“Having failed to identify the methods of science correctly, the philosophes naturally failed to generalize these methods correctly. Specifically, they failed to appreciate that the idea of representing the problematic aims and associated methods of science in the form of a hierarchy can be generalized and applied fruitfully to other worthwhile enterprises besides science. Many other enterprises with problematic aims would benefit from employing a hierarchical methodology generalized from that of science, thus making it possible to improve their own aims and methods as the enterprise proceeds. There is the hope that in this way, some of the astonishing success of science might be exported into other worthwhile endeavors with quite different aims.”
Perhaps the reason they failed to do so was because their primary aim was a DEMOCRATIC society without the kind of “hierarchies” they were facing. And perhaps this is why Maxwell conveniently swept Capitalism (as a cause of the problems he describes (under the rug. He would prefer to establish a kind of corporate hierarchy of academia in which a specially trained group of elites tell everyone else what their reality is. The problem here, to me, is that Maxwell is neglecting the very real influence that corporate funding (as state funding decreases (is having on our universities.
One only need look at the hubris of an academically trained libertarian economist to see what I’m talking about. No matter what argument you present against Capitalism, they will always be there (sporting their access to the scientific method like a badge of authority (with all kinds of data that supports the notion that Capitalism is working just hunky dory –that is even though it is right at the center of every problem that Maxwell describes: global warming, depletion of our natural resources, etc., etc..
(?: I mean how do you detach “vast differences in wealth and power around the globe” from Capitalism….)
This, I think, makes a following point (even though I instinctively agree with it (seem deceptive:
“Academia would seek to learn from, educate, and argue with the world beyond it, but it would not dictate. Ideally, academia would have sufficient power (but no more) to retain its independence from government, industry, the press, public opinion, and other centers of power and influence. If it pursues this course, academia would become a kind of people’s civil service, doing openly for the public what actual civil services are supposed to do in secret for governments. Academia would seek to help humanity realize what is of value in life by intellectual, technological and educational means.”
It sounds nice. It really does. But how does it do this without becoming a kind of priesthood? Another center of power under the influence of corporate funding?
I get where Maxwell is coming from: given the a-rational positions of the right-wing who are basically cheering the problems he describes on, we need to establish some kind of Platonic hierarchy of wisdom. I just think it unwise to dismiss the role that Capitalism is playing in all this -including the act of establishing a Platonic hierarchy.
Can The World Learn Wisdom?
Re: Can The World Learn Wisdom?
This article makes me furious.
Wisdom is an arbitrary thing. It comes in so many varieties. And if the world is going to have complete wisdom, as our author would like, it has to be all equal. It can't be culturally split up like it is.
For instance, a group like ISIS is never going to listen to our version of Wisdom. Groups and individuals like ISIS are always going to be there to interfere and upset the best laid plans.
Anyway, if the world was all wise as this individual would like it would be a gray and boring place, with no dynamism or creative tension. We might as well all go to sleep!
Wisdom is an arbitrary thing. It comes in so many varieties. And if the world is going to have complete wisdom, as our author would like, it has to be all equal. It can't be culturally split up like it is.
For instance, a group like ISIS is never going to listen to our version of Wisdom. Groups and individuals like ISIS are always going to be there to interfere and upset the best laid plans.
Anyway, if the world was all wise as this individual would like it would be a gray and boring place, with no dynamism or creative tension. We might as well all go to sleep!
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SpheresOfBalance
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Re: Can The World Learn Wisdom?
I agree with d63 that capitalism is at the center of the problem. And those that oppose such notions, only do so because they fear their power through money would be null and void, if everyone had equal amounts. As power is born of the disparity between the richest and poorest. It is the fruit of that dichotomy. The wider the gap the sweeter the fruit, and the further away from earthly wisdom we become.
Re: Can The World Learn Wisdom?
“This article makes me furious.
Wisdom is an arbitrary thing. It comes in so many varieties. And if the world is going to have complete wisdom, as our author would like, it has to be all equal. It can't be culturally split up like it is.
For instance, a group like ISIS is never going to listen to our version of Wisdom. Groups and individuals like ISIS are always going to be there to interfere and upset the best laid plans.
Anyway, if the world was all wise as this individual would like it would be a gray and boring place, with no dynamism or creative tension. We might as well all go to sleep!”
Not sure it makes me furious. My main issue with it is the way it just dismisses the role Capitalism is playing in it without ever explaining why the theorists that argued as such were wrong. Because of this, it compromises an otherwise good point by neglecting the role that Capitalism is playing in the privilege given to knowledge over wisdom. This hits home for me towards the end of the article when Maxwell says:
“Rationality requires that feelings and desires take fact, knowledge and logic into account, just as it requires that priorities for scientific research take feelings and desires into account.”
