Some have tried to make the pursuit of wisdom a “scientific” endeavour. That is not going well, emphasiz Denyse O'Leary, freelance journalist based in Ottawa, Canada.
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Why Wisdom Is Not and Cannot Be a “Science”
Photo: Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence |
A curiosity of our age is the effort to “naturalize” traditional values, to treat them as an outcome of evolution. Evolution we are told, took us in a slightly different direction from that of the apes but it did not put us in contact with a wisdom beyond this world. There is no such thing.
That conflicts with traditional accounts of wisdom. Wisdom has been seen as different from “knowledge,” “intelligence” or “street smarts.” They are all very useful, of course. But wisdom is a view of the world from a great distance, which enables clarity about the big issues. For example, from Boethius, about 1500 years ago:
Indeed, the condition of human nature is just this; man towers above the rest of creation so long as he realizes his own nature, and when he forgets it, he sinks lower than the beasts. For other living things to be ignorant of themselves, is natural; but for man it is a defect.THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY
In more modern language, human consciousness gives us the freedom to examine our own lives. Boethius (pictured), who was a philosophical guide for centuries in the western world, wrote those words while he was personally awaiting execution by a cruel death...
Here’s a theme for a conference that most certainly won’t be funded by the same sources: Why does naturalism trivialize everything it touches?
The problem with naturalizing wisdom is that wisdom isn’t natural. It necessarily comes from a perspective beyond our own troubles in our own time. Naturalists (nature is all there is) have literally nothing to contribute to the pursuit of wisdom, which points to a deep flaw in their system. And when we contribute to their system, we are deepening the flaw.
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