The current study sought to assess the mediating role of green market orientation dimensions in the relationship between social risk and new product performance among European Multinational Enterprises (EMNEs). We also assessed the moderating role of entrepreneurial orientation in the relationship between green market orientation and new product performance. The study was based on primary data gathered from 317 EMNEs in Ghana. After various validity and reliability checks, ordinary least squares (OLS) analysis was performed to estimate the various relationships hypothesized (...) in the study. The study finds that social risk has a negative effect on the success of EMNEs' new products. This negative effect is however nullified by the positive mediating effects of strategic green market orientation, tactical green market orientation and internal green market orientation. Entrepreneurial orientation also played a significant moderating effect in the relationship between green market orientation dimensions and EMNEs' new product performance. Based on this, theoretical and managerial contributions were made. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to assess the intention of typically developing peers towards learning in the classroom with students with Autism Spectrum Disorder. In developing countries, such as Ghana, the body of literature on the relationship between students with disabilities and typically developing peers has been sparsely studied. Using Ajzen's theory of planned behaviour as a theoretical framework for this study, 516 typically developing students completed four scales representing belief constructs, attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural controls, hypothesised (...) to predict behavioural intention. The data were subjected to a t-test, analysis of variance, and structural equation modelling. The modelling confirmed the combining ability of attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural controls to predict intention. We conclude by revealing the need for policymakers to consider designing programmes aimed towards promoting social relationships between students with ASD and typically developing peers. (shrink)

Morbidity of birth asphyxia has been estimated to be 42 million disability-adjusted life years. The study sought to assess the impact of the use and completion of partograph during labour on reducing birth asphyxia at the St Anthony’s Hospital, Dzodze, in the Volta Region of Ghana. A retrospective study design using a quantitative approach was adopted for the study. A simple random sampling technique was used to select a total of 200 folders of labouring women who were admitted and delivered (...) at St Anthony’s Hospital, Dzodze, between 1st May 2015 and 30th April 2016. A structured checklist, which was developed by using labour and foetal monitoring parameters based on the standards of the World Health Organization partograph usage, was used to review all the 200 existing maternal records. The findings revealed that partographs were used by midwives at St Anthony’s Hospital with the majority of the maternal folders fully completed. The use and completion of partograph were found to be associated with less non-asphyxiated birth outcomes. Labours which were monitored with partograph were 4.29 times less likely to result in birth asphyxia [AOR 4.29 ], and those that were monitored with a completed partograph were 5.3 times less likely to result in birth asphyxia [AOR 5.31 ]. Midwives used partographs during labour at St Anthony’s Hospital. The use and completion of partograph were significantly associated with a reduced incidence of birth asphyxia at the hospital. Birth asphyxia could be reduced if partographs are used and completed by midwives during labour in all cases. (shrink)

Containing both theoretical discussions of globalization and specific case analyses of individual African countries, this collection of essays examines the intersections of African education and globalization with multiple analytical and geographical emphases and intentions.

'Devdutt Pattanaik is an exponent of myths, using them [to] deepen storytelling, and obtain a sense of life and living' -Scroll.in Hindu mythology is vast and voluminous. There is so much we don't know or that has not been presented in a simplified way, making sense to contemporary times. This special omnibus edition brings together two bestselling books by Devdutt Pattanaik, India's most famous and renowned mythologist. My Gita and My Hanuman Chalisa are part of a series where Devdutt does (...) 'darshan' of the scriptures, not just gods, and helps readers navigate through scriptures that seem forbidding (Bhagavad Gita) and simple ones whose sophistication is often overlooked (Hanuman Chalisa). (shrink)

