Dear Percy,
It is, in my view, a profound mistake to think that global problems are a consequence of immorality (selfishness, greed, etc.), so that, if only people were more moral, the problems would quickly disappear. You don't have to be all that moral to care about the welfare of one's children and grandchildren. It is not, primarily, immorality that is the problem, but impotence. Most people, I think, feel profoundly impotent before the march of history, the course of public events. What we urgently need is new or modified institutions and social arrangements that enable us to do, together, in a coordinated, cooperative fashion, what we need to do to ameliorate our global problems. What is needed is public learning about what our problems are, and what we need to do about them. And for that, we need our public institutions of learning to be well designed, rationally designed and devoted for the job. It is that that we lack. Our institutions of learning - our universities - are an intellectual disaster when judged from this standpoint. New kinds of cooperative action cannot get underway without prior cooperative discussion. It is that that universities ought to be promoting and sustaining, but they are not. They don't even conceive of their task in that way. Why not? Because, as I keep saying, from the past we have inherited this intellectually disastrous conception of inquiry that puts all the emphasis on the acquisition of knowledge, rather than the increasingly cooperatively rational resolving of problems of living.
You say " it does not seem possible to me to make much headway in that direction by the rational application of the scientific method to this subject". But that ignores that it is a much improved and generalized conception of scientific method that I argue we need to employ to help us resolve conflicts and problems of living. And of course what we seek to develop and assess are not theories or claims to knowledge, but proposals for action, policies, plans, possible social arrangements and actions, ways of living, philosophies of life. And "experience" means not "observation and experiment" but what we feel and suffer when we put policies into action.
In an as-yet unpublished work I put it like this:-
"We need to get the aim-improving methods of AOR [Aim-Oriented Rationality], arrived at by generalizing AOE [Aim-Oriented Empiricism], into all our worthwhile, problematic endeavours besides science, into government, industry, agriculture, commerce, the media, law, education, international relations - and into that great, heart-rending endeavour, in so far as it exists, of groping towards a better, wiser, more enlightened world.
"AOR is especially relevant when it comes to this last age-old task. The aim of achieving a civilized, good world is inherently profoundly problematic. People have very different ideas as to what does constitute civilization. Most views about what constitutes an ideally civilized society have been unrealizable, undesirable, or both. People's interests, values and ideals clash. Even values that, one may hold, ought to be a part of civilization may clash. Thus
freedom and equality, even though inter-related, may nevertheless clash. It would be an odd notion of individual freedom which held that freedom was for some, and not for others; and yet if equality is pursued too singlemindedly this will undermine individual freedom, and will even undermine equality, in that a privileged class will be required to enforce equality on the rest, as in the old Soviet Union. A basic aim of legislation for civilization, we may well hold, ought to be increase freedom by restricting it: this brings out the inherently problematic, paradoxical character of the aim of achieving civilization.
"Here, above all, AOR - a generalized version of AOE - must be implemented if there is to be any hope whatsoever of making some progress towards a better, wiser world: see diagram 4 for an indication of how AOE, as depicted in diagram 2 on page X, might be generalized and applied to this task.
"AOR, exploited in personal, social or institutional life, differs in some important respects from AOE, exploited by science in pursuit of knowledge. In personal and social life, what are critically assessed are not theories, not claims to knowledge, but rather actions and possible actions: plans, proposals for action, policies, political programmes, ways of living, philosophies of life. These, as in science, are to be assessed in terms of experience and other considerations, but unlike science, in life experience means human experience, what we enjoy and suffer as a result of implementing plans or policies. The problems we seek to solve in life are problems of living, problems that arise as we seek to achieve what is of value to us in the diverse contexts of life not, in general, problems of knowledge (although a problem of knowledge may, of course, arise as an aspect of a problem of living). What solves a problem of living is a deed, an action (or a series of actions, or the inhibition of action), not in general an item of knowledge. And in life the aim, we may presume, is to realize what is of value in the diverse circumstances of personal and social life - the scientific aim of acquiring knowledge being a very special case.
"Despite these differences, AOE exploited in science in the pursuit of knowledge, and AOR exploited in personal and social life in the pursuit of what is of value, have crucial structural features in common. Both require that problematic aims be represented in the form of a hierarchy of aims so that a relatively unproblematic framework of aims and associated methods may be created within which much more specific and problematic aims and associated methods may be developed, tried, assessed, and improved. Both require that potential solutions to problems be proposed and then critically assessed by means of argument and experience. Both embody a form of learning by trial and error. Both facilitate learning about how to learn, there being the possibility of positive feedback between success in achieving goals and improved aims and methods designed to facilitate further such success."
In order to give ourselves a reasonable chance of making progress towards as good a world as possible we really do need to put something like AOR into practice in our personal, institutional and social lives. Unfortunately, we have not yet understood the need to do this in science - let alone in life!
