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Intellectual and Institutional Changes Needed if Knowledge-Inquiry is to Become Wisdom-Inquiry
1. There needs to be a change in the basic
intellectual aim of inquiry, from the growth of knowledge to the growth
of wisdom - wisdom being taken to be the capacity to realize what is of
value in life, for oneself and others, and thus including knowledge,
understanding and technological know-how (but much else besides).
2.
There needs to be a change in the nature of academic problems, so that
problems of living are included, as well as problems of knowledge - the
former being treated as intellectually more fundamental than the
latter.
3. There needs to be a change in the nature of
academic ideas, so that proposals for action are included as well as
claims to knowledge - the former, again, being treated as
intellectually more fundamental than the latter.
4. There needs
to be a change in what constitutes intellectual progress, so that
progress-in-ideas-relevant-to-achieving-a-more-civilized-world is
included as well as progress in knowledge, the former being indeed
intellectually fundamental.
5. There needs to be a change in the
idea as to where inquiry, at its most fundamental, is located. It is
not esoteric theoretical physics, but rather the thinking we engage in
as we seek to achieve what is of value in life. Academic thought is a
(vital) adjunct to what really matters, personal and social thought
active in life.
6. There needs to be a dramatic change in the
nature of social inquiry (reflecting points 1 to 5). Economics,
politics, sociology, and so on, are not, fundamentally, sciences, and
do not, fundamentally, have the task of improving knowledge about
social phenomena. Instead, their task is threefold. First, it is to
articulate problems of living, and propose and critically assess
possible solutions, possible actions or policies, from the standpoint
of their capacity, if implemented, to promote wiser ways of living.
Second, it is to promote such cooperatively rational tackling of
problems of living throughout the social world. And third, at a more
basic and long-term level, it is to help build the hierarchical
structure of aims and methods of aim-oriented rationality into
personal, institutional and global life, thus creating frameworks
within which progressive improvement of personal and social life
aims-and-methods becomes possible. These three tasks are undertaken in
order to promote cooperative tackling of problems of living - but also
in order to enhance empathic or "personalistic" understanding between
people as something of value in its own right. Acquiring knowledge of
social phenomena is a vital but subordinate activity, engaged in to
facilitate the above three fundamental pursuits.
7. Natural
science needs to change, so that it includes at least three levels of
discussion: evidence, theory, and research aims. Discussion of aims
needs to bring together scientific, metaphysical and evaluative
consideration in an attempt to discover the most desirable and
realizable research aims. It needs to influence, and be influenced by,
exploration of problems of living undertaken by social inquiry and the
humanities, and the public.
8. There needs to be a dramatic
change in the relationship between social inquiry and natural science,
so that social inquiry becomes intellectually more fundamental from the
standpoint of tackling problems of living, promoting wisdom. Social
inquiry influences choice of research aims for the natural and
technological sciences, and is, of course, in turn influenced by the
results of such research. (Social inquiry also, of course, conducts
empirical research, in order to improve our understanding of what our
problems of living are, and in order to assess policy ideas whenever
possible.)
9. The current emphasis on specialized research needs
to change so that sustained discussion and tackling of broad, global
problems that cut across academic specialities is included, both
influencing and being influenced by, specialized research.
10.
Academia needs to include sustained imaginative and critical
exploration of possible futures, for each country, and for humanity as
a whole, policy and research implications being discussed as well.
11.
The way in which academic inquiry as a whole is related to the rest of
the human world needs to change dramatically. Instead of being
intellectually dissociated from the rest of society, academic inquiry
needs to be communicating with, learning from, teaching and arguing
with the rest of society - in such a way as to promote cooperative
rationality and social wisdom. Academia needs to have just sufficient
power to retain its independence from the pressures of government,
industry, the military, and public opinion, but no more. Academia
becomes a kind of civil service for the public, doing openly and
independently what actual civil services are supposed to do in secret
for governments.
12. There needs to be a change in the role that
political and religious ideas, works of art, expressions of feelings,
desires and values have within rational inquiry. Instead of being
excluded, they need to be explicitly included and critically assessed,
as possible indications and revelations of what is of value, and as
unmasking of fraudulent values in satire and parody, vital ingredients
of wisdom.
13. There need to be changes in education so that,
for example, seminars devoted to the cooperative, imaginative and
critical discussion of problems of living are at the heart of all
education from five-year-olds onwards. Politics, which cannot be taught
by knowledge-inquiry, becomes central to wisdom-inquiry, political
creeds and actions being subjected to imaginative and critical
scrutiny.
14. There need to be changes in the aims, priorities
and character of pure science and scholarship, so that it is the
curiosity, the seeing and searching, the knowing and understanding of
individual persons that ultimately matters, the more impersonal,
esoteric, purely intellectual aspects of science and scholarship being
means to this end. Social inquiry needs to give intellectual priority
to helping empathic understanding between people to flourish (as
indicated in 6 above).
15. There need to be changes in the way
mathematics is understood, pursued and taught. Mathematics is not a
branch of knowledge at all. Rather, it is concerned to explore
problematic possibilities, and to develop, systematize and unify
problem-solving methods.
16. Literature needs to be put close to
the heart of rational inquiry, in that it explores imaginatively our
most profound problems of living and aids personalistic understanding
in life by enhancing our ability to enter imaginatively into the
problems and lives of others.
17 Philosophy needs to change so
that it ceases to be just another specialized discipline and becomes
instead that aspect of inquiry as a whole that is concerned with our
most general and fundamental problems - those problems that cut across
all disciplinary boundaries. Philosophy needs to become again what it
was for Socrates: the attempt to devote reason to the growth of wisdom
in life.
18 Academic contributions need to be written in as
simple, lucid, jargon-free a way as possible, so that academic work is
as accessible as possible across specialities and to non-academics.
19.
There needs to be a change in views about what constitute academic
contributions, so that publications which promote (or have the
potential to promote) public understanding as to what our problems of
livings are and what we need to do about them are included, in addition
to contributions addressed primarily to the academic community.
20.
Every university needs to create a seminar or symposium devoted to the
sustained discussion of fundamental problems that cut across all
conventional academic boundaries, global problems of living being
included as well as problems of knowledge and understanding.
In addition, the following four institutional innovations ought also to be made to help wisdom-inquiry to flourish:
21.
Natural science needs to create committees, in the public eye, and
manned by scientists and non-scientists alike, concerned to highlight
and discuss failures of the priorities of research to respond to the
interests of those whose needs are the greatest - the poor of the earth
- as a result of the inevitable tendency of research priorities to
reflect the interests of those who pay for science, and the interests
of scientists themselves.
22. Every national university system
needs to include a national shadow government, seeking to do,
virtually, free of the constraints of power, what the actual national
government ought to be doing. The hope would be that virtual and actual
governments would learn from each other.
23. The world's
universities need to include a virtual world government which seeks to
do what an actual elected world government ought to do, if it existed.
The virtual world government would also have the task of working out
how an actual democratically elected world government might be created.
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