Awakening from the Meaning Crisis Part 40–45

The Cognitive Science of Rationality & Wisdom

Welcome back to Awakening from the Meaning Crisis notes. If you missed Part 33–39 click here. Notes on Dr. John Vervaeke’s Awakening from the Meaning Crisis. Link to full series here.

Part 40: Wisdom and Rationality

Wisdom vs Knowledge:

To start the exploration of wisdom, it is first important to distinguish it from knowledge. From there we will go on to explain rationality and how this might relate to wisdom.

“Wisdom is not about what you know. Wisdom has to do with how you know it.”

Two sense of “how”:

1. How you have come to know it (the processing involved rather than the product),
2. Grasping the significance of what you know (i.e. interpretive knowledge in the work of John Kekes, rather than descriptive knowledge).

So, wisdom has deep connections to understanding and the process rather than the product.

And a central feature of wisdom in this way is the systematic seeing through illusion and into reality

The “seeing through illusion” part is insight. The “systematic” part refers not to seeing a specific problem but rather a family of problems. “Insight not at the level of framing but at the level of transframing.” i.e. it not only reframes the problem but it is is transforming your competence. Hence the popular metaphor when talking about wisdom: as the child is to the adult, the adult is to the sage.

Rehabilitating What It Means to Be Rational:

To discuss wisdom further, it is important to do quite a bit of discussion one of its key components: rationality (the focus of Part 40 and 41).

Another way to overcome being deceived by illusion is through rationality. Rationality cannot (should not) be reduced to logic or equated to a facility with syllogistic reasoning.

What we mean by rationality is: a capacity to overcome self-deception in a reliable, systematic manner. We can also describe rationality as “affording flourishing and optimization.”.

Comparison with Expertise:

• Expertise is domain-specific and often hindered when applied across different domains. It involves mastering a set of patterns within a defined scope
• Rationality, in contrast, is meant to be apt within individual domains and across different domains. It is a domain-general notion, emphasizing a broader, more adaptable cognitive approach

Expertise is not systematic. It is limited in its domain. Rationality, in contrast, is meant to be apt within individual domains and across different domains. Rationality is a domain-general notion, as opposed to context-specific.

Rationality involves optimizing procedures for goal achievement. However, the optimization process is not one-sided; it also influences the goals themselves. As cognition is refined, goals undergo revision, showcasing the dynamic interplay between cognitive processes and objectives.

Experiments on Rationality:

One experiment measuring rationality was the lily-pad experiment. The participants were told, a lily-pad is on a pond and each day it doubles (day 2 there is 2 lily-pads, day 3 there is 4 lily-pads), and the pond is covered on day 20. What day was the pond half covered?

People consistently say day 10, but the answer is day 19 because it doubles.

This leaping to the answer with insight machinery has backfired and led to self-deception. What about the opposite?

Critical Detachment:

Critical detachment involves separating attention from desired outcomes and focusing on the argument or process itself.

• To illustrate, when individuals strongly believe in a certain stance, they often struggle with critical detachment
• In an experiment, providing a logically valid argument leading to a contrary belief (not B) and a poorly constructed argument supporting their belief (B) exposes the challenge of discerning good reasoning
• People consistently fail at critical detachment, often declaring a bad argument as good if it aligns with their desires and vice versa

This pattern is evident in various experiments, including the conjunction fallacy, confirmation bias, Wason selection task, and belief perseverance.

Despite acknowledging rational principles, individuals systematically fail to apply them. This systematic delusion leads to self-deception, highlighting the complexity of human cognition.

Rationality Debates:

So, a bunch of psychologists, cognitive scientists, and philosophers were concluding that humans are just irrational. This was the rationality debate. This was a serious claim, as the implications extend to questioning foundational elements of societal structures like democracy and legal systems, which rely on the assumption of human rationality.

Cohen’s Response:

In response to the debate, Cohen presented a compelling argument challenging the prevailing notion of human irrationality.

• He posited that rationality entails acknowledging and adhering to a set of standards
• Normativity, a concept tracing back to Plato, should be inherently autonomous, not dependent on external sources. The standards must be self-derived
• Cohen emphasized the pivotal role of reason as the source of the norms governing rationality.

Ought implies can:

Another way of presenting this idea: ought implies can. If I try to impose a standard on you (a rationality test) — You ought to do this! — then you have to be able to do it. “It makes no sense to apply a standard to you that you do not have the competence to fulfill.”

