In pursuit of practical wisdom
In my 2010 Annual Lecture this evening I endeavoured to show how Macquarie University plans to set our students on [...]
Posted on August 25th, 2010 by Steven Schwartz
In my 2010 Annual Lecture this evening I endeavoured to show how Macquarie University plans to set our students on the road to practical wisdom. What follows is an extract from my talk, but you can read the lecture in full here. I am interested in your views and encourage you to post them here on this blog
Confucius, the great Chinese philosopher, said that there are three ways to gain wisdom—by reflection, by imitation, and by experience, which he described as the bitterest way to learn.
As the classical philosophers and the founders of the world’s great religions knew, practical wisdom is more than just book learning.
It also requires knowing how to act on this knowledge to achieve a good outcome.
Knowing how to act comes from a combination of book knowledge, role models and experience.
Gu Yanwu, an ancient Chinese scholar, put it this way. To become wise, you must read 10000 books and walk 10000 miles.
In other words, book learning is necessary but not sufficient. If we want to become wise then we must get out of the library and walk the talk.
Unfortunately, modern universities have forgotten this advice. We once were about character building but now we are about money.
We live in the age of money. And money is what the modern university is all about.
Among politicians, a kind of cargo cult has developed around universities. Want to rev up your economy?
Build some impressive looking buildings, preferably out of sandstone, hire a few caps and gowns, print diplomas on fake parchment and then sit back and wait for the dollars to roll in.
If you cannot afford this, then simply rename some colleges and technical schools universities.
Not surprisingly, in the age of money, university courses are increasingly vocational.
These courses are designed to train graduates for their first job after leaving university: not only law, accounting and pharmacy, but also golf course management, contemporary circus and physical performance, hairdressing-salon management, equestrian psychology and fashion-and-lifestyle products.
Yes, these are all courses offered by modern universities.
Politicians and universities often refer to skill shortages.
Apparently we need more circus performers and salon managers.
For some reason, no one seems to worry about a shortage of philosophers, historians and ethicists.
This vocational trend is unlikely to be reversed; people have got to work and students are understandably focused on building a career.
But successful careers depend on more than technical skills; they also depend on the practical application of wisdom.
Unfortunately, modern universities are not in the wisdom business.
We educate students but we don’t even try to make them wise.
- Steven Schwartz
Comments
Listened tonight to your discussion with Steve Austin and was beside myself with interest I believe some philosophical discussion should begin as early as primary school and be built on throughout education I was delighted to see the outcome of my grand daughters involvement in philosophy in high school in South Korea with an intelligent and open teacher....she became evolved emotionally and intellectually from the course and it has been perhaps the most driving force in her studies. Her parent would assert that it is a dangerous thing to impart philosophy to the young..they look for and demand solutions from the establishment Combined with extensive travel and life experience in Asia we have a very rounded human being who challenges us all. My own response was to go to philosphy groups at U3A where I have enjoyed discussion with like minded but very diverse groups This is a most important aspect of learning in Australia where I feel we have failed our students. Thinking is a process which needs to be acknowledged and encouraged......just listen to talk back radio for 10 minutes J
Judy George - August 25, 2010
Hi Steven, I attended the event. 1. Andrew asked you for the difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is book learning and wisdom is experiential learning. Is your answer the same for the difference between being intelligent and being wise? 2. How do we know ourselves / achieve self-knowledge? Is there a known book/course/process or do we have to struggle, suffer, make mistakes and accept consequences to know ourselves? Do we live long enough or can afford to make all the mistakes in life for 'experiential learning'? For example, people say that academics need to learn in order to do; entrepreneurs do in order to learn. How many bankruptcies can one afford? 3. Choice and decision making training Good Decision-Makers May Be Made, Not Born, Study Suggests http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070517155025.htm Can wisdom be taught or can good choice/decision-making be taught/trained? If so, which would be a more important subject - Practical Wisdom or Choice/Decision making training or do you believe they are the same subjects anyway rather than separate subjects? I have 2 university degrees; yet I have not been given the recipe for life - the recipe to make good choices and decisions. Are you saying that there is no answer to this question, from your lecture yesterday? Thank you, SiewPing
SiewPing Wong - August 26, 2010
