Awakening From the Meaning Crisis by John Vervaeke, Ep. 45 — The Nature of Wisdom (Summary & Notes)

“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 case you missed it: Summary & Notes for Ep. 44: https://markmulvey.medium.com/awakening-from-the-meaning-crisis-by-john-vervaeke-ep-44-ebc252d58c13)

Ep. 45— Awakening from the Meaning Crisis — The Nature of Wisdom [1:00:28] https://youtu.be/DxLogRVfBv8

• As argued by Vervaeke & Ferraro (2013), there are two “systems” going on in someone when it comes to wisdom: active open-mindedness (AOM) which is inferential, and mindfulness which is more about insight. The former has to do with the grasping of facts or principles, and the latter has to do with the grasping of events or processes. i.e. propositional vs. procedural knowing (It was also suggested that the former is largely what we talked about in sophia and the latter in phronesis)
• In connecting these two systems we evoke the idea of perspectival knowing, which has to do with internalization. It was argued that this integrates knowledge of facts with knowledge of events, helping you to put principles into process and have processes governed by principles.

• Vervaeke has since come to think of it a bit differently, with propositional knowledge is grounded in grounded in but affected by procedural knowledge (your ability to cultivate skills and interact) which is in turn grounded in perspectival knowing (your situational awareness) which is in turn grounded in your participatory knowing (the agent-arena attunement).
• One criticism/refinement of Vervaeke & Ferraro is that last piece: there’s no mention of participatory knowing. Without an account of participatory knowing, for all claims of it being a process theory (rather than a product theory) it can’t incorporate into its account for, in becoming wise, how one goes through transformational experience. How one goes through modal change.
• The cognitive style that the perspectival knowing is set in is internalizing the sage. (in sports psychology there is a practice of internalizing the coach) 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: wisdom, justice, courage, and sophrosyne, which is often translated as temperance or moderation though those words doesn’t quite capture its meaning. There’s also notions of optimization and self-regulation going on. (enkratia—exterting power of yourself—is perhaps a better definition. Self-restraint.)
• This meta-cognitive ability of internalizing the sage allows one to behave enkratically (or sophrosynically). One is not even tempted to lie, or to retreat to childish things, etc. “As a child is to the adult the adult is to the sage. The sage has a salience landscape in which they are not tempted to self-deception in the ways we so readily are.” It’s deeply perspectival, and the sage is naturally drawn to the good.
• Sophrosyne is directed toward the 3 M’s: morality, meaning in life, and mastery.
• All of this so far is about enhancing relevance realization. Vervaeke & Ferraro’s main argument is that wisdom is a kind of optimization of cognition (+ consciousness, characters, etc.) 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?
• A lot of the current philosophy about understanding you find that people are now distinguishing understanding from knowledge, or from just possessing explanations (because an explanation is just a set of propositions). We also saw with Kekes the idea of grasping the significance, which could be understood in terms of construal and RR.
• Vervaeke argues that what we’re talking about re: understanding is a really good construal. i.e. an optimal grip. This affords you the ability to grasp what’s relevant in the situation and good problem formulation.
• There’s also a connection to good problem finding, which is connected to recent work by de Regt et al. They point towards what they call “the standard of effectiveness” which is distinct from a standard of truth. e.g. 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.”
• de Regt also talks about how understanding is contextually sensitive and contextually relative. Two people can “know” the same things, but if one person is facing situation A and can apply that knowledge and the other person is in situation B and cannot, then the person applying the knowledge can be said to “understand” it better.
• Vervaeke argues that one more thing is still needed: basic understanding becomes profound understanding when basic understanding is used to generate plausibility. Plausibility generation requires the balancing of propositional, procedural, perspectival, and participatory knowing.
• Again, an account of transformational experience—i.e. gnosis—still needs to be integrated into the account of wisdom. Transformative knowing/experience is often sudden, sharing certain features of insight. (ref. the work of L.A. Paul) Agnes Callard, in her recent book Aspiration (2016?) argues that there are also instances where people go through transformative knowing in ways that are much more incremental.
• E.g. you join a music appreciation class, what would make you a good student? If you’re there because you want to impress your boyfriend/girlfriend, or because when you go you pass a chocolate store and buy chocolate, or because you’re just trying to get a credit, the teacher will not regard you as a good student because the goal of music appreciation is to come to value music for its own sake. To come to finding music as intrinsically valuable, and therefore something that is directly relevant to your meaning in life. Note: if I were a good student I would appreciate music for its own sake, but if I appreciated music for its own sake I do not need to take a music appreciation class. There’s a paradox there. Callard says that this process of trying to acquire something that is intrinsically valuable is aspiration (where as the more sudden insight could be called inspiration), and that this has to be seen as a rational process. She refers to a specific type of rationality here called proleptic rationality.
• There’s a reason she invokes a distinct type of rationality going on here. If we were to say that the person who is trying to become somebody other than they are (they are engaged in aspiration, going through a transformational experience) is being irrational since they can’t do this inferentially or use decision theory to do this, then we would have to conclude that aspiring to rationality is an irrational thing to do. Aspiring to rationality has to be itself a kind of rationality. A proleptic rationality.
• Where Callard’s work is lacking is that she doesn’t give us very much about the psychology of aspiration (which makes sense, because she’s a philosopher). She does give us some cues though, one that she calls a placeholder—something that connects future you to the current you. You go to the music class because you currently have the value of making myself do things that I find difficult. That’s not the same value as appreciating music, but you do that with the “understanding” that that is temporary. It’s being used to get to a liminal place where you can start to play with what it’s like to value music for its own sake.
• Callard also doesn’t talk at all about wonder, though Vervaeke thing aspiration is deeply tied to it. “Wonder gets you to question your worldview, your sense of self. It opens up and it motivates you to go through aspirational change.”
• “Philo-sophia. We aspire to wisdom. And we always aspire to wisdom because to claim—and this is a deep point—that we have achieved wisdom is kind of a mistake.”
• “Wisdom is an ecology of psychotechnologies 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.”

Next up: Awakening From the Meaning Crisis by John Vervaeke, Ep. 46 — Conclusion and the Prophets of the Meaning Crisis (Summary & Notes) https://markmulvey.medium.com/awakening-from-the-meaning-crisis-by-john-vervaeke-ep-46-cca0e9504931

List of Books in the Video:

• Edited by Michel Ferrari and Nic M. Weststrate—The Scientific Study of Personal Wisdom: From Contemplative Traditions to Neuroscience
• Edited by Hank W. de Regt, Sabina Leonelli, and Kal Eigner—Scientific Understanding: Philosophical Perspectives
• Agnes Callard—Aspiration: The Agency of Becoming