A Nutshell History of Worldly Wisdom
5 September, 2011
Humanity has a short written memory, a mere seven thousand years at best, out of some 50.000 1]. Words of wisdom remembered, teachings, proverbs and maxims, date back as early as the first written records.
Concern with worldly wisdom seems to have erupted into history in what Karl Jaspers has called the Axial Age [2] .
That was an amazing period, a mere six hundred years, between 800 BC and 200 BC when the great religions of the World and the foundations of philosophy were created by a scattered handful of geniuses – many legendary – like the authors of the Upanishads, Zoroaster, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Quang-Tzu, The Buddha, the Hebrew authors of the Tanach and the Hebrew Prophets, Thales, Heraclitus, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
Those sages woke up to the crystal-clear idea that, in his own interest, Man must stop to be a beast, wolf to his fellow man.
For this, they taught in many tongues the golden rule: “Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you"[3] Ever since, mankind follows, reluctantly, that path of religion and of moral philosophy. Their wisdom enkindled a humanistic course of social coexistence, of higher order than the emergence of agriculture, art, the agglomeration in cities and states or the growth of technology which are usually called "civilisation".
In fact, I think that civilisation is the evolution of man as a civilised person. No wealth, knowledge or power can supersede that millennia-old thing, being a decent good person.
From an occidental navel-of-the-world perspective, the Hebrews and the Greeks were the first to leave us substantial written proof of their thoughts about wisdom, by the 5th century BC. Of course, the Hindu, the Persian and the Chinese [4] showed the same interest at about the same time, or even earlier, drawing from older Arian and Vedic traditions. The Hebrews and the Greeks of the Axial Age were obviously inspired by previous Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Egyptian heritages which maybe, themselves... As the grand novelist wrote “Deep is the well of the past...”
Initially, wisdom, imparted by people with worthy experience – elders, scribes and courtiers - appears to have been practical: traditional advice for keeping out of harm’s way, doing things skilfully, behaving properly and governing well. Since then and to this day, teachers and counsellors persisted to see wisdom as being prudent, knowledgeable and masterful in people-matters. They saw wisdom as a life ability that emphasised experience, foresight, pragmatism, good judgement, good measure, skill with people, morality, compassion, and constant human concern. They understood that being wise and good is in our own interest. Practising wisdom would help one master oneself, avoid trouble, do things, live among people, be successful, even happy. Such wisdom stands for mastering the human [5].
This wisdom is instrumental and most of it is worldly, even when it is attributed to the gods. I would call this a wisdom of means. It may certainly lead to a desirable life. Any well-educated person should have access to this knowledge and to this savoir-faire that allows one to obtain what he wants and to keep away from what he does not want. If happiness means avoiding trouble, doing things, obtaining goods, friends, pleasure, success and enjoying life as it comes, this is all the wisdom we need.
Maybe so. But is this all there is to life? To survive, to succeed, to have and to do? To handle properly each moment given to us before we inevitably pass?
On a different plane, other people – mystics, hermits, sages - were not satisfied with the prudent practical wisdom of doing things properly and not even with understanding oneself and the ways of the World as it is. They longed for more than deliberating well or acting judiciously among people. They wanted to know what to want. They wanted to know good from evil. They longed for a meaning and a mission for their entire life, even a meaning to everybody’s life. Their pursuit was a wisdom of ends. They wanted to give meaning to human life and live by it. They wanted to be wise. Most of them found wisdom in a faith. They wanted to free and elevate spirit above matter. Many were contented to withdraw from the World into the renouncing loneliness and the serene silence of their understanding. Much of their wisdom remained silent. Thus, most of it was lost to us.
Nevertheless, some of them, the prophets and creators of religions of the Axial Age did not feel satisfied to obtain enlightenment in isolation, for themselves. They wanted to make the whole Humanity wise. They worked to civilise society. Their wisdom was to civilise humankind.
I believe intuitively that Zoroaster, Confucius, or the Buddha, found faith to be more effective than explanation. Faith in the divine that rules, makes simple and guarantees the good and the bad, the duty, the reward and the punishment. Religion is stronger in history than the appeal to reason. Maybe, this is why the sages created religions instead of philosophies.