Dear Steven, It was great to hear and see your blog on practical wisdom at universities. This has long been a hobby horse of mine, and I have discussed it with a good friend of mine who is an economics lecturer - I believe at Macquarie Uni - and he has told me of the "dumbing down" of university courses because of the impact of money and the need to attract overseas fee paying students who expect to receive a degree merely because they have paid for it. I have also reflected on how in days past, looking back in particular at the period from 1850-1950, universities were viewed as a place to gain a life experience, learning, wisdom, and to round out an individual. Many of these opportunities have disappeared. I agree that universities are now seen simply as a stepping stone to a vocation, and this starts from the moment we send our children to school and invoke them to get the best "education" they can to one day land the best jobs. In my opinion this all stems back to trying to make universities accessible to everyone. I know it is elitist to say it, especially as I had the privilege of going to university when it was free, but it is flawed thinking to say that everyone can go to university. For a start, that immediately devalues its worth, not to mention as you stated the impact of the number of colleges that were upgraded to universities overnight. Secondly, it is a fact that to qualify for university, let alone complete a degree, requires a minimum level of scholastic ability. Not everyone is cut out for it. We should just accept that fact. There was nothing wrong with the old system where socio-economically disadvantaged students won scholarships to attend university. Places in universities should be limited, not expanded. By making it accessible to everyone for vocational purposes, we have lost the desire and benefit of going to university for its own sake. I fear it is too late to go back. Nevertheless, please keep speaking out on this issue. Regards, Peter Perivolaris
Peter Perivolaris CPA - August 26, 2010
One of the most beautiful things I find about Maquarie is the paper bark trees and the gardens and the rocks. Sounds simple. But that's maybe what it is. An unformated. Organic understanding of what we have and what we don't. Practical wisdom is seeing what we have and appreaciating it. To improve a student's understanding of art a student studies Shakespeares T.S.Eliot and the like but is oblivious to what surrounds them. Practical wisdom is sort of opening your mind and your senses and being less ignorance for a change. Perhaps turning off your computer, your mobile, the tv and the radio for a few hours each day is a good first step. Taking a walk each day instead of driving the car.
Al - August 26, 2010
Dear Steven, That was a superbly delivered, and, as importantly, highly stimulating lecture last night, as you could tell from the hubbub of multiple conversations which followed. It may interest you to know that one of the ways in which we seek to stretch the students of AHIS211 (‘Ciceronian Rome’) is the circulation in the first lecture of the semester of a compulsory (deceptively simple) question that we would like to see students address in the examination at the end of the semester: “Was Brutus right?” There are many different ways in which, and many different levels on which, the question can be tackled, but fundamental to it is an invitation to the students to reach a stage along the way in their getting of practical wisdom—and to contemplate their own deep-felt values. If a Republic has ‘lost its way’ (if the citizenry might be said to have lost its freedom), is it acceptable to kill for its restoration? In that first lecture, we pose the question in the light of the extreme positions assigned to Brutus in the western tradition, beginning with Plutarch’s virtually hagiographical portrait of the philosopher-in-politics in his Life of Brutus. Dante consigned the very learned Brutus and his fellow-conspirator Cassius together with Judas Iscariot to the deepest pit of Hell, but Shakespeare allows his Brutus (his ultimately unsuccessful Brutus) to be hailed as “the noblest Roman of them all.” “... and the elements so mix’d in him that Nature might stand up and say to all the world, This was a man!”: no distant costume drama for Shakespeare, as the historian James Shapiro observes. It was staged when Elizabeth I was not in the best of health and had been the target of assassination attempts. In 1599, Julius Caesar must have been a stunning play. There is no obvious answer to the question we pose, but we hope thatit engages students in the world that historians and humanists inhabit. Thanks again for the lecture (as for last year’s) Tom Hillard Ancient History
Tom Hillard - August 26, 2010
Fichte in 'The Vocation of Man' states that humanity's purpose is to strive for unity and peace, and to progress in wisdom to the highest plane. But he asks, if such a goal were attained, what then? His answer is provocative: "It would be the highest wisdom not to trouble ourselves about things that don't concern us, to live just as we pleased.." In fact, such wisdom, would dictate that we leave the outcome of all matters outside our control to someone, or something else to decide, perhaps government, community, fate? This is not Fichte's stance, he insists that such a path leads to an inner moral emptiness that does not befit the human subject, and is frankly beneath a being who is capable of so much more. As Fichte makes clear, a "Vocation" isn't just what one does for a salary!