Competence and Performance:

Cohen makes another point, that people are making two types of mistakes: competence based, and performance based.

• Competence represents one’s capability, while performance denotes actual actions undertaken.
• External factors, such as i5mplementation processes, can influence performance without compromising underlying competence

This leads to the idea of systematic idealization: this process involves subtracting performance errors from actual performance to determine a purified account of competence, which serves as the standard)

Cohen argues brilliantly (though we will eventually see there are some problems with it) that all of the errors in these experiments have to be performance errors. Which means human beings are not fundamentally irrational after all.

In Part 41, we will see that what is right about that argument and what is deeply wrong about that argument.

Part 41: What is Rationality

First Argument — Stanovich vs. Cohen:

Cohen posits that all errors are performance-based, emphasizing the competence vs. performance distinction.

Stanovich challenges this, suggesting that not all errors can be categorized as performance errors.

Competence Errors vs. Performance Errors:

• As discussed in Part 40 competence errors are systematic, distinguishing the competence of language development in different scenarios (e.g., child vs. drunkard)
• Performance errors are situational, influenced by specific circumstances

Systematic Errors in Experiments:

• Stanovich explores whether errors in experiments are systematic (and thus competence errors), indicating predictability in making similar errors
• Overwhelming evidence supports the idea that errors in rationality, such as failure in critical detachment, are systematic.

Reconciling Competence and Performance:

• Cohen’s claim that all errors are performance errors is challenged by the evidence of systematic errors
• The dilemma lies in combining the need for us to be the source of standards with the acknowledgment of systematic competence errors

Cohen’s Assumption on Competence:

So why was Cohen wrong about competence errors? It has to do with an implicit assumption.

Cohen assumes a single, static competence in his argument. A fully developed and unchanging competence

Critically, we do not possess a singular competence; assuming rationality can be reduced to a single competence, like syllogistic reasoning, is fundamentally flawed.

Second Argument — Finitary Predicament:

Cherniak’s Approach:

• Cherniak, aligning with Stanovich and West, believes the challenge lies at the level of competence rather than performance
• Raises the issue of the “ought implies can” principle in normative theories

Finitary Predicament:

• Cherniak introduces the concept of a finitary predicament, emphasizing that a normative standard in an experiment (the rational thing to do) cannot lead to cognitive suicide
• Choosing the relevant information becomes crucial in navigating the complexities of applying normative theories

Limited Applicability of Logical Arguments:

• Cherniak highlights the scientists’ use of logical arguments and theories in experiments, emphasizing their limited applicability in certain contexts
• This challenges the assumption that broad normative theories can be universally applied without considering individual cognitive capacities and constraints

Response to Second Argument — Intelligence vs. Rationality:

Stanovich takes this seriously but says it is not about rationality — it’s about intelligence

Intelligence vs. Rationality:

• Cherniak goes on to argue that intelligence testing measures the capacity to deal with computational limitations (relevance realization), emphasizing a strong connection between intelligence (g) and reasoning tasks (gr)
• The expected result: If rationality involves dealing with combinatorial explosion and computational limitations, intelligence and rationality should be nearly identical

Discrepancy Between Intelligence and Rationality:

• Contrary to the expectation, there isn’t a strong relationship between intelligence and performance on rationality experiments.

This highlights that intelligence is necessary but not sufficient for being rational. So Stanovich wins out.

Third Argument — Difficulty with Interpretation:

Challenges in Experiment Interpretation:

• Experiment interpretation poses challenges, and theoretical debates about interpretation are essential
• Distinguishing between a fallacy and a misunderstanding is crucial in attributing errors

Two ways errors occur:

1. Correct interpretation, incorrect reasoning (fallacy)
2. Incorrect interpretation, correct reasoning (misunderstanding)

To conclude irrationality, errors must be attributed to fallacious reasoning, not misunderstanding

Dependency of Fallacy and Misunderstanding:

Smedslund’s insight: Attributing errors to fallacy or misunderstanding is not independent

• The experimental results’ interpretation is muddled as it’s challenging to determine whether participants misunderstood or reasoned fallaciously
• Scientists are assuming that the participants in the experiment understood the problem correctly and then reason incorrectly

Normativity on Construal:

• Stanovich and West independently reach the same conclusion: A normativity on construal is needed to break the interpretative impasse
• The need for standards on how people formulate problems, independent of inferential norms, becomes crucial

Vervaeke proposes that standards for good vs. bad problem formulation exist, studied in insight problem-solving in psychology

This means that insight is crucial to rationality (in addition to inference) — which begins to overlap our ideas of wisdom and rationality.

