Difference between revisions of "Tem"

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==November 7th 2013==
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===Baltes & Smith, "Toward a Psychology of Wisdom and its Ontegenesis" 1990===
  
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===Sam Wyss===
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:*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
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Initially, I felt it necessary to apologize at the beginning of this post on the lack of my understanding on this material, but I decided to stray from that, because hopefully my questions, and desire for clarity, will help spark further discussion. Other than that, I have no opinion on the matter, simply questions. So here it goes. Modernity is obsessed with the idea of accuracy and precision of knowledge obtained by science and reason. In post-modernity, have we strayed from that idea in the sense that we believe knowledge can be derived from something other than science and philosophy? Or is more along the lines that we might say that meaning and clarity that we once thought were so obtainable are not nearly that simple? In my outside research on what postmodernism is concerned with, it appears that the way we look at the world, from the enlightenment on, is skewed, it is fraud. There are some truths that can be derived from the fruits of philosophy, but meaning is only a construct of our subjective consciousness. Is that right? If so, where does that place philosophers in the world? Do they have any value? How do we obtain knowledge in an objective way? Is that a possibility? Another piece that sparked my interest and my question was the quote that Alfino references, which is that of Derrida regarding differences and traces of things. If I understand that piece right, Derrida is saying that no “element” can stand by itself, because everything can be traced to something else. So, that would imply things are an illusion. In regards to that idea, is there every a chance of trusting something to be one-hundred percent true, or is this life a narrative that we create from our consciousness, and all we do is play a long in the narrative? (Truly, I hope I am not getting this wrong and creating questions that aren’t related to the subject matter.) If the presence of meaning is nothing more than an illusion, we can never place meaning in something, right? That seems a bit scary and disheartening. Okay, I don’t want to run on with a list of questions, especially if I do not understand the material fully. Thanks everyone!
 
  
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===Alynna Nemes===
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:*Interesting discussion of problem of giving a scientific treatment of wisdom, p. 89.
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In the Grenz reading, the post modernist philosopher, Rorty, clearly made philosophers less significant than his predecessors. In the Republic, Socrates describes the ideal state using philosophers as kings and rulers. Rorty would reject Socrates belief that philosophers should be placed on a high pedestal. He  voices that philosophers are not that special and great after all; "The post modern philosopher can only decry the notion of having a view while avoiding a view about having views" (159). The significance and importance of philosophers has vanished because postmodernists like Rorty, abandon the philosophical goal of searching for a universal theory of knowledge in favor of an ongoing discussion ; philosophy goes from knowledge to interpretation- from epistemology to hermeneutics. In hermeneutics, there are countless ways to view and understand the world and how we should live life. All these ways to live life are in conflict with one another. There is no unity or coherence in how we view the world. Plato, Marx, Kant, and many other philosophers have conflicting views on meaning, morality, and living. Rorty goes further to say that philosophy "is not endowed with the ability to decide issues of ultimate significance for human life, that the philosopher is no super scientist" (160). The quest to find meaning and answers to life's biggest questions through philosophy has ended because all it can do in a postmodern world is have well informed opinions and debates.
 
  
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One thing I find troubling about postmodern philosophy is that language becomes insignificant in the sense that that "a word has no intrinsic meaning, that it is merely a convention, the regular use of a mark or noise. Language, in turn is a tool- human beings using marks and noises to get what they want" (Grenz 154). If everyone believed that language is condensed and had no intrinsic meaning, there would be no articulate and meaningful civilization. This reminded me of George Orwell's 1984 novel where vocabulary is increasing becoming limited and shortened to the point where people in this society would be expected to speak in quacks and noises. Postmodernists really make what people use to express value and meaningfulness trivial and insignificant.
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:*Fundamental assumption #1: Wisdom is an "expert knowledge system" (what is an expert system - mention Affectiva)
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:*Fundamental assumption:#2: A dual-process model of intelligence (Mechanics / Pragmatics) is most relevant to understanding wisdom.
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:*Fundamental assumption #3: Wisdom is about life pragmatics, understood as life planning, review 
  