Kathleen Steele - August 26, 2010
Dear Steve, I found your comments extremely interesting as I am studying for a degree in Philosophy. As a mature aged student, and ardent book reader, I have read many of the great masters works, along with numerous spiritual texts. I am constantly asked what I am going to do with this knowledge. It occurs to me that many people these days will not attempt something without an agenda. Everything has become a means to an end. It is sad to see how few people understand that true happiness does not come as a result of a big bank role, but rather by fulfilling ones destined journey. I have found the one essential ingredient in following ones destiny is to not predecide every aspect of ones life, but rather have enough faith in the universes ebb and flow to be carried along. Education today has become motivated by the market and economy, leaving little time to contemplate humanity and the far reaching consequences of our limited sight and actions. For this I am sure we will all pay dearly, but I have little doubt that this journey into the material which society has undertaken, will end up bringing us back full circle to a place where wisdom will once again become valuable and sought after. Karen Norman Philosophy
Karen Norman - August 26, 2010
Dear Steven The whole show might revolve about the Dunning Kruger Effect. Peter Perivolaris’ statement about universities 1850 – 1950 was fair enough and anyone taking an overview might assess a stint at a traditional college as providing any reasonably aspirated individual with enough mental discipline to pursue any pathway they choose in life. On the other hand it has not been unknown for the odd college to take on the occasional dunderhead product of wealth and privilege so long as the fees were accompanied by the occasional small emolument (say, toward founding the Alfred E. Neumann chair of semantics). Judging by what this author has read it was often the case that smoothing off the rough edges enough to have the latter sort refraining from drinking from the finger bowl and starting at the outside with the cutlery – was a win. Within the collegiate crucible there may be some demonstrable eutectic point on the graph whereby the alloying of the academically bright and the remarkably privileged maximize the societal benefit. Or does the best alloy require some additional vital elements? The making of lifelong acquaintances and friendships has long been an acknowledged albeit rarely quantified aspect of the university experience. Yet the university experience might be fraught with danger if the resultant peer group structures pan out as overly stratified, rarified or insular. A parallel could be drawn between the old boys of traditional colleges and commissioned Naval officers of any age New technologies have always presented unexpected challenges and the age of steam navigation resulted in the need for an entirely new class of highly qualified commissioned officer who frequently came from an entirely different societal background than their peers – an entirely new sub-set of ‘gentlemen’ despised by their peers and treated to the extent of being banished from their wardroom until, like errant children, they’d satisfactorily ‘steamed the grease from under their fingernails’. Nor was this unique to the age of transition from sail to steam. We Australians (as my mum used to say) might well be speaking Japanese now were it not for the fact that special care was taken to overcome prejudice and choose aviation savvy commanders and aviation qualified deck officers for their carrier fleet during WW11. Other nations did things differently and just lost ships and lives. So while Dunning and Kruger might contend that some are either intellectually or imaginatively challenged enough just to keep making bad decisions – absolutely nothing excuses those who arrive at detrimental value judgements dedicated toward maintaining little more than their own temporary comfort zone. Well, back at line 1 – I did say - the whole show might .
PJ Dunn - PRS Defence, QLD - August 26, 2010
VC, Great blog post and fascinating speech. I particularly agree with the comment regarding the lack of wisdom in financial services (I work there!). However, I would like to hear your view on how you are to marry-up this view on liberal education with you avowed desire to turn Macquarie Uni into a 'Stanford of Australia' with an emphasis on applicable research?
