Wisdom 6-30-2010

 Something I showed little of the past few years of my life.

Aristotle places wisdom under the virtues of thought and gives it a strict definition of "the most exact {form} of scientific knowledge." (Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI, Chapter 7.) Wisdom is not about human goods, but about the "scientific knowledge and understanding about things that are by nature most honorable." Beings exist that are better than humans.

I think what I call my lack of wisdom fits more with Aristotle's imprudence.

...For we say that deliberating well is the function of the prudent person more than anything else; but no one deliberates about things that cannot be otherwise or about things lacking any goal that is a good achievable in action. The unqualifiedly good deliberator is the one whose aim accords with rational calculation in pursuit of the best good for a human being that is achieveable in action.

His prudence concerns itself more with particulars than universals.

 Yes, I did a very poor job of deliberating in a rational way. Although I must say, my irrationality found justification for itself in a very deliberate way. Therein may lay the real danger of depression: it creates a sense of rationality. Back to Aristotle: I bet Freud and modern psychology may have something to say about our rationality and deliberative process.

I suspect many of my fellow inmates have a similar failing in their deliberative processes. Others might have been quite rational in their decisions. Here exists a wide field for the psychologist and/or the criminologist. I see a variance attributable to different crimes, different education, and different intellectual abilities.

Compare Aristotle with these verses from Proverbs 1, 28 - 30:

Then they call me, but I answer not; they seek me, but find me not; Because they hated knowledge, and chose not the fear of the Lord; They ignored my counsel, they spurned all my reproof; And in their arrogance, and like fools, they hated knowledge.

See also Wisdom of Solomon 8 and Wisdom of Sirach 1.

Knowledge could be of the Mosaic Law, but I read something broader. The very scope of Sirach indicates a broader knowledge; one that is connected with God.

 

The Epistle of James 3, 13 - 17 divides wisdom into two types: earthly and heavenly. James also describes qualities of the wise that may or may not be part of the Greek wise man. I vote for them implicitly belonging to the wise as described by Aristotle.

 

I put prudence ahead of Aristotle's wisdom, but then I cannot imagine the wise not being prudent. Wisdom pertains to the mundane as well as the abstract. I think Proverbs and Sirach support me on this. The notes contained in my edition of Aristotle indicates Plato and Aristotle differ on the relationship of wisdom and prudence. I have no Plato available to me in the Volunteers of America halfway house. When teaching, I suspect a lot of people will conflate prudence and wisdom.

Perspective can tell a different story about prudence and wisdom. Credit default swaps have nothing prudent about them now, but what about in 2007? Was Sarbanes-Oxley prudent or expedient? A very long list could be made of what was once prudent time proved as imprudent. We can only judge the past by was known and could have been known against what became known. If what became known should have been known, then disparage the action as unwise.

 

An intrusive thought I will leave here: What grand gesture is ever prudent? 

One last thought: prudence may mean saying no more than saying yes. How do we square this with our desires, our economic lives?

 

sch

[My apologies, the argument gets a bit ragged for me, and I was the one making it. The best thing to say is this was, is, part of the entries proposing the teaching of ethics. I think I wanted to point out our secular and religious sources both promote wisdom as a virtue, even a necessity for the good life. I stand by my promotion of this idea in the above entry. sch 1/30/2023.]