In Part 42, we will round out Stanovich’s position, we need an account of why intelligence and rationality are not correlated like Cherniak thought it would be. Then we will look at how it overlaps with wisdom.

Part 42: Intelligence, Rationality, and Wisdom

Cognitive Styles:

Stanovich explains the lack of correlation through measure of intelligence and rationality though the notion of ‘cognitive style’.

• A cognitive style is the way individuals think, perceive, and remember information
• It is a learned set of sensitivities and skills that influence one’s cognitive processes.
• Active open-mindedness (AOM) is the most predictive cognitive style for success in reasoning tests (Johathan Baron)
• AOM involves actively seeking and recognizing patterns of self-deception and biases
• It requires a delicate balance — being sensitive to cognitive biases in day-to-day thinking and actively counteracting them without overdoing it

Intelligence and AOM:

• If intelligence predicted rationality, it would imply that intelligence correlates with the cultivation of AOM, but Cherniak found out, evidence suggests otherwise
• AOM’s predictability is linked to the individual’s ‘need for cognition’ rather than intelligence
• A ‘need for cognition’ refers to the motivation to seek, formulate, and solve problems (a good problem finder)

Arlin (1990) highlights the importance of ‘problem-finding’ in wisdom, asserting that wisdom involves not only solving problems but also identifying impactful problems.

AOM is a psychotechnology because it is a socially-generated and standardized way of formatting, manipulating, and enhancing information processing that’s readily internalizable into human cognition, and that can be applied in a domain-general manner.

What makes someone a good problem-finder?

Good problem finders don’t just add new problems to a collection of problems. They find the problem that is solved, would make a significant impact on existing problems. They create a problem nexus.

So, one part of the need for cognition is good problem solving and creating a problem nexus. But the need for cognition also has an affective side: wonder and curiosity.

Affective Side of the Need for Cognition:

Curiosity is more in the ‘having’ mode (e.g. manipulating, controlling things)

Wonder is more in the ‘being’ mode (e.g. encountering mystery, calling into question worldview & identity)

Plato and Aristotle interpreted wonder differently:

• Plato: Sees wonder as a transformative force, deepening into awe, setting individuals on a quest of anagoge (meta-accommodation)
• Aristotle: Views wonder as aligning with curiosity, driving individuals to figure things out and seek answers (meta-assimilation)

For Plato, wonder sets you on a quest of anagoge. (He was pushing for meta-accommodation) For Aristotle, wonder gets you to formulate questions that you then answer. (He was pushing for meta-assimilation) — linking Ancient Greeks to modern cognitive science).

Summary of the Rationality Debates:

To summarize the debates so far, we have seen Stanovich:

• Responded to Cohen by challenging assumptions, emphasizing the absence of a single static competence
• Addressed Cherniak’s focus on computational limitations, highlighting it as a theory of intelligence, not rationality
• Acknowledged the need for an independent normativity on construal, proposing insights from psychology on good problem formulation and linked this to the cognitive style of AOM

But what is Stanovich’s positive account of rationality?

Dual-Processing Theory:

Stanovich points to the notion of ‘dual-processing’ (system 1 and system 2). The main idea is that these are two main ways in which we process information:

1. S1 Intuitive, associational, implicit processing, fast, employed in coping situations
2. S2 Deliberate, inferential, explicit processing, slow, relies on working memory, overrides S1

(See Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman)

Tradeoff relationship: S2 demands more working memory, slower, “corrects” S1’s rapid but potentially biased processing.

As an explanation for ‘dysrationalia’ in experiments, Stanovich posits that s S1 assumptions and biases are what lead to hasty and wrong conclusions

And AOM is the training to protect S2 from S1 interference

Vervaeke’s criticism of Stanovich is the model is an insufficient account of rationality. S1 is not always bad, and S2 is not always good.

Cognitive Leaping:

This takes us to a notion called ‘cognitive leaping’ investigated by Baker-Sennett and Ceci (1996).

Example — guess the image:

Good cognitive leapers use fewer clues to accurately predict final patterns. Often you do not know what is going on in an insight (its just a leap). You have this skill/facility with pattern detection & pattern completion. It is not always a bad thing.