Sean - August 26, 2010
My view on this aspect of knowledge vs wisdom being imparted by universties, is simple. No one yet can associate a dollar value to wisdom. This has been an intangible and will continue to do so for a while. Few decades ago, this was the same with knowledge. But now knowledge capitalisation models have been created which can be commercialised. From a practical perspective, entrepreneurs that can span interdisciplinary boundaries are more likely to be able to build on the capitalised knowledge resulting into wisdom characterisation. We need more of these. Chris
Chris Vas - August 27, 2010
Steven: I did enjoy your lecture and thank you for making the university a more interesting place – a thing that not all VCs of my acquaintance seem to think is important. I thought that the issues you raised initially ultimately turned on understanding the relationship between a moral decision and its consequences. I think that as you can never know what the chain events following a decision will be you can only make a decision contingent on what feels right at the time. So McNab was right and the American sergeant was wrong but only insofar as he appears to regret the decision and not the consequences. These are quite different things. But how do you know what feels right? As a cricketer (an opening batsman) I would never leave the crease until the umpire gave me out even if I knew I was out. This is because the Laws of Cricket make it quite clear that the umpire is the sole arbiter and it is not my job to give myself out. Equally I was never upset when an umpire gave me out when I knew I was not out. This is because the Laws of Cricket state clearly that someone is out when ‘in the opinion of the umpire’ s/he is out and not with reference to anything that might actually have happened on the field of play. This has been forgotten in the current mania to use technology to determine in/out decisions. These are trivial but, I think, instructive examples as they show how an external reference can guide right thinking. McNab was able to draw on the esprit de corps of the SAS and his American colleague (in his right decision, consequences notwithstanding) was able to draw on his Christian soul. As someone with a religious faith (Greek Orthodoxy) I also have an external guide in the writings and traditions of the church. However, that does not mean I always make the right decision or that tricky ethical decisions are made easy (though I suppose some are). The reason that a faith does not enable constant right decisions is to be found in the problem of evil. A real force for someone with my beliefs and, I imagine, for your fellow VC from ACU. In Chinese philosophy, as I understand it, evil is to be shunned or avoided. In the west it is to be actively defended against if not fought (though that’s what saints do!). But it is certainly the activity of evil – another external force - that means that people of religious conviction find it just as hard as everyone else to do the right thing. But at least they have a guide. How does someone secular decide? With McNab, as I said, it was esprit de corps, but I am baffled as to how ethical/moral propositions can emerge from an internal source solely. They clearly do as people of all kinds make highly ethical choices but I can’t explain why except by reference, I suppose, to the relationship between knowledge and experience and the operation of those two forces on internal feelings of self-consistency and, ultimately, pleasure (in altruism). The really hard one which we deal with all the time is the relationship between ethical decisions and everyday decisions. For example, I don’t think the decision to, say, buy a new car is very often an ethical one and it can prove to be a good or bad decision as the consequences unfold. Similarly when we appoint staff we are guided by process and assuming we operate with integrity our decision will be as reasonably objective as any decision involving the interaction between human beings can be (i.e. not as objective as we think, I fear). However, what about when it comes to sacking someone? All our processes may back us up and the person may richly deserve it because of their behaviour but although I have had to sack several people for disciplinary reasons and several people for operational efficiency reasons in my time I must confess that, in some cases, I felt that I was getting into moral/ethical waters and not purely doing my job. You might say that this is because any reasonable person will be mindful of the consequences of his/her actions on others and sometimes regret them. That must be true but I think it is also more than that. And maybe this is where the concept of wisdom comes in. It may well be wisdom that enables us to balance and accommodate emotionally and intellectually the rightness of decision making with the wrongness of consequences. I need to think about that a bit more but I think that is what I get from my reflection on your lecture so far.