I'm up with that. But even here he seems to be contradicting himself when you consider what he said earlier:
“1. The progress-achieving methods of science need to be correctly identified.
2. These methods need to be correctly generalized so that they may be fruitfully applied to any worthwhile problematic human endeavor, whatever its aims may be, and not just applicable to the one endeavor of acquiring knowledge.”
The progress-achieving methods of science, as far as I know, tends to be matter of what achieves results, regardless of our feelings and desires. And this is where Capitalism winds its spindly little fingers into it: feelings and desires only play into it after science has created something that marketers can make people desire: such as an i-pod or something.
I’m kind of fumbling around here, but you said something relevant earlier:
“Wisdom is not, or shouldn't be, a fixed thing since the world is always in flux. It needs periodical revamping, like philosophy does.
The type of wisdom Maxwell wants to see is for a fixed world, one that is static and doesn't change. Such wisdom would end us in collapse like past glorious empires.”
I see two important points being made here. For one, it is hard to see how the methods of science (that which seeks the fixed (can be applied to wisdom through a “generalization of its methods”. Wisdom, as you suggest, is a matter of playing things by ear. Secondly, Maxwell does seem to be offering a questionable solution to a legitimate diagnosis. I agree that a lot of our problems come from the privilege given to knowledge over wisdom. I’m just not sure I agree the solution is yet another platonic hierarchy applied to academies. As he argues at one point:
“Academia would seek to learn from, educate, and argue with the world beyond it, but it would not dictate. Ideally, academia would have sufficient power (but no more) to retain its independence from government, industry, the press, public opinion, and other centers of power and influence. If it pursues this course, academia would become a kind of people’s civil service, doing openly for the public what actual civil services are supposed to do in secret for governments. Academia would seek to help humanity realize what is of value in life by intellectual, technological and educational means.”
The thing is this isn’t exactly a radical notion. As Rorty (who was heavily influenced by Dewey: a major influence on our education system (describes in Philosophy and Social Hope, the ideal for some time was that primary schooling would give students the understanding they needed to function in the world (knowledge (while secondary education would offer them the tools to be good citizens: wisdom. In that sense, Maxwell is basically offering us a cure that has already been tried but has, according to his article, failed.
And I would argue that this is because he too casually dismissed the role that producer/consumer Capitalism is playing in the very problem he accurately diagnosed. He failed to recognize that it was the increasing influence of corporate funding in the face of decreasing state funding that undermined the very agenda he describes that was already being tried by academia. It’s like he was subconsciously engaging in a kind of nostalgia.
Wisdom is an arbitrary thing. It comes in so many varieties. And if the world is going to have complete wisdom, as our author would like, it has to be all equal. It can't be culturally split up like it is.
For instance, a group like ISIS is never going to listen to our version of Wisdom. Groups and individuals like ISIS are always going to be there to interfere and upset the best laid plans.
Anyway, if the world was all wise as this individual would like it would be a gray and boring place, with no dynamism or creative tension. We might as well all go to sleep!”
Not sure it makes me furious. My main issue with it is the way it just dismisses the role Capitalism is playing in it without ever explaining why the theorists that argued as such were wrong. Because of this, it compromises an otherwise good point by neglecting the role that Capitalism is playing in the privilege given to knowledge over wisdom. This hits home for me towards the end of the article when Maxwell says:
“Rationality requires that feelings and desires take fact, knowledge and logic into account, just as it requires that priorities for scientific research take feelings and desires into account.”
I'm up with that. But even here he seems to be contradicting himself when you consider what he said earlier:
“1. The progress-achieving methods of science need to be correctly identified.
2. These methods need to be correctly generalized so that they may be fruitfully applied to any worthwhile problematic human endeavor, whatever its aims may be, and not just applicable to the one endeavor of acquiring knowledge.”
The progress-achieving methods of science, as far as I know, tends to be matter of what achieves results, regardless of our feelings and desires. And this is where Capitalism winds its spindly little fingers into it: feelings and desires only play into it after science has created something that marketers can make people desire: such as an i-pod or something.
I’m kind of fumbling around here, but you said something relevant earlier:
“Wisdom is not, or shouldn't be, a fixed thing since the world is always in flux. It needs periodical revamping, like philosophy does.
The type of wisdom Maxwell wants to see is for a fixed world, one that is static and doesn't change. Such wisdom would end us in collapse like past glorious empires.”