They revealed to their followers values, visions and ways to rise spiritually above the material world or at least to have a moral compass to live through it. The prophets of the old Jews, the writers of the Hebrew Bible and, later, their Christian and Muslim descendants offered the world the strong belief that wisdom can only be one God’s perfect order given to the whole universe. Human wisdom is then the acceptance of divine wisdom and a movement towards the truth of God. No need to deliberate your own way. Chose! Plainly, for everyone to understand, you were with Ahura Mazda the good Lord of Wisdom or with Ahriman the master of chaos and evil. The beginning of human wisdom could only be the worship and fear of God. That would promise a proper life or at least a good afterlife. The source of wisdom and the method of wisdom is then faith, submission to the tenets of religion and participating through revelation in some of God’s work. Such wisdom means obeying God [6].
With Socrates, and Plato and particularly with Aristotle, the Greeks developed philosophies instead of religions. They were to replace the love for myth with the love for Reason. They became lovers of ideas. Aristotle, still cherished both epistemic wisdom – the love of true knowledge and phronesis - the art of judging well in life. Like the other sages he showed with force that purpose, values, meaning, forms, were as important to wisdom as the knowledge of efficient causes and material facts. He theorised practical wisdom - as the prudence [7], the courage, the ethic, and the good judgement needed to live a good, flourishing life. Nevertheless, most [8] of his philosophical successors preferred to shrink philosophic wisdom - sophia and episteme – down to the knowledge of objective causes and truth in nature and in reason at the expense of an art of living.
They wanted knowledge and logic to be pure, as if sacred, but independent from both divinity and human illusion.
Their noble vision was that Promethean knowledge of Truth will free Man from elusive gods and oppressive tyrants. In time, they certainly freed reason, not only from the gods but also from the humans. Their interest grew to debate with other philosophers about Truth, even to sacrifice their life to truth, instead of exploring some practical art of living well [9] or such undecidable subjects as the meaning of life.
As if truth and fact, not happiness, not a good life, were the ultimate good of mankind. We may need to think again about this choice.
By the XVII century in our era, philosophy – the “love of wisdom” - cared less for individual people living a life worth living than for finding the laws of rational thinking and the higher, absolute or objective truths and causalities of the world as it is. Knowledge was discovered to be power. Good life and freedom had to come from the victories of Science and the might of Technology. Such wisdom means explaining and conquering the Universe.
These are the main ways of wisdom still branching out today. My preference is an art of mastering human nature and life, here on Earth as reasonable free-willed beings, defined by our values and creations. However, if one lives wisely through faith in something higher, be it scientific or divine I do not object as long as man is not trampled on the way by the march of ideas.
The Socratic question lingers. “What is wisdom?”
What is Wisdom
______________________________________________________________
[1] Or is it 200.000?
[2] Karl Jaspers considered the Axial Age 800-200 BC (Golo Mann in Schlipp, P., A., 1957 p. 560. See also Jaspers K., The Origin and Goal of History, Yale Univ. Press, New Haven and London, 1953 , and Jaspers K. 1965
[3] Confucius, Analects 15:23
[4] It would be for the least naïve to mention Socrates, Plato and Aristotle debating about wisdom and omit the authors of the Vedas, Vyasa (Mahabharata), The Baghavad Gita, Zoroaster, Gautama Buddha, Confucius and Lao Tzu all of whom seemingly lived and taught before them.
[5] Once for all let me clarify that I use “Man” because I am a man, while I refer certainly to men and women alike. In fact, I found that women are often wiser than men, in many ways.
[6] With or without believing with them, it appears that the sacred writings of the religions preserved a wealth of practical wisdom that was neglected and forgotten by philosophy and is not present in scientific writings. If you seek wisdom, you must therefore study the sacred books
[7] phronêsis
[8] It would be unjust not to mention however several schools of philosophy that persisted caring for wisdom as a way to get the best from our life: the cynics, the epicureans, the skeptics, the stoics to name just a few.
[9] Maxwell, Nicholas, "The Urgent Need for an Academic Revolution: From Knowledge to Wisdom" in III International Interdisciplinary Technical Conference of Young Scientists: Proceedings of Conference at Poznan University of Technology 20 May 2010, W. Karpiuk and K. Wisniewski (eds), 19-30.(2010), (pp. 19-30). Résumé: “At present the basic intellectual aim of academic inquiry is to improve knowledge. Much of the structure, the whole character, of academic inquiry, in universities all over the world, is shaped by the adoption of this as the basic intellectual aim. But, judged from the standpoint of making a contribution to human welfare, academic inquiry of this type is damagingly irrational. Three of four of the most elementary rules of rational problem-solving are violated. A revolution in the aims and methods of academic inquiry is needed so that the basic aim becomes to promote wisdom, conceived of as the capacity to realize what is of value, for oneself and others, thus including knowledge and technological know-how, but much else besides. This urgently needed revolution would affect every branch and aspect of the academic enterprise.”
