Fall 2011 Wisdom Course Study Question Answers

Hey everyone, so as Dr. Alfino announced, there was interest in a group study page, and so here it is!

September 12, 2011

• 1. How is Pericles wisdom different from Socrates'? What terms from Greek philosophy describe each?
  • Socrates' wisdom is ideal/abstract, it is ultimately a divine trait. He views it as pure contemplation...(Sophia)
  • Pericles' wisdom was about enhancing politics in Rome, he was a man of action...(Phronesis)

• 2. Drawing on the Hall reading, how might contemporary science tell us something about wisdom?
• 3. Identify definitions of wisdom and traits associated with wisdom.
• 4. Identify the general views on wisdom of Socrates, Buddha, and Confucius.
• 5. Describe the "perspective shift" in the Aquinas quote in the Robinson article. Does this seem like a basic trait of wise thinking?
  • Wisdom differs from mere science in looking at things from a greater height. The same holds true in practical matters. Sometimes a decision has to be taken that cannot follow the common rules of procedure... Consequently a higher judging virtue is called for, that kind of prudence is called gnome, or the ability of seeing through things.
  • Shifting your perspectives to have a greater understanding of the situation definitely seems like a wise practice.

September 14, 2011

• 1. What is Socrates' view of wisdom? How did he come to this view? What insights and limitations does it hold for you?
  • Socrates believed that people had a pretense to knowledge, and that was how philosophy was born. The Socratic irony was that Socrates thought the only way of knowing something for certain was through transcendence, when it would no longer be of use. His two beliefs were that humility is a big part of wisdom, and that there is likely no such thing as human wisdom. Socrates came to this view through annoying much of the people of after the Oracle at Delphi said he was the wisest man.
  • Socrates is contemplative. He believes wisdom is transcendent/divine knowledge. His view of wisdom is ideal and abstract. Human wisdom has little value. Wisdom is knowing your ignorance (negative wisdom) and one who knows that he/she knows nothing.
  • INSIGHT(S). Socrates claim says we can’t possess knowledge.I still have confidence that we can have objective certainty because of positive knowledge. We can question authority figures or presuppositions.
  • LIMITATION(S). Complexity in fundamental limits to our ability. An example of this is marriage and parenting. We will never overcome this ignorance.

• 2. How does Plato connect a belief in the soul to the idea of wisdom as a transcendent state of knowledge? How does the myth of reincarnation fill in his view of the task of pursuing wisdom?
  • Plato believed that the soul was immortal, and therefore knowledge would be eternal, specifically invariable knowledge. If we can understand eternal knowledge, then we must be in part eternal as well. In Phaedo, Plato discusses how reincarnation leads to sage hood and with disembodiment would come wisdom.
  • Plato’s philosophy marks the beginning of organizing thought in a more structured manner. This is the contrast between Homeric wisdom and Platonic wisdom; Homeric wisdom is embedded in action, like Achilles. Platonic wisdom emphasizes rationality and logos. Logos vs. Mythos – mythos is observed more as an emotional state (most obvious in children) while, Logos is like when older children and adults assume roles from the outside world which are systematic and reasoned. For Plato, mental functioning is no longer identified with the organic and the mythic – the senses, with action, with poeticized accounts of reality. Rather it resides in our ability to step back from the purely sensory. The artistic, the poetic, and the mythic, he claims, deal not with the truthful eternal nature of things, but rather with their phenomenal appearance. The mind hence is completely stripped of its mythos roots.
  • This relates back to the idea of Platonic Dualism, which says that someone can only achieve wisdom if his or her soul is disconnected from the body (the body creates barriers to achieving wisdom because of all its needs). He believes that knowledge is abstract and ideal, and therefore the knower of the knowledge also needs to be abstract and ideal. Plato wanted to believe that each time the body is reincarnated, the person becomes more pure because it is detaching itself from physical needs and objects. However, he realized that this is not always true and that even through reincarnation, you could still come back not any wiser (like a slug).
• 3. What is Aristotle's basic theory of wisdom?
  • Aristotle's basic theories of wisdom were pretty opposite of Plato's; the soul dies when the body does, there are no forms, no eternal place, but believed their was invariable knowledge. For Aristotle, there was two types of knowledge within the rational part of the soul: the science part, and the calculative part. Science lead to laws and invariable truths, where the calculative mind lead to deliberation (judgement/variable), intellect, and desire, which had to be controlled. The Greek words for the two parts are episteme and phronesis, respectively. Aristotle thought that deliberation was a human good, and key to wisdom.
  • The virtuous action consists of the mean between two extremes: excess and deficiency. In any given situation, one can be said to act in a brave manner (which would be the virtuous choice), in a rash manner (the extreme of excess) or cowardly (the extreme of deficiency). Thus not only is the mean not easily determined, but it also varies with each individual: a nurse will not be expected to be brave in the same way a fireman would be. Thus it is important for individuals to find the mean that suits them best. Finding the mean path of action for each event is not an exact science – that is why Aristotle insists that a repeated practice is essential to leading a virtuous life; one cannot be called virtuous based on a single action. In fact, to be called virtuous a person should possess all virtues. Moreover, the goal of all things and of all actions is happiness and the good. Thus by avoiding all extremes, virtue’s aim is to achieve the good. A person with a good character will possess all virtues and will therefore act virtuously. This also means that there will be happiness and enjoyment in the choice of the virtuous action: though it may not be the case from the beginning, proper training will allow for enjoyment. For example, a stingy person will learn, after enough experiences, to enjoy generous acts.
• 4. According to Osbeck, how is wisdom a kind of "making" for Aristotle?
  • Osbeck said that Aristotle saw wisdom as an art form, like sculpting and chipping away at the self to find the invariable truths that would make one wise. Through living and deliberating on practical knowledge given from past experiences, one could attain wisdom.
  • Aristotle considers knowledge & understanding reflective of “art” more than experience (Page 70, third paragraph)
  • Art consists in “knowledge of how to make things”…the “making” here implies the making of human life, implying purposeful effort in directing choices toward the development of character in accordance with knowledge of what is good
    • “A man should have practical wisdom for the sake of becoming good”
  • Experience may influence & shape, but purposeful self-direction toward the good life is not implied or required by experience alone.
  • Many are experienced but unwise
  • Aristotle’s theory of virtue states that if you practice virtue you will be virtuous. Therefore, if you practice being virtuous you will become virtuous. Unless you make an effort to be virtuous you will not succeed. You must motivate yourself and make a habit of being virtuous. It is something that must be self taught and is not known strait from birth. This sort of self-training is possible if there is motivation to become virtuous. This type of training is desirable because no one can tell someone else to be virtuous the individual must decide for themselves that they indeed want to be virtuous.