Attachment -- Awake -- Awareness -- Actions -- Breath -- Buddha -- Chakras -- Change -- Compassion -- Control -- Conversion -- Criticism -- Divinity -- Emotions -- Empathy -- Forgiveness -- Gatha -- Generosity -- Generosity (part 2) -- Happiness -- Humility -- Identifying -- Illusions -- Judging -- Karma -- Karma (part 2) -- Kindness -- Lessons -- Loving-kindness -- Meditation -- Mind -- Namaste -- Nonattachment -- Nonharming -- Nonharming (part 2) -- Openness -- Possessions -- Practice (...) -- Quest -- Reincarnation -- Religion -- Requiring more -- Reverence -- Scripture -- Seeing -- Self -- Spirituality -- Suffering -- Teachers -- Thoughts -- Tonglen -- Transcending -- Treasure -- Tumo -- Understanding -- Virtues -- Worlds -- The mathematic symbol for the unknown -- Xenophilia -- Yoga -- Yoga (part 2) -- Yuga -- Zen. (shrink)

Medieval philosophy is primarily associated today with university-based disputations and the authorities cited in those disputations. In their own time, however, scholastic debates were recognized as just one part of wide-ranging philosophical and theological discussions. A Hidden Wisdom breaks new ground by drawing attention to another crucial component of these conversations: the Christian contemplative tradition. The thirteenth–fifteenth centuries in particular saw a dramatic increase in the production and consumption of mystical and contemplative literature in the ‘Christian West’, by laypeople (...) as well as religious scholars, women as well as men. A Hidden Wisdom focuses on five topics of particular interest to both scholastics and contemplatives in this period—namely, self-knowledge, reason and its limits, love and the will, persons, and immortality and the afterlife. This focus centers on the (often overlooked) contributions of medieval women and demonstrates that when we reunite scholasticism with its contemplative counterpart, we gain not only a more accurate understanding of the scope of medieval Christian philosophy and theology but also an increased awareness of a deeply practical tradition that builds up as well as tears down, generates as well as deconstructs. The book’s treatment of topics and figures is meant to be representative rather than exhaustive—a tasting menu rather than a comprehensive study. The choice of topics offers a series of ‘hooks’ for philosophers to connect their own interests to issues central to medieval contemplative philosophy, while also providing medievalists in other disciplines a fresh lens through which to view these texts. (shrink)

"The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims," by philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, offers a more accurate and realistic outlook on life than his student, Friedrich Nietzsche. While many disagree with Schopenhauer's renunciation of life, there is much to agree with in this book. Schopenhauer doesn't see a whole lot to celebrate in this vale of tears. His general view in "The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims" is summed up thus: Life is hell. Try to find a (...) room furthest from the flames. If you tend towards a sunnier view of things then you're very likely to find this book by the grandmaster of philosophical pessimism unduly cynical. But if you've pretty much had it with the world and seldom meet a man (or woman) you wouldn't rather see the back of, you'll be delighted to find a fellow traveler and find wit and solace in Schopenhauer's acidic view of this "wonderful gift of life." Though riddled with hard-nosed realism and misanthropy, "The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims" is positively entertaining and enjoyable. Schopenhauer's style is fluid, prosaic, and imaginative, unlike most German philosophy. In lieu of modern world events, it is probably more relevant a work today than ever before. Schopenhauer discusses an array of subjects, such as the emptiness of those things commonly pursued by the masses (money, status/position, vanity, sensual pleasure, etc.), and those most commonly ignored by most (temperance, good health, character, individuality, and developing one's mind). Small, fleeting pleasures notwithstanding, Schopenhauer casts an unflinchingly jaundiced eye on the experience of human life and doesn't sweeten the pill. For its bracing honesty alone, this book deserves its reputation as one of the greatest philosophical manuals of how to best live our lives ever written. (shrink)

We face severe global problems, many that we have inadvertently created ourselves. It is clear that there is an urgent need for more wisdom. One response is to improve knowledge about wisdom. This, I argue, is an inadequate response to the problems we face. Our global problems arise, in part, from a damagingly irrational kind of academic enterprise, devoted as it is to the pursuit of knowledge. We need to bring about a revolution in academic inquiry so that (...) its basic aim becomes to seek and promote wisdom. (shrink)

