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Summarized information of these two chapters - Coggle Diagram
Summarized information of these two chapters
4.6 Wisdom
Cynical thought is not the same as resposible and critical thinking
You can only be wise if you have also thought about the use to which knowledge should be put
Trust, and a healthy degree of faith in experts then, is the glue that holds the expertise of knowledge together, and doubt only makes sense in a broader context of trust
A wise person is aware of the relation between knowledge and values
You can be clever if you know many things
Excercize responsibility in the production and use of knowledge
There can be no knowledge without intellectual virtues as honesty, perseverance, courage, humility, and tolerance
Blind acceptance is not the same thing as critical thought
Almost any statement you acceot as true requires that you are willing to believe a great many people
We need the courage to question our convictions, to ask ourselves why we believe what we believe and how far our beliefs are justified by evidence
We are rational beings, we find it easier to comfortably inhabit our predujices than to question them
The quest for self knowledge encourages us to question our beliefs and motives, and to become aware of our underlyind predujices
If we can develop self-knowledge and become aware of some of the predujices that underlie our beliefs, then we have taken a step towards overcoming them and moving towards a more inclusive picture of the world
3rd ingredient of wisdom is self-knowledge
We need experts who recognise the wisdom of seeing the bigger picture and the value of collaboration with other experts in different areas of knowledge
Plenty of clever people with know-how
Few wise ones with know-why
We are limited by our own imagination, and we can be poor evaluators of our own level of knowledge and competence
we interpret the world through out senses, our reason, and our concepts - and those can never give us the whole picture
Difficult to be intellectually humble given that we cannot know what we do not know
As our knowledge expands, so does our ignorance, and that every answer breeds new questions
knowledge questions have multiple possible answers
Some of the big questions about life and the universe may lie permenantly beyond our grasp - mysteries to be contemplated rather than problems to be solved
One universal tendency of human beings is to make meaning of their lives
There is much that we do not know
The ideal is to have both depth and breadth, to have specialists with a sense of the whole
It is possible to have expertise without wisdom
You can be old without being wise
This is more than theoretical interest, the breadth of our perspective has implications
Phsychcological tendency or cognitive bias known as the Dunning-Kruger effect, where we find it difficult to know the limit of our expertise
The reflection on experience and the ability to learn from it is what matters, not the experience itself
Non-experts with little knowledge on a subject nor competence are more likely to overestimate theor expertise and competence in that area
Associating wisdom with older rather than young people
this question of cognitive bias links back to the pragmatic theory of truth, raises a question whether it is useful to either overestimate our confidence in our own knowledge and abilities
Good judgement comes from experience, and practical management with the world, not from books
useful thing to have in the long term is intellectul humilty by having a realistic grasp of your own strngths and weaknesses, and try to be aware of whgat we do not know?
Every situation confronted is unique, use our judgement when we apply knowledge to the world
There is no definite answer to how sound the justification have to be? or how much evidence is enough? and we can only say that it is a matter of judgement
Some of the great minds of the past have been profoundly aware of the limits of knowledge
Justified in saying that we kjnow something if we have justification or enough evidence for it
Such learned ignorance - achieved after a lifetime of thought - is very different from the empty ignorance of short-circuiting the search for knowledge by abandoning it at the first step
It is right to take more seriously opinions thatare informed, coherent and insightful than those that are not
We cannot achieve certainity, it does not follow that any opinion is as good as any other
The intellectual humility of someone like Socrates and Newton is perhaps connected with a sense of wonder
Five features of wisdom: good judgement, breadth of perspective, self-knowledge, ethical responsibility, and intellectual humility
dogmatists, who think they already have all the answers, never seem to experience it
To understand the world, it makes sense to take it apart and examine the pieces
latest aspect of wisdom is intellectual humility
we can never achieve absolute knowledge
wonder is common among children, as we grow older we end up finding the world dull and uninteresting - boring
Perhaps, it is the unability to find wonder in the ordinary and the normal taht drifes people to seek it in the extraordinary and the paranormal, and to experiment with such things as hallucinogenic drugs, pseudo-science and new-age cults
4.5 How do we know if our beliefs are true
The concept of truth is more than a subjective belief
Each viewpoint is subjective, it does not follow that there is no truth
Objectivity - the idea that as knowers, we can be impartial
It makes no sense to think of an objective truth 'beyond us' that we have no access to, as it would have little use or value if we could not know it ourselves
Consider the level or type of justification for a truth claim
Absolute truth, just because your vies of the truth varies with your perpective this does not mean that there is no truth at all
There is a wealth of evidence to suggect that people often engage in wishful thinking, and believe what they want to believe rather than what is justified by evidence
Ensure that our beliefs are well-justified by available evidence, and be prepared to change them if further evidence warrants it
hindsight bias at work, where there is no geniune knowledge because I did not have sufficient justification nor evidence for my belief
The counter-claim here is that our own implicit bias makes it impossible to take an objective point of view
Objectivity is based on the idea of taking a detached perspective where we are not influenced by factors that might skew our judgement such as personal beliefs, feelings or opinions.
We might get closer to an objective truth, the more perspectives we have
All of our beliefs are subjective in the sense that they are based on personal perspectives and individual feelings
justification for a belief but the belief is in fact false
Neither knowledge or truth can be clearly defined or infallibly determined
Justification may be offered for a claim or theory which may even appear coherent, but it turns out to be a conspiracy theory or fake news or a post-truth claim
4.5 keywords
Justification: In the context of truth, a reason or reasons for a belief or support for a truth claim
hindsight bias: Mistakenly thinking you knew something would happen, after it has happened
4.6 keywords
Dunning-Kruger effect: a cognitive bias where we find it difficult to know the limit of our knowledge and exxpertise, If we have a little knowledge in a particular area, we may overestimateour level of knowledgeand competence in that area. In this way, a little knowledge may elad to an unjustified illusion of greater knowledge
Intellectual virtues: virtues that are required for the persuit of knowledge