John Simons - August 27, 2010
WISDOM DURING THE PhD BACKGROUND Prof Schwartz has articulated the idea that “practical wisdom” should be one of the things we seek to develop in Macquarie students. His presentation revolved around undergrads and around their lives outside universities. But because my life has been mainly in academia, the examples I was thinking about during his lecture were drawn from the day-to-day life of a research lab. So I’d like to raise the possibility we could do more to develop practical wisdom in our PhD students, who will make up the next generation of academics and researchers. I do think there are issues facing PhD students and academics that deserve to be thought through explicitly. The list below gives some examples. Some of these are standard topics in research ethics. But even for these, I like the idea of treating them as discussion problems in wisdom, rather than as topics where you have to learn guidelines. SOME ISSUES THAT CALL FOR PRACTICAL WISDOM DURING THE PhD AND DURING A CAREER AS A RESEARCHER 1. When having doubts about whether to continue with the PhD, how should you decide? (The same question can be asked about whether to continue with research as a career choice and way of life.) 2. When you are writing up results for publication and there is an aspect that is puzzling to you, should it be left out of the write-up? 3. When you start writing a paper, how should you decide which other people (if any) should be authors? How should that be discussed both with those included and with those not included? 4. If someone has been a member of your research group for several years but then becomes relatively ineffective, say through depression or other illness, do they deserve more consideration than if they had been ineffective when they first joined? 5. How should you decide what research topic to work on? 6. Is it an obligation of the research life to work on things that are useful to the general public? 7. When invited to review a paper that has been submitted to a journal, what factors should you take into account in deciding whether to agree or not? 8. How often should you go to seminars? How many people would you like to turn up to your seminars? 9. Suppose you get to review a paper or proposal that scoops you in part but also you think your work is better or more complete. How should you proceed? (This was a situation that confronted Darwin, but you shouldn’t assume that his solution was necessarily the best one.) 10. If you supervise a very bright honours student, is it right to try to persuade them to do a PhD with you? 11. Suppose you are asked to act as a referee for them by a person whose talents you do not rate very highly. What is the best thing to do? WHAT DOES PRACTICAL WISDOM CONSIST OF? 1. Being able to list the pros and cons of any given course of action 2. Being able to appraise the pros and cons, to arrive at a choice for yourself and also to appreciate how others might arrive at different choices 3. Having the personal and social courage to do what you decide is right 4. Recognizing when there is an issue. Also framing the issue appropriately, whether as a personal choice or as a negotiation or as an issue of how decisions should be made. SOME POSSIBLE APPROACHES TO IMPLEMENTATION 1. Academics who are lab leaders could raise difficult situations they personally are faced with (suitably disguised) during weekly lab meetings. The ensuing discussion could list and appraise the pros and cons. 2. When PhD students raise issues during yearly encounters with their supervising committee, rather than simply delivering advice, the supervising committee should seek to talk through with them the pros and cons. 3. Tutorial-style modules aimed at these issues. Or at reading Hume, Kant, Macchiavelli and so forth.
Mark Westoby - August 27, 2010
Dear Steven, An addendum to mine above - Confucius toward book learning: It could be worthwhile considering what many sociologists/anthropologists have noted about the elder elites of pre-literate social groups. Their choice to pass on knowledge down the generations, whether orally or by demonstration/repetition, rather than by book learning, doesn’t preclude them from utilizing various cues, clues and learning tricks toward helping their youngsters survive initiation. Switching initiation for graduation and the rain forest for city blocks may latterly have softened the negative outcomes of flunking the rites of passage; yet even so there, perhaps atavistically, remain elements of ostracism and demotion awaiting the unsuccessful. With atavism in mind (and what is judged as atavistic behaviour often argued as resultant to poor socio-economic circumstance) certain sub-sets apparently exhibit attributes that may devolve to our tribal past. Certain of society lacking comprehensive education, often in fact being functionally illiterate or language challenged, seem far better able to prosper within certain niches. In fact those advantage challenged from the word-go seem infinitely better able to cope than those who have, for whatever reason, decided to drop out from the mainstream ‘accreditation gathering’ system. Mental hardwiring, resultant from experience; the progress from infancy into early adulthood, affords the mature individual various options/combinations of mindset, attitude and personality. Whether intuitive or deductive, passive or aggressive, optimistic or pessimistic and the degree by which some attribute is sometimes subsumed to the others may well be governed by how predetermined neural circuit path options are switched from a series of default settings to others as the Id experiences the accidents of fate, circumstance and environment. So when does book knowledge (arguably normative) come into conflict with experience (arguably causative) and what evaluation processes, actions and interventions need be implemented when conflict with custom does arise? To put that in plain language – Some might view with repugnance the CEO and administration of a university acting like a robber baron. And to stretch the long bow of the imagination far back into the past and intertwine the situation of the modern learning institution with that of the shamans of the past a case could be made that providing essential knowledge and rites of passage for the ultimate mutual betterment of our society is NOT an activity that attracts fees. That is – unless all that is being sold off to the pals is tickets in robber baroncy !