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===Peter Guthrie===
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:*The '''"Baltes Five"''' Criteria Construct for Wisdom:
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Dr. Alfino describes Post Modernism as a methodological strategy and has post structuralist (culture understood in terms of abstract sets of opposition) views of meaning. Post Modernism holds that all effort and understanding comes from one's use of the contents of their own consciousness and that consciousness is only has meaning pre-linguistically (outside of language). When things change language is used to express and explain it. So it is not the words that have meaning. I think, what it being said is that words are only a convention, a way to point at, the meaning in our own consciousness. Post Modernism moves away from a system of language and meaning where one person codifies and sends the message and the other person decodes it. In Post Modernism, what makes something what it is is its place in a system and meaning is distributed within the system of signification. This is mostly what I got out of the lecture but Dr. Alfino also makes a distinction between a signified and a signifier. However, on this point and on a few others I could use a little more explanation before I try to write about them here.
 
  
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===Marshall Powell===
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::*Rich factual knowledge: accumulation of knowledge which facilitates predictive ability to see how relationships, causes, and meanings will interact in a situation. "a representation of the expected sequential flow of events in a particular situation"
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I thought the Grenz article was very interesting. The short summaries of the origins of Michel Foucault, Richard Rorty, and Jacques Derrida were informative and really helped to frame their ideas and philosophy. The most interesting of these ideas for me were those of Foucalt relating to knowledge. There is a very strong feeling in contemporary scientific communities of objectivity. Science is viewed as the highest form of human thought, and the discoveries made by science are considered the most accurate, and nearest to truth forms of knowledge. Foucault's claims about the biased and self serving nature of science and history are very controversial. In someways it is clear that science is always hampered by the subjective nature of our interest. In scientific studies, it is impossible to be completely exhaustive in your data collection, and similarly data is not collected at random. There is always some outside force directing the collection of data and information. This outside force is human focus and interest. Human focus and interest, however, is easily influenced by outside pressures of society, and the desire to better one's own personal position. In this way, I believe that Foucault is right in claiming that there is a weakness in science.  
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::*Rich procedural knowledge: accumulation of knowledge which facilitates understanding of strategies of problem solving, advice seeking.
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::*Life span contextualism: understanding a problem in awareness of it's place in the life span.
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::*Relativism: Understanding and taking into account the range of values, goals, and priorities in human life.
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::*Uncertainty: awareness of limits of knowledge in general and in particular factual cases.  
  
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I find Derrida's claim that there is nothing beyond the text a bit difficult to grasp. I'd like to discuss this topic in class.
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===Small Group Exercise===
  
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===Riley Peschon===
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:*For each of the five, identify 3 examples, a word or phrase to describe someone not good at that aspect, a critical question or two.
  
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Having never been formally introduced to postmodernism, I found the idea of rejecting the autonomous self to be very intriguing. It feels as if much of the philosophy in Gonzaga’s core curriculum (at least in my experience) rarely touches on this denunciation, as we strive towards become holistic individuals.
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===Baltes & Freund, "Wisdom as Meta-Heuristic and SOC" 2002===
  
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I was particularly interested in one section of Alfino’s presentation, where he stated that “postmodern thought as a form of cultural criticism… shows us insightful things about how we represent ourselves in a cultural sense” and the lack of access to the conscious outside of language. The communication between the conscious and the self seems pretty unanswerable at this point. Alfino’s notes correlated with Foucault’s perspective, as Grenz said that he would ask, “how has the concept of human nature functioned in our society?” rather than “what is human nature?” I have always had the idea that the human conscious was somewhat inherent. Postmodernism challenges this, as not only is the conscious shaped by culture (not too radical of an idea), but human nature is something that can be altered by culture as well.
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:*Sophia vs. Phronesis (one more time)
  
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Grenz described that both Derrida and Foucault were certainly against our “logocentric quest for meaning” (150). This is genuinely new territory for my philosophical thought process and to be honest, it is pretty awesome. I look forward to discussing this more in class, as there seems to be a lot of stances in postmodernism worth talking about. Discussing in class will help my understanding of some of the thought processes involved, as I also struggled to fully grasp some of the ideas that Grenz went over.
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:*Selection, Optimization, and Compensation is a collection of behavioral strategies for managing life pragmatics.
  