September 19, 2011

• 1. What is Labouvie-Vief's critique of Platonic thought and what remedy does she propose?
  • Labouvie-Vief's critique is that Plato separates the emotions from wisdom, and was anti-body in terms of wisdom (attained through logos). L-V's remedy is "reintegrated thought" and embracing the body in the theory of wisdom, i.e. applying mythos to the theory of wisdom. She believed that since logos was a static idea and mythos was a more relative idea, they could be equally valued to bring about human wisdom. In order to have wisdom, the concept that humans are constantly moving and changing, that the good is changing meant that knowledge would have to be applied to culture with this aspect in mind (using mythos).
  • Labouvie-Vief's criticism of Platonic thought, as it pertains to wisdom, is based in Plato's dualism. Plato's view of disembodiment ignores some of Labouvie-Vief's fundamental attributes of wisdom for example; Platonic thought would place little importance upon subjective and psychological dimensions of life. Plato made the assumption that a person can think independently of the influence of their own subjective experience. Plato’s separation of mythos and logos and overall denial of the importance of mythos denies the roots of the human experience. This mechanization of thought to the extent that there can be thought without thinkers was viewed as a fundamental flaw. While Piaget (formal cognitive developmental theorist) acknowledged that mythos is the root from which logos is formed, Piaget like Plato devalues mythos in later forms of development. On the other hand, Perry (post formal cognitive development) explained the shift to logos as a lack of development of meta-language to connect logos and mythos, suggesting that intelligence and wisdom are associated with the mature reconnection or development of logos and mythos used interdependently. According to Labouvie-Vief, “the mature individual, in turn, realizes that the subjective and communal are a necessary part of one’s endeavors to be objective” (72).
• 2. What were the chief results of Clayton and Birren's multidimensional scaling research on wisdom?
  • History has claimed that wisdom is a positive quality associated with the onset of old age. Compared attributes associated with the young and old with attributes of the wise. Although the older subjects did not judge themselves as any wiser than the younger subjects, the younger subjects attributed wisdom to the older subjects.
  • All subjects perceived wisdom as a "multidimensional attribute involving the integration of general cognitive, affective, and reflective components" (130).

