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."

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.

Notes on Labouvie-Vief