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:*Note definition of wisdom p. 251:  strategies for peak or optimal functioning. but must be normative.  Need to actually know something about what is really important in human flourishing to produce wisdom (this could be seen as a knowledge bias or a legitimate grounding of wisdom in knowledge).  Baltes & Co.  are siding with the traditions of philosophy and religion on this one.  Wisdom is normative.
  
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===Evan Dobbs===
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:*Good review of Baltes (Berlin) Paradigm:  note detail on "recognition and management of uncertainty" p. 253.
  
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I found the Badiou reading very challenging and confusing at times. He made very bold statements, but seemed to back them up with common critiques of society like "materialism, commercialism, etc." without clearly stating how these things have harmed the things he says it has harmed. Nevertheless I will try and sum up what I think he is trying to argue. I believe Badiou is taking issue with the fact that philosophy is somewhat giving up on the questions posed by early philosophers about knowledge and truth. He thinks contemporary philosophy is "too strongly committed to the equivocalness of meaning and the plurality of languages." I think the key word Badiou has a problem with is "equivocalness," which can be defined as open to two or more interpretations. Multiple interpretations does not sit well with him. Badiou wants to bring philosophy back to the days of competing ideas, where one or the other could be right, not both. The "desire" seems to be gone from philosophy since everyone seems to be content with differing opinions. Badiou goes on to suggest a new system of thinking. He denounces language as a tool to be used by philosophers, and agrees with Plato that it is the "things" we should be concerned with, not necessarily the language.
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:*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."
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'''Quick exercise:'''  identify contemporary meta-heuristics in your experience
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:*SOC -- a heuristic for delineating, pursuing, and reviewing goals. (It's a heuristic for life management, so relevant to the Baltes paradigm)
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::*Selection -- of goals    -- can be either elective selection or loss selection.  Deliberate, articulate...  approach vs. avoidance goals. loss also from zero sum aspect of goals as when an athlete becomes a scholar.
 +
::*Optimization -- of means. "Acquire and invest"  - sub-skills like "monitoring between actual and desired state"  - ability to delay gratification '''(Mischel)'''
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::*Compensation -- response to loss of means. Response to events.
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:*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".)
 +
 
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:*Rubenstein quote at 265. Brim's "My Father's Window Box"
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===Kunzman and Baltes, "The Psychology of Wisdom: Theoretical and Practical Challenges"===
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:*Challenges:
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::# defining wisdom in a way that separates it from other human excellences.
 +
::# formulating a definition of wisdom that can be empirically investigated.
 +
 
 +
:*Distinction between implicit and explicit (112).
 +
 
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:*Three types of wisdom constructs:
 +
::# wisdom as aspect of personality development in later life (Erikson) - characterized by detachment from self-interest (note: not the only option)
 +
::# 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
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::# form of intelligence and expertise (Baltes)
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::*Note: We'll add at least a fourth to this when we look at culture and wisdom later in the term.
 +
 
 +
:*clearer explanation (than Baltes and Smith) of "cognitive mechanics" vs. "cognitive pragmatics" (116)
 +
 
 +
:*"Big Picture" Review Model on p. 120.  Note how it points to further topics that we will discuss in the semester. Note on 122: at young ages, we over identify high IQ individuals as wise. (Parallel to misperception of old as wise.)
 +
 
 +
:*'''Discussion Topic''': Must wisdom be oriented toward the individual and common good? sketch arguments together briefly.
 +
 