• 3. What explanation might be offered for the result that older people value experience by not necessarily age in defining wisdom?
  • An old person that has never been outside couldn't possibly give advice on when a coat would be acceptable and for what weather, despite their age, something not similarly experienced before couldn't be advised upon. Older people would value experience more than age, because they are already at the age where young people thought that the wisdom would be pouring in, but the old people realize it isn't the years of life they have but the quality of life.
• 4. From the Clayton and Birren article, what would you say are the major theoretical claims of life span psychology regarding wisdom?

September 21, 2011

• 1. How did contemporary psychological work on wisdom get started in the 70s and 80s? Who were the main figures and what initial question and theories did they pose?
• 2. What, in general, was the Berlin Wisdom Pardigm? What did it's critics say about it?
  • The Berlin Wisdom Paradigm was the experiment used to study wisdom scientifically. As a function of an expert knowledge system, wisdom would certainly surface thus the five criteria that collectively make up what is classically called wisdom was born. Critics believed that since wisdom was mysterious, and empirically hard to find, science couldn't possibly be used to determine who was wise. The idea was that if a model for wisdom was created it could be held up by society as a proof.
• 3. How did researchers like Laura Carstensen investigate the hypothesis that older adults excel at emotional regulation and that this might be related to wisdom? What is her "time horizon" theory?
  • The time horizon theory is an idea that when the person begins to see their life coming to a close, the person becomes more oriented to accepting events, and more in control of emotional responses and therefore brings about a certain element of wisdom. The fatalist ideology of the time horizon is that emotional balance and perspective are huge components of attaining wisdom.
  • Older people are generally better at regulating emotions because of their sense of (limited) time left to live. "When your time perspective shortens...you tend to focus on emotionally meaningful goals. When the time horizon is long, you focus on knowledge acquisition" (Hall 63). "Older people experience negative emotions less frequently than younger people, exercise better control over their emotions and...rebound quickly from adverse moments" (Hall 63).The fact that older people have a shorter "time horizon" makes them more concerned with social connections and emotional richness - while young people have an "open-ended sense of the future" and pursue the acquisition of knowledge instead."Carpe diem" attitude is not necessarily tied to age, it occurs whenever a persons "time horizon" shifts. "It has already been detected, for example, in young people exposed to life-altering public events, like the September 11 attacks in the United States" (Hall 71-72).

• 4. What is the grandparent hypothesis?

September 26, 2011

• 1. What are the major assumptions and features of the Baltes Paradigm of Wisdom?
• 2. Explicate and critically evaluate the five-criteria in Baltes' definition.
• 3. How did Baltes operationalize his definition of wisdom? Can wisdom be studied this way?
• 4. How does Aristotle figure out what happiness is in Book 1 of the Nichomachean Ethics?
  • Aristotle's method for happiness is found through asking "Why?" By evaluating what desires are means to an end, and ends, Aristotle theorizes that happiness must be the ultimate end because one would like to achieve happiness to be happy. Since there is no greater end, so virtues lead to a happy soul.
• 5. Summarize and evaluate Aristotle's view of practical wisdom as "reasoned and true state of capacity to act with regard to human goods". Consider, for example, the relationships among practical wisdom, science, and knowledge.

September 28, 2011

• 1. What does it mean to think of wisdom as a "meta-heuristic"?
  • Thinking of wisdom as a "meta-heuristic," is thinking of wisdom as a form of a fast, time saving rule of thumb or short-cut when making life choices. The difference between a meta-heuristic from a proverb is that proverbs are usually tailored to a more detailed part of life, e.g. measure twice, cut once. This is likely more a proverb as it is not general enough to help govern a life choice, but the proverb could be more meta-heuristic if it was along the lines of "think twice before you act." Meta-heuristics can be learned from experiences, if you are always losing money through making bad choices, it would only reaffirm your stock in "Quit while your ahead."
• 2. What is SOC theory and why might it related to wisdom theory? How is it similar/different?
  • SOC theory is a theory in life-span psychology that can be broken down into the three components: Selection, Optimization, Compensation. The theory delineates and reviews life goals by using three heuristics; 1., selection of gain-based goals, through deliberating, articulating and life planning; 2., optimization of means, or management of life using procedural knowledge; 3., compensation, that is the response to loss or response to events.
• 3. Summarize some of the key research findings from the Berlin Paradigm.
  • Some of the research finding were that high scores were rare amongst the groups. Also, from late adolescence to early adulthood, the data supported a development of wisdom and found that there was no increase in wisdom in relation to age. Scores had some correlation to three factors: context-related (age, religion, and education), expertise-related (mentors, role models, professional training, and life experiences), and person-related (intelligence, personality traits, and motivation), which appeared to be contributing factors.