"As a recently established field of Jewish thought, Jewish political philosophy has made increasingly frequent appearances in recently edited histories of Jewish philosophy. Following the pioneering efforts of Leo Strauss, Ralph Lerner and Daniel Elazar, among others, Jewish political philosophy gained its proper place alongside ethics and metaphysics in the study of the history of Jewish philosophy. This volume is another manifestation of this welcomed development. Consisting of selected papers published in English over the last thirty years, Wisdom's Little (...) Sister concentrates on the Medieval and Renaissance periods, from Sa'adiah Gaon in the tenth century to Spinoza in the seventeenth century. These were the formative periods in the development of Jewish political philosophy, when Jewish scholars, versed in the canonical Jewish sources (biblical and rabbinic), encountered Greek political philosophy as transmitted by Muslim philosophers such as Alfarabi, Ibn Bajja and Averroes. In combining Greek, Jewish and Muslim thought, these scholars are the originators of what we now know as Jewish political philosophy."--Publisher's website. (shrink)

What is wisdom? What does a wise person know? Can a wise person know how to act and live well without knowing the whys and wherefores of his own action? How is wisdom acquired? This Element addresses questions regarding the nature and acquisition of wisdom by developing and defending a skill theory of wisdom. Specifically, this theory argues that if a person S is wise, then (i) S knows that overall attitude success contributes to or constitutes (...) well-being; (ii) S knows what the best means to achieve well-being are; (iii) S is reliably successful at acting and living well (in light of what S knows); and (iv) S knows why she is successful at acting and living well. The first three sections of this Element develop this theory, and the final two sections defend this theory against two objections to the effect that there are asymmetries between wisdom and skill. (shrink)

Practical wisdom is the intellectual virtue that enables a person to make reliably good decisions about how, all-things-considered, to live. As such, it is a lofty and important ideal to strive for. It is precisely this loftiness and importance that gives rise to important questions about wisdom: Can real people develop it? If so, how? What is the nature of wisdom as it manifests itself in real people? I argue that we can make headway answering these questions (...) by modeling wisdom on expert skill. Presenting the main argument for this expert skill model of wisdom is the focus of this paper. More specifically, I’ll argue that wisdom is primarily the same kind of epistemic achievement as expert decision-making skill in areas such as firefighting. Acknowledging this helps us see that, and how, real people can develop wisdom. It also helps to resolve philosophical debates about the nature of wisdom. For example, philosophers, including those who think virtue should be modeled on skills, disagree about the extent to which wise people make decisions using intuitions or principled deliberation and reflection. The expert skill model resolves this debate by showing that wisdom includes substantial intuitive and deliberative and reflective abilities. (shrink)

From Knowledge to Wisdom argues that there is an urgent need, for both intellectual and humanitarian reasons, to bring about a revolution in science and the humanities. The outcome would be a kind of academic inquiry rationally devoted to helping humanity learn how to create a better world. Instead of giving priority to solving problems of knowledge, as at present, academia would devote itself to helping us solve our immense, current global problems – climate change, war, poverty, population growth, (...) pollution... of sea, earth and air, destruction of natural habitats and rapid extinction of species, injustice, tyranny, proliferation of armaments, conventional, chemical, biological and nuclear, depletion of natural resources. The basic intellectual aim of inquiry would be to seek and promote wisdom – wisdom being the capacity to realize what is of value in life for oneself and others, thus including knowledge and technological know-how, but much else besides. This second edition has been revised throughout, has additional material, a new introduction and three new chapters. (shrink)

What is it that makes someone wise, or one person wiser than another? I argue that wisdom consists in knowledge of how to live well, and that this knowledge of how to live well is constituted by various further kinds of knowledge. One concern for this view is that knowledge is not needed for wisdom but rather some state short of knowledge, such as having rational or justified beliefs about various topics. Another concern is that the emphasis on (...) knowing how to live well fails to do justice to the ancient tradition of ‘theoretical wisdom’. I address both of these concerns in filling out the account. (shrink)

The Wisdom to Doubt is a major contribution to the contemporary literature on the epistemology of religious belief.