I see two important points being made here. For one, it is hard to see how the methods of science (that which seeks the fixed (can be applied to wisdom through a “generalization of its methods”. Wisdom, as you suggest, is a matter of playing things by ear. Secondly, Maxwell does seem to be offering a questionable solution to a legitimate diagnosis. I agree that a lot of our problems come from the privilege given to knowledge over wisdom. I’m just not sure I agree the solution is yet another platonic hierarchy applied to academies. As he argues at one point:
“Academia would seek to learn from, educate, and argue with the world beyond it, but it would not dictate. Ideally, academia would have sufficient power (but no more) to retain its independence from government, industry, the press, public opinion, and other centers of power and influence. If it pursues this course, academia would become a kind of people’s civil service, doing openly for the public what actual civil services are supposed to do in secret for governments. Academia would seek to help humanity realize what is of value in life by intellectual, technological and educational means.”
The thing is this isn’t exactly a radical notion. As Rorty (who was heavily influenced by Dewey: a major influence on our education system (describes in Philosophy and Social Hope, the ideal for some time was that primary schooling would give students the understanding they needed to function in the world (knowledge (while secondary education would offer them the tools to be good citizens: wisdom. In that sense, Maxwell is basically offering us a cure that has already been tried but has, according to his article, failed.
And I would argue that this is because he too casually dismissed the role that producer/consumer Capitalism is playing in the very problem he accurately diagnosed. He failed to recognize that it was the increasing influence of corporate funding in the face of decreasing state funding that undermined the very agenda he describes that was already being tried by academia. It’s like he was subconsciously engaging in a kind of nostalgia.
Re: Can The World Learn Wisdom?
Amen Brother spheres!!!!!
AMEN!!!!!
AMEN!!!!!
Re: Can The World Learn Wisdom?
Wisdom can't be dictated as this article suggests. Wisdom is learned by going through the motions, through trial and error. And the world always has new players who need to discover and test wisdom for themselves.
The article doesn't make a lot of sense. But is does provoke thinking as it was meant to do, even though it itself isn't very enlightened.
I wish I could have written such an article and gotten away with it.
Since this issue in which the article is written is about Art the author should have breached the question about the wisdom of art.
The article doesn't make a lot of sense. But is does provoke thinking as it was meant to do, even though it itself isn't very enlightened.
I wish I could have written such an article and gotten away with it.
Since this issue in which the article is written is about Art the author should have breached the question about the wisdom of art.
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Dalek Prime
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Re: Can The World Learn Wisdom?
Groups don't have minds, ergo can learn nothing. Only minds can learn. Stop confusing groups for individuals.
Re: Can The World Learn Wisdom?
There is such a thing as collective wisdom. Collective wisdom implies and requires a group, which is made up of individuals.Dalek Prime wrote:Groups don't have minds, ergo can learn nothing. Only minds can learn. Stop confusing groups for individuals.
Ironic, is it not?
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Dalek Prime
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Re: Can The World Learn Wisdom?
Ironic? Not really. Because you say there is? Okay then. 
Show me collective wisdom please, aside from vagaries.
Show me collective wisdom please, aside from vagaries.
Re: Can The World Learn Wisdom?
I think this is a good explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_wisdomDalek Prime wrote:Ironic? Not really. Because you say there is? Okay then.
Show me collective wisdom please, aside from vagaries.
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Dalek Prime
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Re: Can The World Learn Wisdom?
I don't. I think collective wisdom is like a ghost. Just because we can talk about ghosts at length, doesn't make it any more real.spike wrote:I think this is a good explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_wisdomDalek Prime wrote:Ironic? Not really. Because you say there is? Okay then.
Show me collective wisdom please, aside from vagaries.
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SpheresOfBalance
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Re: Can The World Learn Wisdom?
Amen, my brother d63, AMEN. I'm a firm believer that all the "spheres" of influence on planet earth must "balance" at all costs. Otherwise we're "ultimately" doomed. The spheres of balance are what allowed life to exist in the first place, and it's imperative that it must be maintained. Think of hydrogen versus helium, one versus two valance electrons, respectively. Balance makes all the difference in the universe, hence our existence.d63 wrote:Amen Brother spheres!!!!!
AMEN!!!!!
Re: Can The World Learn Wisdom?
The article is entitled Can The World Learned Wisdom? I say that the world has more wisdom under its belt now than at any time in history. And as the years go on the world will get even wiser.
Re: Can The World Learn Wisdom?
..which is usually the result of self-inflicted miseries. The world will indeed be getting wiser at an expedited rate. It's catalyst will be the question "how could we have been so stupid and is it retroactive?"spike wrote:And as the years go on the world will get even wiser.
Re: Can The World Learn Wisdom?
Which just goes to show you that being wiser is not always for the best.Dubious wrote: ..which is usually the result of self-inflicted miseries. The world will indeed be getting wiser at an expedited rate. It's catalyst will be the question "how could we have been so stupid and is it retroactive?"