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.