A new translation of: The yoga sutras of Patanjali, the ancient Indian text which sets forth the practical and philosophical foundations of yoga, presented here with extensive commentary and spiritual exercises to assist in the practice and understanding of one's own spiritual search"--Provided by publisher.

After surveying the strengths and weaknesses of several well-known approaches to wisdom, I argue for a new theory of wisdom that focuses on being epistemically, practically, and morally rational. My theory of wisdom, The Deep Rationality Theory of Wisdom, claims that a wise person is a person who is rational and who is deeply committed to increasing his or her level of rationality. This theory is a departure from theories of wisdom that demand practical and/or (...) theoretical knowledge. The Deep Rationality Theory salvages all that is attractive, and avoids all that is problematic, about theories of wisdom that require wise people to be knowledgeable. (shrink)

I argue that a necessary condition for being wise is: understanding how to live well. The condition, by requiring understanding rather than a wide variety of justified beliefs or knowledge, as Ryan and Whitcomb respectively require, yields the desirable result that being wise is compatible with having some false beliefs but not just any false beliefs about how to live well—regardless of whether those beliefs are justified or not. In arguing for understanding how to live well as a necessary condition (...) for wisdom, I reject the view, proposed by both Ryan and Whitcomb, that subjects such as chemistry lies within the domain of wisdom. I show that the argued for condition yields the desirable result that being wise is not a common achievement, but that it is not something that can only plausibly be achieved in the modern era. (shrink)

Provides a broad overview of the structures, events and ideas in the world. Includes sections on physical and biological existence, God and religion, and the human condition"--Provided by publisher.

The “wisdom of the crowd” phenomenon refers to the finding that the aggregate of a set of proposed solutions from a group of individuals performs better than the majority of individual solutions. Most often, wisdom of the crowd effects have been investigated for problems that require single numerical estimates. We investigate whether the effect can also be observed for problems where the answer requires the coordination of multiple pieces of information. We focus on combinatorial problems such as the (...) planar Euclidean traveling salesperson problem, minimum spanning tree problem, and a spanning tree memory task. We develop aggregation methods that combine common solution fragments into a global solution and demonstrate that these aggregate solutions outperform the majority of individual solutions. These case studies suggest that the wisdom of the crowd phenomenon might be broadly applicable to problem-solving and decision-making situations that go beyond the estimation of single numbers. (shrink)

James Madison wrote, 'Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob'. The contributors to this volume discuss and for the most part challenge this claim by considering conditions under which many minds can be wiser than one. With backgrounds in economics, cognitive science, political science, law and history, the authors consider information markets, the internet, jury debates, democratic deliberation and the use of diversity as mechanisms for improving collective decisions. At the same (...) time, they consider voter irrationality and paradoxes of aggregation as possibly undermining the wisdom of groups. Implicitly or explicitly, the volume also offers guidance and warnings to institutional designers. (shrink)

According to a venerable ideal, the core aim of philosophical practice is wisdom. The guiding concern of the ancient Greek, Indian, and Chinese traditions was the nature of the good life for human beings and the nature of reality. Central to these traditions is profound recognition of the subjection to adversities intrinsic to human life. I consider paradigmatic exemplars of wisdom, from ancient Western and Asian traditions, and the ways that experiences of adversity shaped their life. The suggestion (...) is that these exemplars, if any, will show how to live wisely in adversity. (shrink)

We discuss Sharon Ryan’s Deep Rationality Theory of wisdom, defended recently in her “Wisdom, Knowledge and Rationality.” We argue that (a) Ryan’s use of the term “rationality” needs further elaboration; (b) there is a problem with requiring that the wise person possess justified beliefs but not necessarily knowledge; (c) the conditions of DRT are not all necessary; (d) the conditions are not sufficient. At the end of our discussion, we suggest that there may be a problem with the (...) very assumption that an informative, non-circular set of necessary and sufficient conditions of wisdom can be given. (shrink)