Concern with worldly wisdom seems to have erupted into history in what Karl Jaspers has called the Axial Age [2] .
That was an amazing period, a mere six hundred years, between 800 BC and 200 BC when the great religions of the World and the foundations of philosophy were created by a scattered handful of geniuses – many legendary – like the authors of the Upanishads, Zoroaster, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Quang-Tzu, The Buddha, the Hebrew authors of the Tanach and the Hebrew Prophets, Thales, Heraclitus, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
Those sages woke up to the crystal-clear idea that, in his own interest, Man must stop to be a beast, wolf to his fellow man.
For this, they taught in many tongues the golden rule: “Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you"[3] Ever since, mankind follows, reluctantly, that path of religion and of moral philosophy. Their wisdom enkindled a humanistic course of social coexistence, of higher order than the emergence of agriculture, art, the agglomeration in cities and states or the growth of technology which are usually called "civilisation".
In fact, I think that civilisation is the evolution of man as a civilised person. No wealth, knowledge or power can supersede that millennia-old thing, being a decent good person.
From an occidental navel-of-the-world perspective, the Hebrews and the Greeks were the first to leave us substantial written proof of their thoughts about wisdom, by the 5th century BC. Of course, the Hindu, the Persian and the Chinese [4] showed the same interest at about the same time, or even earlier, drawing from older Arian and Vedic traditions. The Hebrews and the Greeks of the Axial Age were obviously inspired by previous Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Egyptian heritages which maybe, themselves... As the grand novelist wrote “Deep is the well of the past...”
Initially, wisdom, imparted by people with worthy experience – elders, scribes and courtiers - appears to have been practical: traditional advice for keeping out of harm’s way, doing things skilfully, behaving properly and governing well. Since then and to this day, teachers and counsellors persisted to see wisdom as being prudent, knowledgeable and masterful in people-matters. They saw wisdom as a life ability that emphasised experience, foresight, pragmatism, good judgement, good measure, skill with people, morality, compassion, and constant human concern. They understood that being wise and good is in our own interest. Practising wisdom would help one master oneself, avoid trouble, do things, live among people, be successful, even happy. Such wisdom stands for mastering the human [5].
This wisdom is instrumental and most of it is worldly, even when it is attributed to the gods. I would call this a wisdom of means. It may certainly lead to a desirable life. Any well-educated person should have access to this knowledge and to this savoir-faire that allows one to obtain what he wants and to keep away from what he does not want. If happiness means avoiding trouble, doing things, obtaining goods, friends, pleasure, success and enjoying life as it comes, this is all the wisdom we need.
Maybe so. But is this all there is to life? To survive, to succeed, to have and to do? To handle properly each moment given to us before we inevitably pass?
On a different plane, other people – mystics, hermits, sages - were not satisfied with the prudent practical wisdom of doing things properly and not even with understanding oneself and the ways of the World as it is. They longed for more than deliberating well or acting judiciously among people. They wanted to know what to want. They wanted to know good from evil. They longed for a meaning and a mission for their entire life, even a meaning to everybody’s life. Their pursuit was a wisdom of ends. They wanted to give meaning to human life and live by it. They wanted to be wise. Most of them found wisdom in a faith. They wanted to free and elevate spirit above matter. Many were contented to withdraw from the World into the renouncing loneliness and the serene silence of their understanding. Much of their wisdom remained silent. Thus, most of it was lost to us.
Nevertheless, some of them, the prophets and creators of religions of the Axial Age did not feel satisfied to obtain enlightenment in isolation, for themselves. They wanted to make the whole Humanity wise. They worked to civilise society. Their wisdom was to civilise humankind.
I believe intuitively that Zoroaster, Confucius, or the Buddha, found faith to be more effective than explanation. Faith in the divine that rules, makes simple and guarantees the good and the bad, the duty, the reward and the punishment. Religion is stronger in history than the appeal to reason. Maybe, this is why the sages created religions instead of philosophies.
They revealed to their followers values, visions and ways to rise spiritually above the material world or at least to have a moral compass to live through it. The prophets of the old Jews, the writers of the Hebrew Bible and, later, their Christian and Muslim descendants offered the world the strong belief that wisdom can only be one God’s perfect order given to the whole universe. Human wisdom is then the acceptance of divine wisdom and a movement towards the truth of God. No need to deliberate your own way. Chose! Plainly, for everyone to understand, you were with Ahura Mazda the good Lord of Wisdom or with Ahriman the master of chaos and evil. The beginning of human wisdom could only be the worship and fear of God. That would promise a proper life or at least a good afterlife. The source of wisdom and the method of wisdom is then faith, submission to the tenets of religion and participating through revelation in some of God’s work. Such wisdom means obeying God [6].