This is directly predictive of insight.

“The tension here is that if I try to shut off too much leaping to conclusions, I’m also shutting off the machinery that makes me more insightful. We must give up naïve, simplistic notions of rationality.”

A More Complete Picture of S1 and S2:

S1 vs S2 have different places where they are optimal: Theorizing vs. Therapy

1. Therapy (S1 Dominant): Radical re-construal needed for transformative insight, S1 works to suppress interference from S2
2. Theorizing (S2 Dominant): Active open-mindedness crucial, S2 in the foreground protected from S1 interference

Jacobs (The Ancestral Mind): In therapy very often you’re feeling existentially trapped what’s.

Mindfulness is a cognitive style that is opponent (but not adversarial) to AOM. “They are both sharing the training of attention.”

1. S1 for Coping (Therapeutic): Particularly beneficial for coping in therapeutic contexts
2. S2 for Planning (Epistemic): Effective for truth-seeking planning

Intelligence, Rationality, & Wisdom:

One way to understand Stanovich’s conception of rationality is that we can use our intelligence to improve the way we are using intelligence (and therefore our capacity for relevance realisation). This is rationality.

To go one step further, we can use our rationality to improve our rationality, and this is wisdom.

Mindset: Fixed And Malleable View:

Carol Dweck’s work on mindset says there are two views to this topic: you can have a fixed view or a malleable view of your intelligence.

• Fixed View: Assumes intelligence is set early and unchangeable; Errors reveal a permanent defect in an unalterable trait
• Malleable View: Assumes intelligence can be changed over time; Errors suggest a need for skill or effort adjustments

The fixed view focuses on the product (error), while the malleable view focuses on the process (skills/effort).

“The way you frame yourself, the way you identify with your processing, has a huge impact on your problem-solving ability, your proclivity for self-deception, and your need for cognition. Rationality is an existential thing, it is not just an informational processing thing.”

But is Intelligence Fixed or Malleable:

Some evidence suggests general intelligence can be slightly improved, but generally, intelligence is considered fixed.

However, rationality is highly malleable. Stanovich claims we have an excessive focus on intelligence, and not enough on rationality.

By nurturing the right kind of recursive identity and cognitive styles, we can become more rational. This journey towards rationality is a path to wisdom.

In Part 43, we will focus on on four key psychological theories of wisdom, highlighting their central ideas. From there we will reconnect this wisdom framework with the pursuit of meaning and enlightenment.

Part 43: Wisdom and Virtue

The Connection Between Wisdom and Virtue:

First through of wisdom is by Schwartz & Sharpe (2006) “Practical Wisdom: Aristotle Meets Positive Psychology.” — studying ‘positive psychology’ (how the mind excels rather than how it breaks down). They take issue with work from Peterson & Seligman who discuss virtue as a form or human excellence by listing several virtues (honesty, courage etc.).

Schwatz & Sharpe take issue with the “feature list” of virtues that doesn’t indicate how they relate to each other. Maximizing honesty for example may conflict with kindness.

The ancient Greeks has this idea that the virtues were significantly independent with one another, either as an interdependent system or as different versions of some core ability.

What we want instead is a feature schema like we made for H.S.C: a structural-functional organization.

Wisdom / Virtue Relating to Relevance Realization:

Different situations require different virtues to be emphasized, and they may conflict with each other.

“Real life situations do not come labeled with the needed virtues or strengths attached. There is thus the problem of relevance.”

Virtues often represented with rules, but rules lack specification for varied contexts. Rule application specificity depends on relevance realization as we have discussed in Part 33–39.

Schwartz & Sharpe specified 3 interconnected problems relating this this: relevance, conflict, and specification. And Vervaeke adds: development.

Higher order ability to deal with relevance and deal with these interconnected problems is wisdom. “Wisdom is what you need to be virtuous.”

Sophia vs. Phronesis:

The Greeks had two words for wisdom, with Schwatzs & Sharpe arguing one is needed for virtue.

Sophia (Theoretical Wisdom):

• Often translated as theoretical wisdom
• Described by Schwartz & Sharpe as propositional knowledge, but Vervaeke sees it as an awareness of principles
• Sophia is akin to a deep ontological depth perception, understanding underlying principles

Phronesis (Practical Wisdom):

• Often translated as practical wisdom
• Involves context-sensitive judgment, the ability to exercise good judgment in various situations
• Overlaps with procedural knowledge (knowing how to do things) and perspectival knowing (situational awareness)

Aristotle’s point is that you need both sophia and phronesis. You need to know how to put principles into processes, and how to regulate processes with principles. (Across cross-contextual variance).