This paper's philosophical ideas are developed from a General Nursing Council for England and Wales Trust‐funded study to explore nursing knowledge and wisdom and ways in which these can be translated into clinical practice and fostered in junior nurses. Participants using Carper's (1978) ways of knowing as a framework experienced difficulty conceptualizing a link between the empirics and ethics of nursing. The philosophical problem is how to understandpraxisas a moral entity with intrinsic value when so much of value seems (...) to be technical and extrinsic depending on desired ends. Using the Aristotelian termspoesisandpraxiscan articulate the concerns that the participants as well as Carper (1978) and Dreyfus (in Flyvbjerg, 1991) among others share that certain actions or ways of knowing important for nursing are being devalued and deformed by the importance placed on quantitative data and measurable outcomes. The sense ofpraxisis a moralized one and most of what nurses do is plausibly on any account of normative ethics a morally good thing; the articulation of the idea ofpraxiscan go some way in showing how it is a part of the discipline of nursing. Nursing's acts aspoesiscan be a part of how practitioners come to havepraxisasphronesisor practical wisdom. So to be a wise nurse, one needs be a wise person. (shrink)

What is the nature and structure of phronesis or practical wisdom? According to the view widely held by philosophers and psychologists, a person S is wise if and only if S knows how to live well. Given this view of practical wisdom, the guiding question is this: What exactly is “knowing how to live well”? It seems that no one has a clear idea of how to answer this simple but fundamental question. This paper explores knowing how to (...) live well (or “life know-how”) by showing how its nature and structure can be understood through contemporary epistemology of knowledge-how. I will achieve this by doing the following. In Section I, I highlight the two as-yet unanswered “integration questions” about life know-how. In Section II, I explain why the epistemology of knowledge-how has good potential to address the integration questions. In Sections III and IV, I construct two positions—intellectualism and anti-intellectualism—for the epistemology of life know-how and show how they address the two integration questions. In Section V, I show how the epistemology of life know-how established in the previous sections can be used in the philosophy of wisdom and the psychology of wisdom. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question, how does wisdom contribute to management in circumstances of extreme unpredictability? We first discuss three key factors that fundamentally affect the conduct of business—human, knowledge, and the environment—as well as their characteristics and interactions. We then argue that managing the interaction between these factors to effectively deal with the complexity and unpredictability of a rapidly changing business world requires the appropriate application of wisdom, in particular ethics in the form of practical, moral, and (...) epistemic virtues. We propose that these three virtues are the link between the three factors and more effective decision-making and action taking in an unpredictable business world. A model is developed that conceptualizes the interconnection among the three factors and three virtues. This model has important academic and practical implications. For practice, the model points the way for both individuals and organizations to improve decision-making skills through the systematic expansion of perspectives gained through consideration of the three virtues. For academics, the model is an incremental, but important step in understanding the role of wisdom in management. (shrink)

This essay contains an attempt to trace the evolution of the concept of wisdom as found in the thought of Aristotle and Aquinas in terms of how the philosophical concept of wisdom as an intellectual virtue is understood and used to express the theological concept of wisdom as a gift of the Holy Spirit. The main aim is to understand how Aquinas derived the concept of wisdom from Aristotle's metaphysics and developed it in his mysticism. This (...) research is based on a close study of Book Six of Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, the corresponding sections of Aquinas' Sententia libri Ethicorum and question forty-five of the second part of the second part of Aquinas' Summa Theologiae. The insights gained from the study are then used to decipher the theoretical meaning of Augustine's famous saying: "love and do what thou wilt" and to expound on the practical value of wisdom for religious leaders. (shrink)

