A professor said the following to me (and the rest of my Higher Cognitive Processes class) earlier today:
“A necessary requirement for a theory of wisdom is a theory of foolishness.”
Needless to say, that struck a chord. It seems like common sense, doesn’t it? To really understand one concept, you obviously need to be able to show the clear lines between your concept and its opposite.
The power in this statement, as I mused in my notes, lies in the subtleties it implies:
First, the order of the sentence. To be able to get a grasp on the positive aspect of something, you need to understand the negatives first. While you don’t necessarily need to think about wisdom to understand foolishness, you do need to understand foolishness to think about wisdom. It’s the classic “predictive vs. productive” situation: you can’t work too hard on developing wisdom (or other positive traits) until foolishness (or the corresponding negative trait) is mostly eliminated.
Second, the difference in terms used. My professor didn’t say that you need to have a theory of what is “wise” and what isn’t, but instead that you need to have a theory of what is “wise” and what is “foolish”. And though they’re fairly opposite, there’s more in this dichotomy (and others) that lies in the contrast of the two poles than can be found in the comparison between one concept and its backwards-state.
Third, and most importantly, the word theory itself. Knowing the simple difference between two definitions means nothing… it’s only when you internalize the concepts and develop your own personal theories that you really begin to understand the whole picture.
Any thoughts? I’d love to continue this conversation with you before I go and speak to my Professor this Monday…