Now turning to one of the seminal psychological theories of wisdom.

The Berlin Wisdom Paradigm:

Developed by Baltes & Staudinger, the Berlin Wisdom Paradigm turns wisdom into an empirical, experimental process. Argument is in the article: “Wisdom: A meta-heuristic (pragmatic) to orchestrate mind and virtue towards excellence.”

The theory emphasizes relevance realization as crucial, incorporating the term “pragmatic.”

Pragmatic Definition:

Has associations with language (syntax, semantics, pragmatics) and pragmatism (William James’s idea of evaluating knowledge claims based on efficacy in adapting to the world)

“Pragmatism tries to situate your intellectual claims into this deeper lived, experienced, viable ability to fit your world, to develop your connectedness, to develop yourself.” Both definitions converge with the meta-heuristic of realizing relevance.

Criteria to be Wise:

Baltes & Staudinger outline five criteria for wisdom, defining the features required to judge someone as wise and identifying aspects for investigation:

1. Rich Factual (Propositional) Knowledge: Related to sophia (theoretical wisdom)
2. Rich Procedural Knowledge: Understanding the practical aspects (procedures) of navigating life
3. Lifespan Contextualism: Involves perspectival knowing, the ability to zoom out and see the big picture over the course of a lifetime
4. Relativism of Values and Priorities: Vervaeke challenges this, suggesting that what is meant is a capacity for tolerance, fallibilism, and humility, rather than strict moral relativism
5. Recognition and Management of Uncertainty: Emphasizes the acknowledgment that certainty is elusive and the need to act within contexts of unavoidable uncertainty

“What they tend to be arguing for is a very comprehensive kind of cognitive flexibility and adaptability. That your cognition is flexible enough that it can adapt itself to different situations in a very efficacious manner.”

Empirical Work to do with Wisdom:

Baltes and Staudinger initiated empirical work to measure wisdom. They posed situations that if solved correctly would generally lead to the attribution of wisdom, and scored people based on the five criteria.

They put people into one of 3 conditions before answering:

1. Discussion with a significant other.
2. Imagining a virtual or internal dialogue.
3. Having more time to think.

Results indicated that the first two groups (involving interaction or internalized dialogue) outperformed the third. “This goes back to the Platonic dialogue. That in discussion with others we get to a level of wisdom that we cannot get to on our own.”

Key findings from this research:

• Importance of Dialogue: Engaging in discussions with others contributes to reaching a level of wisdom that is challenging to achieve independently
• Solomon Effect: No significant difference between discussing with others and imagining the dialogue, highlighting the role of internalizing other perspectives in overcoming biases
• Perspectival Knowing: Baltes and Staudinger, albeit not explicitly discussing it, rely on perspectival knowing in their experimental work, as demonstrated by the Solomon Effect

In Part 44, we will discuss some important criticisms of Baltes & Staudinger, and go on to discuss other theories of wisdom.

Part 44: Theories of Wisdom

Criticisms of Baltes and Staudinger:

First Criticism:

• The first critic is one of omission not commission. What they are providing is a product theory of wisdom (what it is) — but we need a process theory of wisdom (how to become wise).

The process theory of wisdom gives you an account of what self deception is and how you can see through it, to better connect you with reality, other people. It’s complementary to a product theory of wisdom. It invokes the developmental and transformative aspects of wisdom.

Second Criticism:

• Monika Ardelt (2004), criticizes Baltes and Staudinger by highlighting the confusion between having theoretical knowledge about wisdom and being a wise person.

“People who are wise have gone through a process of self-transformation and achieved a significant amount of self-transcendence that allows them to embody/enact these truths rather than just ‘having’ them in a propositional fashion.”

Ardelt goes on to develop a process her own theory of wisdom we will now look at.

Ardelt’s Theory:

Descriptive knowledge and Interpretive knowledge:

Ardelt draws on John Kekes’ distinction between descriptive knowledge (knowing facts) and interpretive knowledge (grasping the significance of facts).

Interpretive knowledge emphasizes understanding, underscoring its centrality to wisdom.