What is the appropriate relation of human reason to the human psyche--indeed, to human life--taken as a whole? The essays in this volume range over literature and ethics, psychoanalysis, social theory, and ancient Greek philosophy. But, from different angles, they all address this question. Wisdom Won from Illness probes deep into the heart of psychoanalysis to understand how it illuminates the human condition. At the same time it goes back to the origins of psychological thinking in ancient Greece--and the (...) effort to understand the ethical life of human beings. It examines the continuing travails of the Crow Nation in its efforts to find ways to live after cultural catastrophe. It probes the deep meaning of Kierkegaard's irony. It also considers two of the great writers of our time--John Coetzee and Marilynne Robinson--and their use of literature to change the human mind. Socrates thought reason should rule over the whole psyche; but much hangs on what we might mean by this claim. We humans have inflicted unimaginable suffering on each other, justified by arrogant conceptions of reason, and of ruling. The same is true of our treatment of other animals. False images of reason regularly blind us to the claims and reality of others. One way to react to all this pain and destruction is to denounce the very idea of reason as nothing more than an ideological tool of power. This book argues that is the wrong way to go. We should not be too quick to dismiss our real human capacities just because they have so often been put to such poor uses. The essays in this book aim to offer a philosophical anthropology and psychology that is adequate to who we are--and who we might legitimately hope to become.--. (shrink)

"Wisdom in the Open Air" traces the Norwegian roots of the strain of thinking called "deep ecology" - the search for the solutions to environmental problems by examining the fundamental tenets of our culture. Although Arne Naess coined the term in the 1970s, the insights of deep ecology actually reflect a whole tradition of thought that can be seen in the history of Norwegian culture, from ancient mountain myths to the radical ecoactivism of today. Beginning with an introduction to (...) Norway's emphasis on nature and the wild, Reed and Rothenberg explore the birth of the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s. What follows is a collection of writings by prominent Norwegian thinkers on humanity and nature, most never before published in English. From Peter Wessel Zapffe, a twentieth-century Kierkegaardian figure, the list goes on to include Arne Naess, activist/critic/artist Sigmund Kvaloy, wilderness educator Nils Faarlund, novelist Finn Alnaes, sociologist Johan Galtung, and social reformer Erik Dammann. Their points of view offer thoughts on the significance of modern life and what it means to be human in the face of deteriorating environmental global trends of the 20th century. "Wisdom in the Open Air" asks and answers a fundamental question concerning the ecomovement: what is the role of deep, often abstract, thinking in the attempt to avert a very real ecological crisis? (shrink)

Exploring informal components of clinical reasoning, we argue that they need to be understood via the analysis of professional wisdom. Wise decisions are needed where action or insight is vital, but neither everyday nor expert knowledge provides solutions. Wisdom combines experiential, intellectual, ethical, emotional and practical capacities; we contend that it is also more strongly social than is usually appreciated. But many accounts of reasoning specifically rule out such features as irrational. Seeking to illuminate how wisdom operates, (...) we therefore build on Aristotle’s work on informal reasoning. His account of rhetorical communication shows how non-formal components can play active parts in reasoning, retaining, or even enhancing its reasonableness. We extend this account, applying it to forms of healthcare-related reasoning which are characterised by the need for wise decision-making. We then go on to explore some of what clinical wise reasoning may mean, concluding with a case taken from psychotherapeutic practice. (shrink)

The ancient virtue of practical wisdom has lately been enjoying a remarkable renaissance in management literature. The purpose of this article is to add clarity and bring synergy to the interdisciplinary debate. In a review of the wide-ranging field of the existing literature from a philosophical, theological, psychological, and managerial perspective, we show that, although different in terms of approach, methodologies, and justification, the distinct traditions of research on practical wisdom can indeed complement one another. We suggest a (...) conciliatory conception of the various features of practical wisdom in management. This we take as a point of departure for a discussion of the significant implications of the subject for the theory and practice of management and for the direction of further research in the field. (shrink)

Can collectives be wise? The thesis that they can has recently received a lot of attention. It has been argued that, in many judgmental or decision-making tasks, suitably organized groups can outperform their individual members. In this paper, I discuss the lessons we can learn about collective wisdom from the emerging theory of judgment aggregation, as distinct from the literature on Condorcet’s jury theorem.

