Knowledge and Wisdom
I've been reading Bertrand Russel's essay "Knowledge and Wisdom" lately, and I found several interesting points worthy of discussion.
".. the pursuit of knowledge may become harmful unless it is combined with wisdom; and wisdom in the sense of comprehensive vision is not necessarily present in specialists in the pursuit of knowledge. Comprehensiveness alone, however, is not enough to constitute wisdom. There must be, also, a certain awareness of the ends of human life."
"Perhaps one could stretch the comprehensiveness that contitutes wisdom to include not only intellect but also feeling. It is by no means uncommon to find men whose knowledge is wide but whose feelings are narrow. Such men lack what I call wisdom."
Comments: These two statements remind me of the "Education and Discipline" essay Russel also wrote. There he mentions that the purpose of education is civilization, and education in its effort to build the human civilization depends on the teaching of two things: "conception of the ends of life", and "psychological dynamics, i.e. of the laws of mental change." Russel is basically saying that a knowledgeable man is not necessarily also a wise one, unless he understands the life's various roads and ends - how his actions, thoughts, and words may influence and affect the lives of others around him, and unless he understands the laws of mental change, the psychology of people, of himself and everyone else.
So now we know what a wise person is supposed to exhibit. Three questions at hand are: can these things be taught?, if yes, to what degree?, and what are being done at present to teach them?
I don't have the answer to the first question, but I do believe wisdom must be taught at any degree, and that it should be the main focus of education. In my humble opinion, it is very unfortunate that the education sytems of which I am aware do not specifically advocate the teaching of the conception of the ends of life nor the psychological dynamics of people. Most of the information I have obtained regarding the two are obtained either from personal experience or from extra-curricular reading materials.
Some of those who believe these components can be taught, argue that their teaching lie in the realms of higher education, and not that of basic or primary education that spans from elementary school to the junior college levels. Some argue that for most countries, and especially developing countries, the return on investment for basic and primary education is higher than that of higher education. This brings us to a gravely worrying question over the influence of economics over the education system itself.
There is no denying that privately owned educational institutions are responsible to their financers for the use of the funds invested in the institution. However, it is of great concern if these institutions are more profit oriented than education oriented; they would be in the business of investing mostly in basic and primary level type of educations that delivers more specialized knowledge, because these reap more profits, than in the business of instilling the teachings required to develop mature and wise people that would contribute to civilization.
Others argue that the teaching of the two components lie in the realms of family and social education, that is such information are what part and parcel of what parents teach their children, of what elders teach their youngs, or the least these are information that one naturally obtains from one's social circles. In my humble opinion, leaving the future of civilization to the hands of familes and peers of every eager youth is not only somewhat nondeterministic, it's also not very reassuring. I feel if educational systems can provide the guidance required, then they should provide them.
Now that we have addressed what and why, the next logical question is how?
Unfortunately, that is another that I cannot answer at present.
--
"It (wisdom) is needed in the choice of ends to be pursued and in emancipation from personal prejudice. Even an end which it would be noble to pursue if it were attainable may be pursued unwisely if it is inherently impossible of achievement. .. the essence of wisdom is emancipation .. from the tyranny of the here and now... It is this approach towards impartiality that constitutes growth in wisdom."
"Hatred of evil is itself a kind of bondage to evil. The way out is through understanding, not through hate. I am not advocating non-resistance. But I am saying that resistance, if it is to be effective in preventing the spread of evil, should be combined with the greatest degree of understanding and the smallest degree of force that is compatible with the survival of the good things that we wish to preserve."
Comments: In other words, Russel is saying that wisdom increases as we think more about, and therefore understand, others, and be impartial in our opinion of our surroundings. Again, the key to this is the two components mentioned earlier: the understanding of the ends of life and psychological dynamics of people around us.
He also added that in being impartial, we must not hate. This reminds me a lot of the Christian teaching of turning the other cheek, i.e. "But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." (Matthew 5:39). Though Russel is an agnostic, there's no denying the influence Christianity has on his views.
--
" .. I think that this teaching should have a larger intellectual element than has been customary in what has been thought of as moral instruction. I think that the disastrous results of hatred and narrow-mindedness to those who feel them can be pointed out incidentally in the course of giving knowledge."
"With every increase of knowledge and skill, wisdom becomes more necessary, for every such increase augments our capacity of realizing our purposes, and therefore augments our capacity for evil, if our purposes are unwise. The world needs wisdom as it has never needed it before; and if knowledge continues to increase, the world will need wisdom in the future even more than it does now."
Comments:
How true. With the Internet and global mass media, information has never been so freely available and accessible. Unfortunately, with the mass increase of availablity, also comes the increase of difficulty in ascertaining quality.
It is of even greater misfortune that not all information providers are driven by noteworthy motives. Considering the vested interests of information providers, whether it is economics, political, or even personal, it is very reasonable to assume that most information available to us everyday have a certain degree of falsehood even from the moment it is conceived.
From an education standpoint, this is alarming since this implies that it is a whole lot easier for young minds to be manipulated into believing these false truths; With the bombardment of multitudes of false information and the absence of foundations of the teachings of wisdom, it is very likely that young and inexperienced minds would cave in. Seen from this pespective, the role of education and its efforts to teach wisdom has never been greater.
