Practical Wisdom as Heuristic Processes
Short Definition
In the literature, wisdom has been considered as a mechanism for uncertainty management. Heuristics are simple rules that are shown to be widely and successfully used by people to make decisions under uncertainty. This project embarks on an unexplored voyage: How can the science of heuristics inform the study of wisdom?
Summary Points
- In the literature, wisdom has been considered as a mechanism for uncertainty management. Heuristics are simple rules that are shown to be widely and successfully used by people to make decisions under uncertainty. This project embarks on an unexplored voyage: How can the science of heuristics inform the study of wisdom?
- The idea is that where heuristics succeed due to their simplicity, wisdom can be formulated as a mechanism that fine-tunes the choice of heuristics.
- This project is based on the conjecture that wisdom and heuristics have structural similarities. So far, a comparative reading has been pursued to 3 actions
- Wise action is usually signified by a final outcome that contains a virtue and leads to (or is intended to result in) communal good
- if the outcome agrees with our goals, we consider an act to be wise.There are two cases that can be distinguished.
- John Dewey’s work offers insight on knowledge in relation to wisdom. Dewey appears keen on holding “the doctrine of the Relativity of Knowledge” as “the sum of all modern wisdom.” Although wisdom is beyond knowledge, it cannot be without knowledge.
- Dewey has got three interesting ideas.
Text from Wisdom Institute
Practical Wisdom as Heuristic Processes
In the literature, wisdom has been considered as a mechanism for uncertainty management. Heuristics are simple rules that are shown to be widely and successfully used by people to make decisions under uncertainty. This project embarks on an unexplored voyage: How can the science of heuristics inform the study of wisdom? A few models of fast and frugal heuristics have been developed and refined in the past decade. For these models, the regions of application have also been specified. The heuristics are classified by type, as well as decomposed into building blocks. Thus, the science of heuristics provides an operational platform for a systematic study of processes and capacities that give rise to practical wisdom. The idea is that where heuristics succeed due to their simplicity, wisdom can be formulated as a mechanism that fine-tunes the choice of heuristics. Wisdom is not simply about knowing more; it is about knowing what to ignore. Moreover, an improved understanding of wisdom might be attained through revealing what heuristics are triggered in a certain situation. These conjectures are formulated as initial hypotheses to be tested by experiments, protocol analyses, computer simulations, and in-depth interviews. We also explore how specific concepts of uncertainty and knowledge can inform our view of practical wisdom formulated as heuristic processes.
This project is based on the conjecture that wisdom and heuristics have structural similarities. So far, a comparative reading has been pursued to (1) juxtapose the Berlin wisdom paradigm (BWP) and the science of heuristics (ScH); (2) find where this structural comparison meets with Monika Ardelt’s version of wisdom and her reflections on BWP; and (3) highlight what ScH has to offer. BWP constructs a theoretical utopian model according to which wisdom can be assessed and “wisdom‐near persons” can be identified. Ardelt maintains an ideal wisdom notion and focuses on three dimensions that allow the wisdom of individuals to be measured. Here, we examine one common ground: Wise action is usually signified by a final outcome that contains a virtue and leads to (or is intended to result in) communal good. When an action is judged wise based on the final effect it brings to those who are affected by its results, the values of the judge lead the making of such a judgment. By extension, there is a significant role for goals in concluding this process of judgment, in the sense that if the outcome agrees with our goals, we consider an act to be wise. Two cases can be distinguished. One is when goals are specifiable and unaffected by the action, and they produce a near‐objective measure for the wisdom of action. However, many interesting situations involve changing goals in the course of action, begging the question: How do human minds, when acting wise, reduce the uncertainty to a level that can be acted upon? ScH’s answer is by building content‐sensitive norms (which satisfies BWP value relativism), extracting and imposing sensible stopping rules, achieving robustness through simplicity led by a ‘feeling’ of rightness. ScH has treated the conception of rationality and its beyond‐human‐ability structure by turning the focus from confirming (or rejecting) one definition of rationality supplied with (endless) amendment, to discovering the fit between strategies and situations. We continue our exploration of wisdom, analogically, by focusing on the structural elements that make a certain action wise in a given situation, and look for general rules that can signify wise actions.
John Dewey’s work offers insight on knowledge in relation to wisdom. Dewey appears keen on holding “the doctrine of the Relativity of Knowledge” as “the sum of all modern wisdom.” Although wisdom is beyond knowledge, it cannot be without knowledge. Wisdom is of the Good. We could have complete knowledge yet not possess wisdom of its use for the Good. To Dewey good and value appear to be synonyms. Values, or deal ends-in-view, are the end and goal of inquiry. That is, we engage in inquiry to secure values. One intriguing idea of Dewey is that values can be judged as true or false; they are not just a matter of taste. This corresponds to content-sensitive norms in the science of heuristics. Another is Dewey’s distinction between immediate desire and the reflectively desirable or the immediately valued and the valuable. Whereas we conjectured at the onset of our project that practical wisdom and heuristic mechanisms share frugality, fastness remains one of our open questions. A third idea is that values and the perceived good may guide inquiry, but to evaluate those very values, we need to admit that “fact” and “value” are inseparable.
https://wisdomcenter.uchicago.edu/about/project-1-defining-wisdom