A deeply informed exploration of what Stoic ideas have to offer us today Stoicism is the ideal philosophy of life for those seeking calm in times of stress and uncertainty. For many, it has become the new Zen, with meditation techniques that help us face whatever life throws our way. Indeed, the Stoics address a key question of our time: how can we be masters of our fate when the outside world threatens to unmoor our well-being? In Stoic Wisdom, (...) Georgetown philosophy professor Nancy Sherman, an expert in ancient and modern ethics, shows what a practical modern Stoicism really looks like. Drawing on the wisdom of Stoic thinkers Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca and others, Sherman paints a portrait that uncovers the true subtlety and power of Stoic ideas. That portrait reveals a truth often ignored: that the Stoics never thought self-sufficiency was only about rugged self-reliance and mental discipline. We are at home in the world, they taught, when we are connected to each other in cooperative efforts. While mastery of one's self is essential, we also must draw on our deepest relationships for true strength and resilience. Bringing these ancient ideas to bear on 21st century environments-from Silicon Valley to first responders in a pandemic, to soldiers on the battlefield-Sherman shows how Stoicism can both prepare us for an uncertain future and help us cope with traumatic events. Stoic Wisdom will appeal to anyone feeling helpless or looking for deeper, meaningful strength and goodness in addressing life's biggest and smallest challenges. (shrink)

Extensive discussions of practical wisdom are relatively rare in the philosophical literature these days. This is strange given the theoretical and practical importance of wisdom and, indeed, the etymology of the word "philosophy." In this paper, we remedy this inattention by proposing a methodology for developing a theory of wisdom and using this methodology to outline a viable theory. The methodology we favor is a version of wide reflective equilibrium. We begin with psychological research on folk intuitions (...) about wisdom, which helps us to avoid problems caused by reliance on the possibly idiosyncratic intuitions of professional philosophers. The folk theory is then elaborated in light of theoretical desiderata and further empirical research on human cognitive capacities. The resulting view emphasizes policies that the wise person adopts in order to cope with the many obstacles to making good choices. (shrink)

Aristotle presents his Nicomachean Ethics and Politics as an ordered pair comprising political science (hê politikê epistêmê), suggesting an axiomatic structure of theorems that are demonstratively deduced from first principles. He holds that this systematic knowledge of ethical and legislative matters provides the ‘universals’ essential to phronesis or practical wisdom, and that its acquisition begins in sound habituation. Aristotle thereby assigns habituation an epistemic role that must be understood in light of his account of the nature of a science. (...) This paper argues that what would be inductively established by, or on the basis of, sound habituation is the supposition that the natural kind of activity constitutive of living well exists; it establishes the supposition on which Aristotle’s definition of a eudaimon life rests. Having addressed this central interpretive issue, the paper sketches a psychologically grounded position on the substantive philosophical questions at stake. Are there natural signs of flourishing and failure to flourish present to us in our experience of attempts to live well? If such signs exist but are not sufficient to qualify ethical beliefs as knowledge in their own right, might they play a role in a science of what is good and bad for human beings? (shrink)

Human beings are a marvel of evolved complexity. Such systems can be difficult to enhance. When we manipulate complex evolved systems, which are poorly understood, our interventions often fail or backfire. It can appear as if there is a “wisdom of nature” which we ignore at our peril. Sometimes the belief in nature’s wisdom—and corresponding doubts about the prudence of tampering with nature, especially human nature—manifests as diffusely moral objections against enhancement. Such objections may be expressed as intuitions (...) about the superiority of the natural or the troublesomeness of hubris or as an evaluative bias in favor of the status quo. This chapter explores the extent to which such prudence-derived anti-enhancement sentiments are justified. We develop a heuristic, inspired by the field of evolutionary medicine, for identifying promising human enhancement interventions. The heuristic incorporates the grains of truth contained in “nature knows best” attitudes while providing criteria for the special cases where we have reason to believe that it is feasible for us to improve on nature. (shrink)