We are suffering from an intellectual blunder, a bad philosophy of inquiry built into our institutions of learning. It is that which prevents us from learning how to resolve our conflicts and problems of living in increasingly cooperatively rational ways - effectively, humanely and intelligently. It is the intellectually defective character of our institutions of learning, indeed, which has led to the creation of our global problems in the first place. Modern science and technology, as I keep saying, have led to much that is good, but have also led to modern industry and agriculture, modern armaments, modern hygiene and medicine, which in turn have led to population growth, the lethal character of modern war, destruction of natural habitats and extinction of species, pollution of earth, sea and air, and above all the impending disasters of climate change. If we had had in place a kind of academic enterprise which gave intellectual priority to promoting increasingly cooperatively rational tackling of problems of living, and to helping us put Aim-Oriented Rationality into personal and social life, we might still have created all our current global problems - but at least we would have had a kind of inquiry designed to help us resolve them before they defeat us!
Best wishes,
Nick
Website: www.ucl.ac.uk/from-knowledge-to-wisdom
Publications online: http://philpapers.org/profile/17092
http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/view/people/ANMAX22.date.html
-----Original Message-----
From: Group concerned that academia should seek and promote wisdom [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Percy Mark
Sent: 27 July 2015 13:28
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: My Wakeup
Dear Nick,
As you know, I am full of admiration for your tenacity in trying to make our academic institutions acknowledge and face up to the real challenges which face us today and thereby become more relevant to the work of finding real solutions. And I also broadly agree with your lists of what these ‘real challenges’ are.
And it surely requires wisdom to achieve this.
But it does not seem possible to me to make much headway in that direction by the rational application of the scientific method to this subject.
I am sure you would agree, that, if ethical behaviour was a number-one priority for the vast majority of the human population, your list of ‘real challenges’ would dwindle to a very few problems. But ethical behaviour, as we well know, is not susceptible to being pinned down by an enquiry via the scientific method. Or is it?
I do not know of any traditional 'school of wisdom’ that does not take ethical behaviour for granted as a prime requirement for progress. Or is there one?
I know you are reluctant to let your work in this area be clouded by this debate……but 40 years……perhaps it is time to let this in, as a legitimate enquiry….:-)
Meaning no harm, and with all good will and best wishes,
Percy
Percy Mark
[log in to unmask]
> On 26 Jul 2015, at 15:07, Ian Glendinning <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Hi Nick,
>
> My vote is we do away with having separate post and discussion lists
> on JISCMail.
>
> Secondly, there have been several previous attempts to use later
> technology, rather than simply mailing lists, where a separate admin
> manages the subscriptions. Several of us as individuals have our own
> web pages, our own blogs, and at one point we even had an FoW Forum.
>
> HOWEVER - Two vehicles were set up to cover the collaboration we are
> talking about - bringing contributions together without being tied to
> the original writings or web-pages of any one of us.
>
> There are two formats
>
> (1) Shared Blog and Forum - Anyone can post a piece and anyone can
> start a forum discussion. Anyone can manage their own subscriptions to
> whether they receive e-mail notification of posts and/or notification
> of comments and/or notifications of forum discussions. Any and all of
> these communications can be tied to social-media (Facebook and
> Twitter) feeds for those that prefer newer technology.
> The example we set up was http://dotsnthreads.ning.com/ (It remains
> live, but has had no activity for some time.)
>
> (2) Shared Blog - as above, but without Forum(s) The example we set up
> was http://www.globalcircle.org/blog/ (It remains active, but the only
> active user has been Lee Beaumont recently.)
>
> [Tech Note : the latter is a Wordpress blog, the former is a Ning
> collaboration site. If people have technology preferences they are
> interchangeable - we can get full functionality from either or both.]
>
> Regards
> Ian Glendinning
>
> On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 4:57 PM, Maxwell, Nicholas
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Dear Friends of Wisdom,
>>
>>
>>
>> Those of you who belong to the
>> Friends of Wisdom “D” discussion list will have received emails
>> recently about a book published by one of us: Douglas McKee. The
>> book is called “Already Wise: Our Inborn Ability To Make The Best
>> Choices” (Mystic House Publishing, 2011), and a Kindle version can be
>> bought from Amazon.co.uk for a mere £0-99. The extract available on
>> the Amazon website ends, rather frustratingly, like this: “This book
>> is about wisdom, what it really is, how it works, and how you can
>> become wise”. Larry Kueneman, who has just finished reading the
>> book, said in an initial email that it is a great book which “could be the anti-academic answer to understanding learning wisdom”.
>> Ian Glendinning responded by saying that McKee’s book “is at the
>> mystic end of the debate”, essentially a self-help manual, full of excellent aphorisms.