Characteristics (Dimensions) of Wise People:

Ardelt introduces three crucial dimensions for judging the relative value of knowledge and personhood in wise individuals:

1. Cognitive Factors: Comprehension of the significance and meaning of information, especially for personal development (emphasizes understanding)
2. Reflective Factors: Engagement in multiple perspectives, self-examinations, and self-awareness (relates to the reflective component of rationality, multi-perspectival thinking)
3. Affective Factors: Involvement in compassion (agape), overcoming ego-centrism (ties to reflective factors).

Meaning in Life Connection: Ardelt’s inclusion of agape provides a means to discuss meaning in life, a connection not explicitly clear in Baltes and Staudinger.

Criticism of Ardelt’s Theory:

• Vervaeke notes some criticisms of Ardelt’s work, including the absence of a processing theory (although it points to the need for one) and a lack of an independent account of foolishness
• We are seeing how the evolving theory of wisdom encompasses relevance realization, various types of knowing

A Balance Theory of Wisdom by Sternberg:

Robert Sternberg’s work on wisdom, particularly his more recent theory titled “A Balanced Theory of Wisdom” (1998), is a noteworthy contribution to the psychology of wisdom. Sternberg’s commitment to this field and his emphasis on the connection between wisdom and teaching align with historical figures like Socrates, Jesus of Nazareth, and Buddha. According to Vervaeke, Sternberg’s newer theory is more coherent and tightly integrated than his earlier ones.

Core Idea — Tacit Knowledge:

• Sternberg’s theory revolves around the concept of tacit knowledge or tacit understanding, which contains elements of relevance realization
• Understanding guides the ability to adapt to situations, shape them, and make choices regarding environments, addressing practical problems

His theory is depicted in a schematic diagram that focuses on balancing interests within three dimensions of connectedness:

1. Intro-personal: Connection to oneself
2. Inter-personal: Connection to other people
3. Extra-personal: Connection to the world

These dimensions form an agent-arena relationship related to meaning and life, implicitly connecting wisdom to these aspects.

Environmental Context:

• Another triangle represents balance in the environmental context, encompassing adaptation, shaping, and selection — concepts that align with relevance realization
• The bottom triangle emphasizes balancing interests, while the top triangle emphasizes balancing responses
• The top triangle directs upward toward the “common good,” which may refer to effective collaboration rather than a benefit shared by everyone. Vervaeke suggests using terms like virtue and meaning in life instead

Values:

Values are depicted alongside Sternberg’s diagram, pointing indeterminately at the stacked triangles. The meaning of this representation is unclear, raising questions about whether it indicates that wise individuals are constrained by values.

Balance as Equilibration:

Sternberg suggests that balance involves something akin to Piaget’s equilibration between assimilation and accommodation. This balance is argued to be between coping with novelty and proceduralization.

Criticisms of Sternberg:

• One criticism is that Sternberg’s theory remains a product theory and lacks a corresponding process theory that details how wisdom is achieved
• Sternberg’s theory of foolishness is considered insufficient, characterizing it as an imbalance in his wisdom theory without providing independent insights into self-deception and related phenomena

In Part 45, we will outline Vervaeke’s process theory of wisdom and link it to the theory of relevance realization so that we can have an account of wisdom and the cultivation of wisdom.

Part 45: The Nature of Wisdom

Two Systems of Wisdom:

According to Vervaeke and Ferraro (2013), wisdom involves two systems within an individual:

1. Active Open-Mindedness (AOM):

• This system corresponds to inferential System 2 (S2) processing
• It relates to the grasping of facts or principles
• It aligns with propositional knowing, resembling the concept of sophia, emphasizing the understanding of theoretical wisdom

2. Mindfulness:

• This system is more associated with insight, resembling System 1 (S1) processing
• It involves the grasping of events or processes
• It aligns with procedural knowing, resembling the concept of phronesis, focusing on practical wisdom

Connecting the Systems:

The integration of these two systems involves the concept of perspectival knowing, emphasizing internalization.

Perspectival knowing helps bridge propositional knowledge (facts or principles) with procedural knowledge (events or processes), facilitating the application of principles in processes and vice versa.

Refinement/Criticism:

A refinement or criticism of Vervaeke and Ferraro’s model suggests the need to incorporate participatory knowing for a more comprehensive process theory.

Without accounting for participatory knowing, which involves agent-arena attunement and transformative experiences, the model may fall short in explaining how individuals undergo modal change and transformation.