Featuring original essays from leading scholars in philosophy and psychology, this volume investigates and rethinks the role of practical wisdom in light of the most recent developments in virtue theory and moral, social and developmental psychology. The concept of phronesis has long held a prominent place in the development of Aristotelian virtue ethics and moral education. However, the nature and development of phronesis is still in need of investigation, especially because of the new insights that in recent years have (...) come from both philosophy and science. The essays in this volume contribute to the debate about practical wisdom by elucidating its role in empirical psychology and advancing important new research questions. They address various topics related to practical wisdom and its development, including honesty, ecocentric phronesis, social cognitive theory, practical wisdom in limited-information contexts, Whole Trait Theory, skill models, the reciprocity of virtue, and challenges from situationism. Practical Wisdom will interest researchers and advanced students working in virtue ethics, moral psychology, and moral education. (shrink)

In a recent issue of Bioethics, Bernard Gesang asks whether a moral philosopher possesses greater moral expertise than a non-philosopher, and his answer is a qualified yes, based not so much on his infallible access to the truth, but on the quality of his theoretically-informed moral justifications. I reject Gesang's claim that there is such a thing as moral expertise, although the moral philosopher may well make a valid contribution to the ethics committee as a concerned and educated citizen. I (...) suggest that wisdom is a lot more interesting to examine than moral expertise. Again, however, moral philosophers have no monopoly on wisdom, and the study of philosophy may even impede its cultivation. (shrink)

We face grave global problems. We urgently need to learn how to tackle them in wiser, more effective, intelligent and humane ways than we have done so far. This requires that universities become devoted to helping humanity acquire the necessary wisdom to perform the task. But at present universities do not even conceive of their role in these terms. The essays of this book consider what needs to change in the university if it is to help humanity acquire the (...) wisdom it so urgently needs. (shrink)

Two great problems of learning confront humanity: learning about the nature of the universe and about ourselves and other living things as a part of the universe, and learning how to become civilized. The first problem was solved, in essence, in the 17th century, with the creation of modern science. But the second problem has not yet been solved. Solving the first problem without also solving the second puts us in a situation of great danger. All our current global problems (...) have arisen as a result. What we need to do, in response to this unprecedented crisis, is learn from our solution to the first problem how to solve the second. This was the basic idea of the 18th century Enlightenment. Unfortunately, in carrying out this programme, the Enlightenment made three blunders, and it is this defective version of the Enlightenment programme, inherited from the past, that is still built into the institutional/intellectual structure of academic inquiry in the 21st century. In order to solve the second great problem of learning we need to correct the three blunders of the traditional Enlightenment. This involves changing the nature of social inquiry, so that social science becomes social methodology or social philosophy, concerned to help us build into social life the progress-achieving methods of aim-oriented rationality, arrived at by generalizing the progress-achieving methods of science. It also involves, more generally, bringing about a revolution in the nature of academic inquiry as a whole, so that it takes up its proper task of helping humanity learn how to become wiser by increasingly cooperatively rational means. The scientific task of improving knowledge and understanding of nature becomes a part of the broader task of improving global wisdom. The outcome would be what we so urgently need: a kind of inquiry rationally designed and devoted to helping us make progress towards a genuinely civilized world. We would succeed in doing what the Enlightenment tried but failed to do: learn from scientific progress how to go about making social progress towards as good a world as possible. (shrink)

A compelling investigation into one of the most coveted and cherished ideals, "Wisdom" also chronicles the efforts of modern science to penetrate the mysterious nature of this timeless virtue.

We argue that the concept of practical wisdom is particularly useful for organizing, understanding, and improving human-machine interactions. We consider the relationship between philosophical analysis of wisdom and psychological research into the development of wisdom. We adopt a practical orientation that suggests a conceptual engineering approach is needed, where philosophical work involves refinement of the concept in response to contributions by engineers and behavioral scientists. The former are tasked with encoding as much wise design as possible into (...) machines themselves, as well as providing sandboxes or workspaces to help various stakeholders build practical wisdom in systems that are sufficiently realistic to aid transferring skills learned to real-world use. The latter are needed for the design of exercises and methods of evaluation within these workspaces, as well as ways of empirically assessing the transfer of wisdom from workspace to world. Systematic interaction between these three disciplines (and others) is the best approach to engineering wisdom for the machine age. (shrink)