses about Socrates' view of wisdom.

Plato, Phaedo -- Wisdom as disemodiment

• note discussion tying the soul to the transcendent world of forms and ideas. 76E.

• connection between wisdom and purity -- philosophical practice as preparation for death.

Osbeck and Robinson, Philosophical Wisdom

I'll give a lecture based on this article which you can use as your basic model of Aristotle's view.

• quote from Wikipedia on plot of Iliad: "Chryses, a Trojan priest of Apollo, offers the Greeks wealth for the return of his daughter Chryseis, a captive of Agamemnon, the Greek leader. Although most of the Greek army is in favour of the offer, Agamemnon refuses. Chryses prays for Apollo's help, and Apollo causes a plague throughout the Greek army. After nine days of plague, Achilles, the leader of the Myrmidon contingent, calls an assembly to solve the plague problem. Under pressure, Agamemnon agrees to return Chryseis to her father, but also decides to take Achilles's captive, Briseis, as compensation. Angered, Achilles declares that he and his men will no longer fight for Agamemnon, but will go home."

Sept 19, 2011 (4)

Possible Paper Topic or Journal Topic

So here's a problem stemming from our work with Aristotle: Aristotle appears to identify wisdom with knowledge that is variable. For the reasons we discussed in class, the practice of wisdom doesn't lead to invariant truths. But we don't still divide knowledge between the invariant and variant, do we? Don't we treat most truths about complex systems (like human beings and their lives) as probabilistic? So, where does that leave Aristotle's distinctions. Help him if you can.

Labouvie-Vief on Plato

1990 "Wisdom As Intergrated Thought: Historical and Developmental Perspectives"

This article applies a psychological analysis of Platonic thought on wisdom, so it makes a nice transition to the pscyh literature.

Theory and Critique

• Thesis: The project of "wisdom" in the West led to an undue split between the rational and the nonrational. 53
• Piaget: inner/outer processes. assimilation/accomodation (Other theorists "oral mode/written mode"), mythos/logos.
• Good quote: "Prior to Plato, many philosophers already asked such questions as: What is the nature of reality? or What is our nature, and what is our place in the order of things? To the pre-Platonic philosophers, answers to these questions still were permeated with mythic and highly concrete images. Reality still presented itself as an organismic happening integrated with the world of nature. Like nature, reality was animated with life and subject to growth and decay (see Collingwood, 1945; Frankfort & Frankfort, 1946). Mythic and organic conceptions of the universe were mixed with the beginning of systematic and abstracting thought. 57
• Homeric heroes not self-reflective, embedded in action, see themselves moved by divine forces.
• Platonic thought represents a huge break from this. "It. For Plato, the adult is no longer embeddedin a concrete, organic, and participatory reality." 59

Remedy

• "reintegrated thought," seeing goal of adulthood in term of balancing of logos and mythos, 67. embodied thinking 72.

Clayton and Birren

1978 -- Wisdom across the Life Span

• Note from historical treatment: East/West difference.
• Multidimensional Scaling Study: Note method and results. Cognitive, affective, and reflective qualities. Topic of discussion: Are older people wiser?
• Erikson's and Kohlberg's view of wisdom as a life stage achievement 121. Quote 122.
• Note diverse other perspectives for theorizing wisdom.

Birren and Svensson

2005 -- Wisdom in History -- This article gives us a broader historical perspective than earlier ones, but also a good summary of the paths taken by researchers (14-29).

• 1st historical treatment that hits on the Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution. Issue here.
• Wisdom in the psychological sciences
  • Not really a central topic immediately.
  • Definitions of wisdom present in Sternberg. table on 16-18. Look at Baltes and Smith.
• Note some problems in definitions of wisdom. Perspective, degree of objectivity.

Sept 21, 2011 (5)

Hall Chapter 3 "Heart and Mind"

• Note that Hall is telling something of the "sociology of knowledge" about the rise of wisdom research.
• Vivian Clayton -- reflects on family member's traits. poses question of meaning of wisdom and relation to age.
• Erikson -- idea of wisdom as end stage "8" of process of self-realization.
• Interesting hypothesis in face of growth of knowledge in gerontology about decay of faculties.
• Hall's account of Genesis myth as also about acquiring "original wisdom" -- wisdom as the price of seeing things clearly. also "dark wisdom".
• Baltes, Smith, Staudinger, Kunzemann. -- Berlin Wisdom Paradigm -- brief overview
• Early critics: Sarstensen and Ardelt -- felt BWP didn't focus enough on emotion.

Hall, Chapter 4, "Emotional Regualtion"

• "Carstensen and her colleagues have proposed that successful emotional regulation is tightly connected to a persons sense of time—usually, but not always, time as it is reflected by one's age and stage of life. "According to our theory, this isn't a quality of aging per se, but of time horizons," she explained. "When your time perspective shortens, as it does when you come closer to the ends of things, you tend to focus on emotionally meaningful goals. " 63

• Job's emotional resilience.

• problem in history of philosophy -- downplaying of emotion. But then Hume, and James' "What is an Emotion?"

• techniques for regulating emotion: reappraisal, good rumination

• digression, "Life in the 3rd Quarter"

• Cartensens' "time horizon" theory. Implications. "Grandparent hypothesis"

Sept 26, 2011 (6)

Baltes & Smith on the Berlin Paradigm

• Motivations for the Berlin Paradigm's research: study of peak performance, positive aspects of aging, work on intelligence that reflects a concern with context and life pragmatics, Baltes & Smith p. 87

• Interesting discussion of problem of giving a scientific treatment of wisdom, p. 89.