Sophrosyne as an Optimization of Perspectival Knowing:

The cognitive style that the perspectival knowing is set in is internalizing the sage. In the same way propositional knowledge is trying to overcome fallacious reasoning and procedural knowledge is trying to overcome misframing/ misconstrual,

Perspectival knowing is trying to overcome egocentrism.

The ancient Greeks had four cardinal virtues:

1. Wisdom
2. Justice
3. Courage
4. Sophrosyne

Sophrosyne is often translated as temperance or moderation, but these terms may not fully capture its essence. It involves notions of optimization and self-regulation, and the term “enkratia” (exerting power over oneself) is suggested as a potentially more accurate description, emphasizing self-restraint.

Behavioral Characteristics of Sophrosyne:

• The meta-cognitive ability associated with internalizing the sage enables individuals to behave enkratically or sophrosynically
• The sage, as an archetype, exhibits a salience landscape that prevents them from succumbing to self-deception
• Individuals guided by sophrosyne are not tempted to lie or engage in immature behaviors, demonstrating a deep perspectival understanding

Direction of Sophrosyne:

• Sophrosyne is directed toward the “3 M’s”: morality, meaning in life, and mastery
• It encompasses a holistic orientation toward virtuous living, the pursuit of meaningful existence, and the development of skillful competence

Theory of Understanding:

All this so far is about enhancing relevance realization. Vervaeke & Ferraro’s main argument is that wisdom is a kind of optimization of cognition. However, one thing that is missing, but is central — is a theory of understanding.

What is it to enhance understanding, let alone develop a profound understanding?

1. Good Construal:

Understanding can be conceptualized as a “really good construal,” representing an optimal grip that enables the grasping of relevance and effective problem formulation.

2. The Standard of Effectiveness:

Understanding also involves to good problem finding is introduced, referencing recent work by de Regt et al.

The “standard of effectiveness” is proposed as distinct from a standard of truth, emphasizing the practical utility of certain representations, even if they are not entirely true.

Example: we understand what an atom is and how it works via a diagram of electrons orbiting the nucleus in distinct rings but this is almost entirely false. It doesn’t matter that the diagram isn’t true, it helps us to understand the concept — to grasp the significance of the scientific model of the atom. “It helps you zero in on the relevant information in the right way.”

Understanding involves the ability to zero in on relevant information in a way that facilitates effective problem-solving.

3. Plausibility Generation:

Basic understanding transforms into profound understanding when used to generate plausibility

Plausibility generation necessitates a balance of propositional, procedural, perspectival, and participatory knowing, emphasizing a comprehensive approach to knowledge.

Transformative Knowing / Experience:

Another thing that is important for an account of wisdom is integrating it with gnosis and transformative experience.

Agnes Callard’s work introduces the idea that transformative knowing can also occur incrementally, such as through processes like aspiration.

Incremental transformative knowing involves gradual changes in individuals.

The distinction between inspiration (sudden insight) and aspiration (incremental transformative knowing) is crucial, framing aspiration as a rational process.

The reason this distinction is made is important. It basically blocks the argument that going through a transformative experience is irrational. Because otherwise there would be no way to go from irrational to rational (through transformative experience). Aspiring to rationality has to be itself a kind of rationality. A proleptic rationality.

“Philo-sophia (love of wisdom). We aspire to wisdom. And we always aspire to wisdom because to claim that we have achieved wisdom (wholly) is kind of a mistake.”

Criticisms of Callard:

• Criticisms of Callard’s work include the absence of a detailed exploration of the psychology of aspiration
• The concept of a “placeholder” is introduced, acting as a cue connecting the current self to future aspirations in the context of transformative experiences
• The lack of discussion on wonder is noted, with wonder seen as a catalyst for questioning worldviews and motivating aspirational change

An Account Of Wisdom

“Wisdom is an ecology of psycho-technologies and cognitive styles that dynamically (i.e. reciprocally) constrain and optimize each other such that there is an overall enhancement of relevance realization — relevance realization within inference, insight & intuition, internalization, understanding & gnosis, transformation, and aspiration.”

“We’re seeing that wisdom is a dynamical system that is counteractive to the machinery of self-deception, and that helps to afford the self-organized transformation into the life of flourishing. A life that is deeply meaningful.”

In Part 46, we will finalize this account of wisdom, and then conclude the meaning crisis section of the series before delving into the modern prophets of the meaning crisis.

[For Part 45–50 click here]