Spring 2014 Wisdom Course Lecture Notes A

Return to Wisdom

JAN 14

Course Introduction

1. Call roll. Brief student introductions.

2. Introduction to the course topic.

3. Introduction to the course websites.

4. Turning Point clicker technology.

5. Ereserves, Grading Schemes, and the Prep Cycle.

JAN 16

Themes in today's readings

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

Hall, Chapter 1 "What is Wisdom?"

• opening story, point about wisdom
• Perceptions of wise individuals and gender. (Someone look up Lysistrata for next time)
• his approach, p. 16 (using science) - definition of wisdom, bot. 17 --
• Hall's initial theoretical definition: bot 18 -- read & note

Robinson, "Wisdom Through the Ages"

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

Socrates

• note on Homeric concept --- p. 13-14: Greek concept of soul/nous
• distinctions among sophia, phronesis, episteme
• Socratic "anti-body" view of wisdom

Aristotle

• Aristotle's concept of wisdom. idion ergon (task, mission, purpose)/ prohaireseis(deliberated choices) / hexeis (dispositions). (Put it together.)
• Knowing Final Causes. (possible small group discussion)
• Practical wisdom (phronesis), theoretical (scientific) knowledge (theoretikes), practical knowledge (ergon)

Epicureans & Stoics (Helenist Schools)

• comment on his gloss of stoics.

Christian Wisdom

• the difference that revelation makes to your model of wisdom. (cf. back to Hellenists) sophia vs. pistis theon
• Christian split (influences): Aristotelean vs. Platonic
• Aquinas: quote on p. 20 -- "perspective shift" is a common theme in wisdom accounts

Post-classical world (Renaissance, scientific rev and beyond)

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

JAN 21

Some housekeeping: note study questions (limit Robinson);

Hall, Wisdom, Ch. 2: Socrates + Axial Age

• Image of Socrates: Does his example support the claim that wisdom is real?
• Axial Age Hypothesis
• Dist. characteristics, p. 24.

Greek

• Contrast between Pericles and Socrates, p. 28

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

Primary class interest here is to get contrasting images of wisdom across the so-called Axial Age.

Confucius

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

Buddha

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

Osbeck and Robinson, Philosophical Wisdom

• Question of "Where did the problem of wisdom go?"; possible effect of science; scepticism;
• Note on its revival.
• Necessary Presuppositions of wisdom (?): truth not mere conventional; health and sickness are real.
• On Homeric concept: details.
• On Aristotle: read p. 67 three times slowly
• Importance of quality of deliberation. Matters variable (How does this help you distinguish forms of wisdom here?) Note that different sorts of intelligence are being discussed.
• The invariant, role of demonstration in.
• What could intuition and insight be?

JAN 23

Labouvie-Vief, "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.

• Thesis: The revival of interest in wisdom is important for highlighting the differences between models of cognition in classical thought and over the life span."Many recent writings suggest, instead, that theories of cognition or intelligence that are based on ^ the assumption of the primacy of objective forms of knowing provide an incomplete and possibly distorted picture of the human mind." 52
• Piaget: inner/outer processes. assimilation/accommodation (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
• Platonic thought represents a huge break from this. "For Plato, the adult is no longer embedded in a concrete, organic, and participatory reality." 59
• Small group work: line up and develop the oppositions in the author's opposition between mythos/logos.
• Piaget: model of child development is initially organic, but only in early stages of life. goal of development. Goal is independence of subjectivity (66)
• Homeric heroes not self-reflective, embedded in action, see themselves moved by divine forces.
• "reintegrated thought," seeing goal of adulthood in term of balancing of logos and mythos, 67. embodied thinking 72.

Clayton and Birren, "Wisdom across the Life Span"

• Note from historical treatment: East/West differences. Compare to Gisela.

• Western biblical tradition: Three paths. 105-106.
• Eastern traditions.

• Multidimensional Scaling Study: Note method (see link on wiki) and results. Cognitive, affective, and reflective qualities.
• Topic of discussion: Are older people wiser?

• Note discussion at 119.
• Conclusion at 130: Older subjects also connect wisdom more closely with affective understanding and empathy
• All age groups perceive wisdom as "integration of cognitive, affective, and reflective components."

JAN 28

Birren and Svensson, Wisdom in History (2005)

• 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.

• Connects with ancients on relation between knowledge and wisdom.
• Uncertainty: maybe wisdom is required where there is uncertainty. Knowledge reduces uncertainty. What follows?

• 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.

• Discuss "meta-cognitive" dimension of wisdom. (17)
• Wisdom and age (19)

• First characterization of Berlin Wisdom Paradigm: also Hall 49. Note method, model included historical study. criticisms (note positive aspect here). Ardelt trajectory (Hall)
• Sternberg's direction: relation of wisdom to intelligence and creativity (note on method here: use of constructs.)
• Taranto: focus on human limitation.
• Kramer: organismic. cognition/affect. five functions.
• McKee and Barber: "seeing through illusion"
• Meacham: fallibility of knowledge. balance of positivity/doubt.
• Chandler and Holliday: most well developed construct after Baltes. (23)

Hall, Wisdom, 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.

JAN 30

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

• socioemotional selectivity theory (Cartensen's) - How can the benefits of this view become available to the young?

• Job's emotional resilience. Is it patience?

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

• Gross: "reappraisal" and "reflection" as techniques of emotional regulation. vs. rumination

• Cartensens' research in assisted living homes. counterintuitive answers. (67) "time horizon" theory. Implications.

• Carstensen on the paradigmatic tasks of the young (70)

• 71: neuroscience on learning from loss; affective forecasting; young as steep "discounters"

• 73: emotional resilience in Davidson's neuroscience research. Gabrielli studies on young amygdalas. Gross on male/female emotional processing.

• postive illusion (optimism bias)

• "Grandparent hypothesis"

Grading Schemes

• We'll take some time at the end of class to discuss your options with the grading schemes.

FEB 4

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

• 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.

FEB 6

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.

• source for distinction between implicit and explicit (112).

• 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" (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).

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.