• Explaining "age of onset" of wisdom as optimization of cognitive mechanics and pragmatics (suggests it can't be too old). see chart p. 94.

• Notice how Baltes & Smith are thinking about the range of wisdom artifacts, including proverbs. p. 97.

• Discussion of five-criteria definition:

• expert knowledge system (98),
• rich factual knowledge ("a representation of the expected sequential flow of events in a particular situation"),
• procedural knowledge -- overcoming bias, general research on good decision making. How we use what we know.
• Relativism -- understanding importance of personal goals in assessment of pragmatic situation.
• Uncertainty -- of life.

Ontogenesis

• from Kunzman and Baltes: "... the period of late adolescence and early adulthood is the primary age window for a first foundation of wisdom-related knowledge to emerge." p. 122 for details.

• from Baltes and Smith, p.110. research on old/young, normative/nonnormative, target age of problem. Suggests that older are not the optimal performance group when considering the different conditions the research looked at.

• from later reading -- Baltes & Freund, "... we know that the body of knowledge and cognitive skills associated with wisdom has its largest rate of change gradient in late adolescence and young adulthood (Pasupathi & Bakes,2000; Staudinger, 1999a). St). Subsequent age changes are a result of specific circumstances of life and nonintellectual attributes. For instance, the development of wisdom-related knowledge during adulthood is more conditioned by personality, cognitive style, and life experience than by psychometric intelligence (Staudinger, Maciel, Smith, & Bakes, 1998). "

• Holliday and Chandler 1986 - p. 107 -- distinction between "understanding" and "judgment and communication" -- What skills / aptitudes are involved in each

• Heckhausen research p. 107-108 -- what does the chart tell us about the age of onset issue?

Narratives and "Think Alouds" -- Berlin Pardigm research method.

Do old people really have wisdom about the problems of younger people? - research by Smith and Baltes suggests no, p. 111.

Aristotle, Books 1 and 6 of Nichomachean Ethics

Book 1 -- Defining the good as happiness

• hierarchy of arts, politics on top

• What is the good? can't be pleasure, honor, rather contemplation. Why? Idion Ergon (proper function)

• Happiness as activity of the soul in accordance with virtue

• Aristotle's rational psychology -- rational vs. irrational. Within the irrational, desire "can be persuaded"

Book 6 -- Turns from excellence of character (Bks 2-5) to excellence of thought (dianoia)

• hexis - stable disposition of the soul that produce truth

• art (techne)
• science (episteme)
• practical wisdom (phronesis or prudentia)
• philosophical wisdom (sophia)
• intuitive reason

Features of Practical Wisdom (review section 5 in some detail)

• about life, not specific tasks
• not art or science
• involves deliberation
• defined: "Practical wisodm ... must be a reasoned and true state of capacity to act with regard to human goods."
• it's a virtue not art --
• requires experience

Sept 28, 2011 (7)

Baltes & Freund, "Wisdom as Meta-Heuristic and SOC"

-Selection, Optimization, and Compensation is a collection of behavioral strategies for managing life pragmatics.

-Note definition of wisdom p. 251: strategies for peak or optimal functioning.

-Good review of Baltes (Berlin) Paradigm: note detail on "recognition and management of uncertainty" p. 253.

-Wisdom as Meta-heuristic. Definition p. 255. "a heuristic can be defined as a "useful shortcut, an approximation, or a rule of thumb for guiding search" "If wisdom as a meta-heuristic operates effectively, the expectation is that its use creates the cognitive and motivational foundation from which well-being can be achieved. In this sense, wisdom can be seen as the embodiment of the best subjective belief about laws of life that a culture has to offer and that individuals under favorable conditions are able to acquire."

-SOC -- a heuristic for delineating, pursuing, and reviewing goals.

• Selection -- of goals -- can be either elective selection or loss selection. Deliberate, articulate...
• Optimization -- of means. "Acquire and invest" - subskills like "monitoring between actual and desired state" - ability to delay gratification (Mischel)
• Compensation -- response to loss of means. Response to events.

-Proverbs as heuristics -- study found that SOC strategies were selected more often and faster than non-SOC strategies.

-Study showing SOC associated with "positive functioning" (NOTE: This relates to the "hard problem" of wisdom. Figuring out whether wisdom really "works".)

-Consider types of research questions you can pose regarding heuristics and SOC.

Kunzman and Baltes

Challenges:

1. defining wisdom in a way that separates it from other human excellences.
2. formulating a definition of wisdom that can be empirically investigated.

• p. 112 - source for distinction between implicit and explicit.

Three types of wisdom constructs:

1. wisdom as aspect of personality development in later life (Erikson)
2. post-formal thinking (gisela); "Dialectical thinking derives from the insight that knowledge about self.others, and the world evolves in an everlasting process of theses, antitheses, and syntheses. From this perspective, wisdom has been described as the integration of different modes of knowing" 115
3. form of intelligence and expertise (Baltes)

• clearer explanation (than Baltes and Smith) of "cognitive mechanics" vs. "cognitive pragmatics" -- p. 116

• Review Model on p. 120. Note how it points to further topics that we will discuss in the semester.

Empirical Results from "Think Aloud" research:

1. High scores rare.
2. Late adolescence and early adulthood is primary age window for onset of wisdom. Age doesn't predict score increases after that.
3. Development of wisdom beyond it's early onset depends upon "expertise-enhancing" factors, such as development of social/cognitive style, presence of role models, and motivational preferences such as an interest in understanding others. Personality not predicted as a factor (note contrast to happiness research).