Wisdom

If philosophy is literally defined as the love of wisdom perhaps we can use that as a starting point in trying to define it. Simply put: If we can find out what wisdom is we can find out what philosophy is.

When you meet someone they're either wise or they're not. What makes us want to engage someone for free (which might, btw, be rare) it is because of wisdom. What humans do when they interact is talk. That is how the brain interacts. When they talk for free what makes one human better than another and more interesting is wisdom. We aren't sure yet what it is, but we know it has something to do with making others interested.

Most interactions come at a price. We trade money, esteem, neuroses, etc for time. I might talk to a person at a party because they make me look more important or rich or something else. The price I pay to do this is boredom. Time. Most interactions are transactional in this respect and we can elaborate this system to almost all human interactions and communications. The "family" is a transactional relationship in which security and comfort are provided and exchanged. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It just helps here to see it for what it is.

However, as Socrates offered us through Plato, there is a relationship that transcends this. The intellectual relationship, exchanged through some form of communication, brings people together for free and it lasts as long as two or more parties are interested. What creates this interest is wisdom.

I was playing basketball one time as I was apt to do. A younger guy was guarding me and chatting as was sometimes the case with overly social people. He asked me what I did. I said, "ethics professor." "No shit." And the conversation went on as we passed the ball and got ignored by the show-off players, etc, and we continued talking about how the world had gone to shit. Now, to be honest, this guy had no positive ideas (in the sense of adding vs subtraction, not positive good feelings) and so could not be considered wise. He was a typical human, born with a pretty effective brain, and young enough not to be so self-loathing that he lost his curiosity about the world. Somehow we segued to his religious brain-washing and how he wanted to get out of it and how he had been thinking of late how impossible it was that God controls and evil world. The point here is not how delusional religious people are, it is that our conversation was more important to him than the basketball game he had come to play. The wisdom was more interesting than the competition or the exercise, as it should be.

At one point I remember thinking: Is this guy ever going to shut up? What this tells me and has always told me is that humans are starving for this kind of development, especially those under 30. The real question here is about what wisdom really is. We can infer from this, as I did, that I am wise and that is what attracts these otherwise confused and bored humans. But what's interesting from a Socratic angle is that wisdom and irony go hand-in-hand - for me and for Socrates. He believed those who understand the extent of their ignorance (and there was a great extent) were in a position to be considered wise.

Does this mean that I am dumb and smart at the same time? Because if you follow Socratic logic one can make the case that he wasn't just "joking" and that to some degree it is both. Wisdom is not just one thing.

I will offer this, though. Wise people are exponentially more interesting to humans that are still interested in learning. That kind of "interest" transcends all other types of attraction and will make one, for instance, forget about a basketball game mid-play. It can change your life, literally.

In addition, I will add that a commonsense precept about the real world goes along with this definition of wisdom. Those who have a connection to the real world that is broader and more simple (and fundamental) than science are capable of forging and translating this wisdom. Thomas Reid understood this. His notion of belief, that it is automatic and shared, changes the trajectory of theories of belief in the last three centuries. Elaborate theories, considered wise I suppose, formed by white males in armchairs, will never be as interesting as people engaged with the world. This is why Socrates walked the streets. When we leave our armchair and engage the world, we are "actively" believing in reality in a way that does not need to be explained or argued. Otherwise, we would not leave the chair. To move or talk at all requires another kind of belief, an active belief, a conviction that is far stronger than shaky, negative fundamental empirical skepticism.

Hume believed that though reality "seems" real, it could not be proven. The same eventually held for him about all identity including our own. Yet, when he was done hypothesizing in his own mind, alone presumably in a chair, he walked out in the real world and acted with this other belief in such a way that he moved and talked within a real world of rules.

Following from this, the man that has defined this system, that is not persuaded by pure skepticism, is capable of forming clear and wise understanding of the world. Sharing this wisdom can be seen, perhaps as a test, to change others and move the world. Humans may be attracted to security and even to beauty, but more so they are driven passionately by understanding and reality. They are built this way because this is how they survive. The "thinking" man who perfects this system is of the greatest value and it is herein that we see perhaps what Nietzsche really meant by "supermen." These are not the strongest brutes (as Rand criticized) or the greatest manipulators; they re not the most effective dictators or the greatest salesmen; they are the teachers.