Copyright © 2001 by Joel Marks
Philosophy Now, issue no. 33, September/October 2001
Dear Socrates,
I know what knowledge is, but what do you mean by wisdom? If it is not the same as knowledge, is it intelligence like IQ, or is it perhaps some personality trait like modesty or prudence?
Yours,
Dave Henley
Dear Dave,
I am glad that you know what knowledge is, for even that has me stumped.
But let us suppose we know, for example, that the Earth is shaped like a ball, which was indeed my premonition just before I drank the hemlock. Well, I have since learned that my dear Plato's able student, Aristotle, came up with a demonstration for it. What was his proof? Just that, during an eclipse of the Moon, the shadow that progressively covers it is curved; and since that shadow is projected by the Earth, the Earth itself must be curved, or "round," or spherical ... in other words, shaped like a ball.
Very nice. It is the kind of argument which you today might call "scientific," for it involves both logic and observation. But let us consider it more closely. How did Aristotle know there was such a thing as an eclipse of the Moon? Oh, that is obvious, you say, because the Earth's shadow can clearly be seen to cover the Moon on these occasions. But how do we know that it is the Earth's shadow covering the Moon? After all, doesn't the Moon have phases every month, where part of it becomes darkened? We don't think these are due to any shadow from the Earth, do we? The dark parts are just areas where the Sun's light does not reach. So why think there is ever a SHADOW covering the Moon?
Well, one answer is that we can observe that an eclipse begins with a bite being taken out of the edge of the full Moon; that is, the dark part is convex. When the Moon is undergoing its cycle of phases, however, the dark part that begins to gobble up the full Moon is concave, like an advancing sickle. Furthermore, the bite advances from the left, while the sickle advances from the right. If you will then combine these phenomena with a little geometric scratching in the sand, you will find that the shadow interpretation does make sense as an account of the bite.
Even if we take the bite to be the leading edge of the Earth's shadow, however, what entitles us to conclude that the Earth is shaped like a ball? Couldn't the same effect be achieved if the Earth were shaped like a discus, or even a plate, for would not these also cast a curved shadow? Therefore it seems we must first postulate that the Earth is truly spherical, and not simply round, in order to prove that ... the Earth is spherical!
Of course scientists believe they have worked all these things out. But I would make this simple, yet, I think, significant point: Every one of their conclusions, from ancient times to the present, has been based on assumptions. Thus, Aristotle might at first have simply taken for granted that the Moon is eclipsed by the Earth's shadow; upon realizing he was making this assumption, he may then have tried to justify it; but as we have seen, this effort could itself have caught him up in an assumption, even the very thing he was trying to prove.
Naturally each science, and each age, believes it has gotten it all right at last. But even your Einstein, who was trying to figure out the shape of the whole universe, tacked on the cosmological constant to his theory of gravity because he assumed that the universe does not expand; then Edwin Hubble proved him wrong. That is, until a few years ago, when astrophysicists began to ponder all over again whether Hubble's observations might not be interpreted as the effects of some fifth force of nature, more in line with Einstein's original equation.
And so it goes. I do not believe this process will ever end. Furthermore, it is a process that we find not only in science but also in the homely details of our daily lives. Why, the other day I was out for my usual stroll, and a dog at the end of a leash walked right in front of me, almost tripping me up. "Stupid dog!" I thought to myself. But then it occurred to me: Might not my emotional reaction be based on the assumption that the dog had no good reason for stepping in front of me, or else on the assumption that I had every good reason to be walking straight ahead despite his approach? Perhaps it made as much sense for that dog to assume I would alter my trajectory as for me to assume the dog would not change his. That realization, at any rate, I take to be an example of wisdom.
But you press me to give you a definition, as I did with my interlocutors; so what if I say that wisdom is just the recognition that our claims to knowledge are always based upon assumptions? We should accordingly expect the wise person to be temperate in beliefs and, hence, the feelings and actions based on them. Yet I would also expect any paradigm of virtue to be sufficiently spirited (perhaps with a little help from a gadfly) to seek always to push back the boundary of assumptions, and sufficiently courageous, during the abiding "in the meantime," to hold convictions and to act on them despite the tentative nature of our knowledge, with its attendant possibility of error.
Yours as ever,
Socrates