".. the pursuit of knowledge may become harmful unless it is combined with wisdom; and wisdom in the sense of comprehensive vision is not necessarily present in specialists in the pursuit of knowledge. Comprehensiveness alone, however, is not enough to constitute wisdom. There must be, also, a certain awareness of the ends of human life."
"Perhaps one could stretch the comprehensiveness that contitutes wisdom to include not only intellect but also feeling. It is by no means uncommon to find men whose knowledge is wide but whose feelings are narrow. Such men lack what I call wisdom."
Comments: These two statements remind me of the "Education and Discipline" essay Russel also wrote. There he mentions that the purpose of education is civilization, and education in its effort to build the human civilization depends on the teaching of two things: "conception of the ends of life", and "psychological dynamics, i.e. of the laws of mental change." Russel is basically saying that a knowledgeable man is not necessarily also a wise one, unless he understands the life's various roads and ends - how his actions, thoughts, and words may influence and affect the lives of others around him, and unless he understands the laws of mental change, the psychology of people, of himself and everyone else.
So now we know what a wise person is supposed to exhibit. Three questions at hand are: can these things be taught?, if yes, to what degree?, and what are being done at present to teach them?
I don't have the answer to the first question, but I do believe wisdom must be taught at any degree, and that it should be the main focus of education. In my humble opinion, it is very unfortunate that the education sytems of which I am aware do not specifically advocate the teaching of the conception of the ends of life nor the psychological dynamics of people. Most of the information I have obtained regarding the two are obtained either from personal experience or from extra-curricular reading materials.
Some of those who believe these components can be taught, argue that their teaching lie in the realms of higher education, and not that of basic or primary education that spans from elementary school to the junior college levels. Some argue that for most countries, and especially developing countries, the return on investment for basic and primary education is higher than that of higher education. This brings us to a gravely worrying question over the influence of economics over the education system itself.
There is no denying that privately owned educational institutions are responsible to their financers for the use of the funds invested in the institution. However, it is of great concern if these institutions are more profit oriented than education oriented; they would be in the business of investing mostly in basic and primary level type of educations that delivers more specialized knowledge, because these reap more profits, than in the business of instilling the teachings required to develop mature and wise people that would contribute to civilization.
Others argue that the teaching of the two components lie in the realms of family and social education, that is such information are what part and parcel of what parents teach their children, of what elders teach their youngs, or the least these are information that one naturally obtains from one's social circles. In my humble opinion, leaving the future of civilization to the hands of familes and peers of every eager youth is not only somewhat nondeterministic, it's also not very reassuring. I feel if educational systems can provide the guidance required, then they should provide them.
Now that we have addressed what and why, the next logical question is how?
Unfortunately, that is another that I cannot answer at present.
--
"It (wisdom) is needed in the choice of ends to be pursued and in emancipation from personal prejudice. Even an end which it would be noble to pursue if it were attainable may be pursued unwisely if it is inherently impossible of achievement. .. the essence of wisdom is emancipation .. from the tyranny of the here and now... It is this approach towards impartiality that constitutes growth in wisdom."
"Hatred of evil is itself a kind of bondage to evil. The way out is through understanding, not through hate. I am not advocating non-resistance. But I am saying that resistance, if it is to be effective in preventing the spread of evil, should be combined with the greatest degree of understanding and the smallest degree of force that is compatible with the survival of the good things that we wish to preserve."
Comments: In other words, Russel is saying that wisdom increases as we think more about, and therefore understand, others, and be impartial in our opinion of our surroundings. Again, the key to this is the two components mentioned earlier: the understanding of the ends of life and psychological dynamics of people around us.
He also added that in being impartial, we must not hate. This reminds me a lot of the Christian teaching of turning the other cheek, i.e. "But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." (Matthew 5:39). Though Russel is an agnostic, there's no denying the influence Christianity has on his views.
--
" .. I think that this teaching should have a larger intellectual element than has been customary in what has been thought of as moral instruction. I think that the disastrous results of hatred and narrow-mindedness to those who feel them can be pointed out incidentally in the course of giving knowledge."
"With every increase of knowledge and skill, wisdom becomes more necessary, for every such increase augments our capacity of realizing our purposes, and therefore augments our capacity for evil, if our purposes are unwise. The world needs wisdom as it has never needed it before; and if knowledge continues to increase, the world will need wisdom in the future even more than it does now."
Comments:
How true. With the Internet and global mass media, information has never been so freely available and accessible. Unfortunately, with the mass increase of availablity, also comes the increase of difficulty in ascertaining quality.
It is of even greater misfortune that not all information providers are driven by noteworthy motives. Considering the vested interests of information providers, whether it is economics, political, or even personal, it is very reasonable to assume that most information available to us everyday have a certain degree of falsehood even from the moment it is conceived.
From an education standpoint, this is alarming since this implies that it is a whole lot easier for young minds to be manipulated into believing these false truths; With the bombardment of multitudes of false information and the absence of foundations of the teachings of wisdom, it is very likely that young and inexperienced minds would cave in. Seen from this pespective, the role of education and its efforts to teach wisdom has never been greater.
posted by JPG at
20:03
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