>> It is, he went on to say, at the opposite end of Charles Cassidy’s
>> “Science of Wisdom Research”. I am, personally, not quite sure what
>> that is, although I have contributed to a book that is perhaps in the same spirit:
>> The Scientific Study of Personal Wisdom, edited by M. Ferrari and N.
>> Weststrate (Springer, 2013). My contribution is called “Wisdom:
>> Object of Study or Basic Aim of Inquiry”, and in it I argue – as you
>> would expect – that we need to transform academic inquiry so that the
>> basic aim becomes wisdom instead of just knowledge. (Improving
>> knowledge about wisdom within the framework of the status quo,
>> knowledge-inquiry, is not good enough!) This is Glendinning’s point
>> too: Friends of Wisdom should be joining forces with the University
>> of Chicago’s Wisdom Research Network to bring together the mystical
>> and scientific wings of those concerned about wisdom to promote the
>> idea that we need new institutions of learning rationally devoted to
>> seeking and promoting wisdom – helping humanity learn how to make
>> progress towards as good a world as possible. Anand Kumar Awasthi
>> then expressed incredulity. “Can an evolution in thinking lead to
>> wisdom?” he asked. “Had it been so many people in western countries would have gained the wisdom level and countries had become store houses of wisdom.”
>>
>>
>>
>> There are three points I
>> would like to make about all this.
>>
>>
>>
>> First, I think it would be a very good idea if, when we make some
>> kind of contribution to the task of promoting wisdom – or when we
>> attempt such a thing, even if it ends in failure – we tell Friends of
>> Wisdom about our efforts. If we don’t speak up about what we are
>> doing, or attempting – or what others are doing and attempting – we
>> may simply remain ignorant about what our fellow Friends of Wisdom are up to.
>>
>>
>>
>> Second, should we get rid of the “D” discussion list? It was created
>> because, once upon a time, the Friends of Wisdom list bore a flood of
>> discussion emails, and it was decided they should go to the “D”
>> discussion list, so that those belonging to the primary list need not
>> be burdened with torrents of unwelcome emails. (As it is, if you
>> reply to an email sent to the primary FoW list, it automatically goes
>> to the secondary “D” list.) These days, the flood of emails has
>> turned into a trickle, so perhaps the “D” list is no longer necessary.
>>
>>
>>
>> Third, I am in agreement with Ian Glendinning. The all-important,
>> distinctive contribution that Friends of Wisdom has, potentially, to
>> make, it seems to me, is to try to bring to general attention the
>> vital point that our institutions of learning, our universities,
>> devoted as they are to the pursuit of knowledge, are an intellectual
>> and humanitarian disaster. We urgently need to transform academic
>> inquiry so that comes to put something like what I call
>> “wisdom-inquiry” into scientific, academic and educational practice.
>>
>>
>>
>> I keep trying to put the basic
>> point in as simple, powerful and convincing a way as I can. Here is
>> a recent
>> effort:-
>>
>>
>>
>> Population growth, the lethal character of modern war, vast
>> inequalities of wealth and power around the globe, destruction of
>> natural habitats and extinction of species, pollution of earth, sea
>> and air, and above all global
>> warming: we are heading towards disaster. It is the structurally
>> defective character of our institutions of learning that is at the
>> root of the problem. We have devoted academic inquiry to the pursuit
>> of scientific knowledge and technological know-how. This has made
>> the modern world possible, with all its great benefits (for some of
>> us at least). But it has also made possible modern industry and
>> agriculture, modern armaments, modern medicine and hygiene, which in
>> turn have led to all the above global problems that threaten our
>> future. But we are above all the species that can learn. We can
>> learn how to tackle our current global problems successfully. But
>> for that we need institutions of learning rationally designed for the task. It is just that that we do not have at present:
>> hence our impending crises. As a matter of supreme urgency and
>> importance, we need to transform academia so that it becomes
>> rationally designed for and devoted to helping humanity tackle global
>> problems and make progress towards as good a world as possible.
>> Transforming academia so that it becomes rationally devoted to
>> helping us create a better, wiser world is the most important thing
>> that we need to do, as far as the long term interests of humanity are
>> concerned. We are at present unable to solve our current global
>> problems because we do not have the kind of institutions of learning required for the task.
>>
>>
>>
>> Even though I have been labouring
>> away to get the point more widely appreciated for some 40 years now,
>> without much success, I am not entirely pessimistic about our
>> prospects. There is a growing awareness, I believe, that all is not
>> well with the modern world, and the character of our institutions of
>> learning may have something to do with it.
>>
>>
>>
>> All good wishes,
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick Maxwell
>>
>> Website: www.ucl.ac.uk/from-knowledge-to-wisdom
>> Publications online: http://philpapers.org/profile/17092
>> http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/view/people/ANMAX22.date.html
>>
>>
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