With Socrates, and Plato and particularly with Aristotle, the Greeks developed philosophies instead of religions. They were to replace the love for myth with the love for Reason. They became lovers of ideas. Aristotle, still cherished both epistemic wisdom – the love of true knowledge and phronesis - the art of judging well in life. Like the other sages he showed with force that purpose, values, meaning, forms, were as important to wisdom as the knowledge of efficient causes and material facts. He theorised practical wisdom - as the prudence [7], the courage, the ethic, and the good judgement needed to live a good, flourishing life. Nevertheless, most [8] of his philosophical successors preferred to shrink philosophic wisdom - sophia and episteme – down to the knowledge of objective causes and truth in nature and in reason at the expense of an art of living.
They wanted knowledge and logic to be pure, as if sacred, but independent from both divinity and human illusion.
Their noble vision was that Promethean knowledge of Truth will free Man from elusive gods and oppressive tyrants. In time, they certainly freed reason, not only from the gods but also from the humans. Their interest grew to debate with other philosophers about Truth, even to sacrifice their life to truth, instead of exploring some practical art of living well [9] or such undecidable subjects as the meaning of life.
As if truth and fact, not happiness, not a good life, were the ultimate good of mankind. We may need to think again about this choice.
By the XVII century in our era, philosophy – the “love of wisdom” - cared less for individual people living a life worth living than for finding the laws of rational thinking and the higher, absolute or objective truths and causalities of the world as it is. Knowledge was discovered to be power. Good life and freedom had to come from the victories of Science and the might of Technology. Such wisdom means explaining and conquering the Universe.
These are the main ways of wisdom still branching out today. My preference is an art of mastering human nature and life, here on Earth as reasonable free-willed beings, defined by our values and creations. However, if one lives wisely through faith in something higher, be it scientific or divine I do not object as long as man is not trampled on the way by the march of ideas.
The Socratic question lingers. “What is wisdom?”
What is Wisdom
______________________________________________________________
[1] Or is it 200.000?
[2] Karl Jaspers considered the Axial Age 800-200 BC (Golo Mann in Schlipp, P., A., 1957 p. 560. See also Jaspers K., The Origin and Goal of History, Yale Univ. Press, New Haven and London, 1953 , and Jaspers K. 1965
[3] Confucius, Analects 15:23
[4] It would be for the least naïve to mention Socrates, Plato and Aristotle debating about wisdom and omit the authors of the Vedas, Vyasa (Mahabharata), The Baghavad Gita, Zoroaster, Gautama Buddha, Confucius and Lao Tzu all of whom seemingly lived and taught before them.
[5] Once for all let me clarify that I use “Man” because I am a man, while I refer certainly to men and women alike. In fact, I found that women are often wiser than men, in many ways.
[6] With or without believing with them, it appears that the sacred writings of the religions preserved a wealth of practical wisdom that was neglected and forgotten by philosophy and is not present in scientific writings. If you seek wisdom, you must therefore study the sacred books
[7] phronêsis
[8] It would be unjust not to mention however several schools of philosophy that persisted caring for wisdom as a way to get the best from our life: the cynics, the epicureans, the skeptics, the stoics to name just a few.
[9] Maxwell, Nicholas, "The Urgent Need for an Academic Revolution: From Knowledge to Wisdom" in III International Interdisciplinary Technical Conference of Young Scientists: Proceedings of Conference at Poznan University of Technology 20 May 2010, W. Karpiuk and K. Wisniewski (eds), 19-30.(2010), (pp. 19-30). Résumé: “At present the basic intellectual aim of academic inquiry is to improve knowledge. Much of the structure, the whole character, of academic inquiry, in universities all over the world, is shaped by the adoption of this as the basic intellectual aim. But, judged from the standpoint of making a contribution to human welfare, academic inquiry of this type is damagingly irrational. Three of four of the most elementary rules of rational problem-solving are violated. A revolution in the aims and methods of academic inquiry is needed so that the basic aim becomes to promote wisdom, conceived of as the capacity to realize what is of value, for oneself and others, thus including knowledge and technological know-how, but much else besides. This urgently needed revolution would affect every branch and aspect of the academic enterprise.”