 +
:*Empirical Results from "Think Aloud" research:
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::#  High scores rare.
 +
::#  Late adolescence and early adulthood is primary age window for onset of wisdom. Age doesn't predict score increases after that.
 +
::#  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).
 +
 
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===Misc===
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 +
(Some notes on Ontogenesis of wisdom from these three readings.)
 +
 
 +
::*Note how you can explain the  "age of onset" of wisdom as optimization of cognitive mechanics and pragmatics (suggests it can't be too old and that oldsters who maintain good mechanics (rare) might be outliers (high in wisdom)). 
 +
 
 +
::*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). "

Revision as of 23:34, 11 February 2015

Baltes & Smith, "Toward a Psychology of Wisdom and its Ontegenesis" 1990

  • 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.
  • Fundamental assumption #1: Wisdom is an "expert knowledge system" (what is an expert system - mention Affectiva)
  • Fundamental assumption:#2: A dual-process model of intelligence (Mechanics / Pragmatics) is most relevant to understanding wisdom.
  • Fundamental assumption #3: Wisdom is about life pragmatics, understood as life planning, review
  • The "Baltes Five" Criteria Construct for Wisdom:
  • Rich factual knowledge: accumulation of knowledge which facilitates predictive ability to see how relationships, causes, and meanings will interact in a situation. "a representation of the expected sequential flow of events in a particular situation"
  • Rich procedural knowledge: accumulation of knowledge which facilitates understanding of strategies of problem solving, advice seeking.
  • Life span contextualism: understanding a problem in awareness of it's place in the life span.
  • Relativism: Understanding and taking into account the range of values, goals, and priorities in human life.
  • Uncertainty: awareness of limits of knowledge in general and in particular factual cases.

Small Group Exercise

  • For each of the five, identify 3 examples, a word or phrase to describe someone not good at that aspect, a critical question or two.

Baltes & Freund, "Wisdom as Meta-Heuristic and SOC" 2002

  • Sophia vs. Phronesis (one more time)
  • 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. but must be normative. Need to actually know something about what is really important in human flourishing to produce wisdom (this could be seen as a knowledge bias or a legitimate grounding of wisdom in knowledge). Baltes & Co. are siding with the traditions of philosophy and religion on this one. Wisdom is normative.
  • 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."

Quick exercise: identify contemporary meta-heuristics in your experience

  • SOC -- a heuristic for delineating, pursuing, and reviewing goals. (It's a heuristic for life management, so relevant to the Baltes paradigm)
  • Selection -- of goals -- can be either elective selection or loss selection. Deliberate, articulate... approach vs. avoidance goals. loss also from zero sum aspect of goals as when an athlete becomes a scholar.
  • Optimization -- of means. "Acquire and invest" - sub-skills 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".)
  • Rubenstein quote at 265. Brim's "My Father's Window Box"

Kunzman and Baltes, "The Psychology of Wisdom: Theoretical and Practical Challenges"

  • 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.
  • Distinction between implicit and explicit (112).
  • Three types of wisdom constructs:
  1. wisdom as aspect of personality development in later life (Erikson) - characterized by detachment from self-interest (note: not the only option)
  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)
  • Note: We'll add at least a fourth to this when we look at culture and wisdom later in the term.
  • clearer explanation (than Baltes and Smith) of "cognitive mechanics" vs. "cognitive pragmatics" (116)
  • "Big Picture" Review Model on p. 120. Note how it points to further topics that we will discuss in the semester. Note on 122: at young ages, we over identify high IQ individuals as wise. (Parallel to misperception of old as wise.)
  • Discussion Topic: Must wisdom be oriented toward the individual and common good? sketch arguments together briefly.
  • 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).

Misc

(Some notes on Ontogenesis of wisdom from these three readings.)

  • Note how you can explain the "age of onset" of wisdom as optimization of cognitive mechanics and pragmatics (suggests it can't be too old and that oldsters who maintain good mechanics (rare) might be outliers (high in wisdom)).
  • 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). "
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