PJ Dunn - PRS Defence, QLD - August 27, 2010
Hullo Vice Chancellor Schwartz, Well at last somebody has stated the bleeding obvious - wisdom has gone the way of common sense. And if any evidence of this was needed then the recent Federal election was the perfect example. I have met a lot of people with University degrees and absolutely no common sense whatsoever. People kept saying "Tony Abbott was a Rhodes scholar" - yeah, right! My point precisely! Personal wisdom generally comes with age - and after having made some mistakes. Political wisdom should be a matter of paying attention to history so that we don't keep making the same stupid mistakes over and over again - which is precisely what has been happening in the last 20 years or so, and the consequences are there for all to see. I would love the chance to assist you in your desire to teach "practical wisdom". Sincerely, Jan Carroll
Jan Carroll - August 27, 2010
Dear Professor Schwartz, Just a word of appreciation to read your lecture. I have added it to my NFP website on Environmental advocacy in the Mt Warning Caldera Region NE NSW. I began my website as as environmental advocacy and educational resource for what I believe to be the very reasons that you put, in your lecture. Bluecray.org is slowly growing in resources, and I was curious. Would you have the time, to offer a suggestion re any good psychological/philosophical LINK /Sources, that I could explore or use, to help the depth of my Philosophical Links page HERE? (I did my degree in applied science, out at Gatton Agricultural College before it was "adsorbed?" by University of Queensland, back in the early eighties. I was the only female on campus pregnant, then carrying a baby on my back for the remainder of my degree. I worked and gained a scholarship to do my studies. I have lived under the poverty line most of my life, largely by creative choice, am a complex post traumatic stress survivor (beginning and continuing for a long time, from the age of six months). My life has been somewhat challenging and has taken me to unusual perceptions and places - and the yards that I have done, have rewarded me with insights, although I do not yet claim status of wise. I shall finish up here, saying thanks for being you, 'cos it restores my faith in higher education when I read work such as yours. The current human dichotomies reflected in our actual lifestyles and perceived lifestyles can largely be addressed by "Wisdom in education" - at all levels of education. I have geared much of my website toward those who seek higher learning about environmental issues, and have this idea that perhaps you may offer me a suggestion/reference, website etc..., in, perhaps, divine serendipity, that i can use in bluecray? - that will in turn be discovered by one of my readers, and hence, help their own education become a little "wiser".... cheers, Alison Polistchuk
Alison Polistchuk - August 28, 2010
Ah! Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where the knowledge we have lost in information? Where the information we have lost in data? We are consumed by data. When political parties base policy on focus group data rather than conviction born of wisdom they surrender to an entity a long way down this food chain. I agree, practical wisdom should be a valuable commodity. As others have noted, it is born of years of life experience, but the importance of its parenting has not figured quite as prominently: the essential lighthouse of an ethical framework for life. It was such which historically gave birth to universities. And Macquarie - where is your lighthouse? So prominent a public logo at your birth and adolescence and now relegated to graduation ceremonies. At least we still see the flame.
David Grover - August 29, 2010
I listened to the Annual Lecture and agree with the importance of reflection, imitation, experience and self-mastery. I also believe that through the Participation and Community Engagement (PACE) initiative, we can begin to offer a platform for our students in FBE to put their "knowledge into practice" through service-learning. I also believe that the reflection component that is central to service-learning is vital to enabling our students gain mastery not only of themselves, but also of the situations in which they will find themselves. The whole idea of serving one's community and learning about oneself through the service-learning process (as well as being faced with the challenge to develop and apply critical thinking/problem solving) is instrumental to our students growth in wisdom. Naturally there will be challenges that lie ahead, but if we keep the end goal - growing in wisdom - in mind I believe these challenges can be overcome. I fully support the PACE initiative and I am enthusiastic about collaborating with my colleagues in designing and implementing service-learning curricula for FBE. Let's set the PACE!!!
Dr. Valentine Mukuria - August 30, 2010
I am so proud of MQU for introducing the practical wisdom course! I graduated from Macquarie a few years ago with a combined degree in business and law. I am now working as a corporate lawyer and finding myself having to navigate through what I refer to as 'the lion's den' on a daily basis. If only I had the opportunity to take this course (even if I wasn't able to fully comprehend it at the time) I would have been better equipped to deal with the challenges of this profession (and life generally).
Lynda - September 26, 2010