 Socrates guides us in reason and the examined life. His student Plato provides us with a map of the soul and of the virtues that make us strong, good, and happy. Aristotle--Plato’s student--developed a detailed, systematic psychology for understanding and cultivating wisdom and virtue and a flourishing life. This is the third essay in a series; I suggest reading the reflection on Socrates first, then Plato, then this one. Please note that I am ignoring many features of these philosophers, including differences between them, in order to focus on a thread which runs through them, creating an emerging tradition which is a framework for living well. Socrates teaches reason, Plato turns that into wisdom, and Aristotle provides the tools for crafting such wisdom and the virtue which emerges from it.
As an aside, that word integration is key. Modern philosophy divides things up, reducing life to dead mechanisms. It is like the adolescent who disassembles a dirt bike, and never gets around to putting it back together. We are left with a box of parts that lack the original coherence, function and power. Classical philosophy integrates. This was especially the case with the medieval use with classical philosophy. For example, there are qualities (virtues) that make us:
Socrates and Plato recognised this and pointed it out to their fellow citizens, and eventually, to the whole world. Aristotle provided the detailed insights for cultivating these qualities. It all begins with the pursuit of wisdom. After all, philosophy is by definition the love and pursuit of wisdom. The cultivation of wisdom Wisdom is a virtue, but it is also "the beginning of all the virtues". This means that wisdom is the master virtue. The rest of the virtues flow from it. For example, striving for a more rational and courageous perspective (wisdom) leads you also to diminish your cowardly emotions, and to cultivate courageous actions. This means that you must begin your work with the cultivation of wisdom, and when you have developed that sufficiently, you are capable of cultivating the other virtues you need (the character virtues). The word wisdom here is a translation for the ancient Greek word phronesis. Phronesis is different to other kinds of wisdom, which we will discuss another time. Phronesis is the form of wisdom that counts most for a good life, according to Aristotle's vision. It is often translated not simply as wisdom, but as practical wisdom. Practical wisdom is the ability to discern the right thing to do, in the ever-changing circumstances of human life. It is the bridge between knowing the good in theory (intellect) and executing it in practice (action). It is often summarised as the ability to know and do the right thing, and in the right way, and at the right time, and for the right reason. Practical wisdom is what allows a man to look at a situation—a conflict at work, a temptation, a moment of fear—and discern the correct, virtuous thing to feel and to do. This is not a sterile calculation, rather it is a cultivated perception, akin to the eye of an expert craftsman who instantly sees the right way to shape the material before him. Practical wisdom is not so much taught, as developed. This is why, all over this website, I use words like guidance and training, rather than education. I am not educating you in classical philosophy. We are not doing academic work. Rather, I am guiding you as you cultivate wisdom and virtue. This is the difference between a philosophical counsellor and a university teacher. Practical wisdom is the hard-won intellectual virtue which emerges from the marriage of experience and reflection. The cultivation of practical wisdom rests of several ingrediants. In no special order they are: the cultivation of moral virtue, experience and deliberate practice, guidance from a mentor, reason and contemplation, and the doctrine of the golden mean. The cultivation of the character virtue It is practical wisdom that leads to virtue. Rational, courageous thinking, for example, leads to courageous emotions and actions. Right at the start of his discussion of the cultivation of wisdom, however, Aristotle states a seemingly paradoxical truth:
This might sound like an impossible dilemma, analogous to you cannot get the job without experience, but you cannot get experience without the job. Thankfully, it is not the same. For your pre-existing psychological temperament (nature) and the training in life that you received (nurture) provide the raw, beginning material for the further development of yourself which you now do by the effort of intellect and will. In short, the cultivation of wisdom, like the cultivaton of virtue, is an act of the intellect and will, and the starting material that intellect and will work with, are the qualities you possess already through nature and nature, as well as your ongoing experience of life. The key point is that a man clouded by fear, appetite, or anger cannot perceive the truth of a situation clearly. His desires distort his judgment. Virtue calms the soul and allows reason to see objectively. Wisdom may be the means by which you cultivate virtue, but virtue is equally needed for the cultivation of wisdom. So virtue is needed if we are to cultivate wisdom, especially practical wisdom (phronesis). We also need experience on which to reflect, and deliberate practice at reflecting well. Experience and deliberate practice Practical wisdom is built up over time. Like learning a musical instrument or skills in a sport, we need to practice thinking well. This involves two elements: we need the material to think about, which is our ongoing experience, and we need to deliberately and repeatedly practice thinking well about experience. This is why people often become wiser as they get older. They have had more experience and more practice at reflecting well. Of course, if they practice refecting badly, they may become more foolish as they age--that happens too. A young person of virtue will be wiser than an old person who is viscious (vice-ridden). The practice of reflecting well includes:
This work takes effort of will. Mental work is often hard work. It is common for people to be very mentally passive, indeed mentally obese and diseased, even if their bodies are sculpted. Like building muscle, you have to make the effort and do the work over and again, to become good at it. There are no short-cuts in life. The guidance of the phronimos (the wise mentor) When you are deficient in the know-how and strength required for, say, weight-ligting, you seek a trainer to guide you. In a sense they make up for your deficiencies: they guide you in what to do, and they may even reach out and help with the weights in different ways (at least, that is my experience). Likewise, the man who would cultivate practical wisdom needs guidance in the nature and practice of getting wisdom, and in the mental states (virtues) that enable wisdom, for example keeping your cool as you reflect, not being led astray by anger. This is why Aristotle implicitly argues for the necessity of a guide: a phronimos, which is to say, a man of phronesis, of practical wisdom. Some of these wise men are those we simply observe and admire. We learn by watching. They may have faults we want to avoid, but they have wisdom and virtue that we learn from. These are men we see in life, or those we read about. Another kind of wise man serves as a direct mentor. He does not give orders, rather he helps you analyse your choices, question your assumptions, and see the nuances you missed. He is your Socrates, who models how a wise man deliberates, and draws you into such deliberation regarding your own life. In our sessions, I serve in ths latter capacity: as a philosophical counsellor engaging you in the application of reason to your specific concerns and circumstances. My authority lies, not in being a wise man, but in being a lover of wisdom, which is to say, a philosopher. My role as one dedicated to the art of pursuing wisdom, is to guide you in that art, through rational, insightful conversation. Of course, in my case I bring also the experience and insight I have accumulated from decades of working as a counsellor with thousands of people at the coal-face of life. That is also a work of experience and reflection. It has taught me a great deal. What I have learned is less an objective set of truths, and more an observation of patterns which often hold. "If you do X, there is a greater chance that Y will happen, and that P won't happen--that is what I have observed." Beyond that, I am approaching 50 years of age and have lived a life both of successes, and of plenty of instructive failures, whether in the form of the world coming at me like a fist, or more often because I have tripped over my own stupid feet. The point of such experience is not to hate onself, but to get up, dust off, and learn. To extract lessons, by which to do better in future: to cultivate practical wisdom. I have always had my own mentor for living well. I mean, somebody whom I pay to engage regularly with in conversation aimed at good living. It is from the experience of my own investment in a mentor that I recommend mentors to others, and of course I provide that to others as my core work. Dialectical Reasoning and Contemplation Finally, practical wisdom is refined through the rigorous exercise of reason itself. This involves studying ethical principles (like the doctrine of the mean below), engaging in Socratic dialogue to clarify concepts, and contemplating the higher goods which give our actions purpose and our lives meaning (truth, beauty, goodness, justice). We must think deeply about what a "good life" truly means, if we are to wisely judge the steps that lead toward it. This moves virtue from mimicry to an intelligent, self-authored way of living. The path to practical wisdom is therefore a feedback loop: we perform actions based on our current understanding (which may be flawed); then we reflect on the outcomes, ideally with guidance; then we refine our principles; and we try again with sharper perception. Through this process, our capacity for judgment is honed. We begin to intuitively perceive the right course of action because we have, through reasoned practice, built the character and the intellectual habit to see it. This is how a man moves from knowing the good to doing the good, seamlessly, as one unified action which is an expression of his newly cultivated nature, of his hard-won character. The Doctrine of the Mean Every moral virtue is the intermediate point--the golden mean--between a vice of deficiency and a vice of excess. This is not a mathematical average, but the right response, relative to us and the specific context. It is like shooting an arrow into the right part of a moving animal. Courage is the virtuous mean between the deficiency of cowardice and the excess of recklessness. Temperance is the mean between insensibility (a deficiency in enjoying pleasure) and licentiousness (the excess of overindulgence). In relationships, being a loving partner is the mean between the deficiency of neglectfulnes or apathy, and the excess of possessiveness or smothering. Our work together involves applying this framework to the concrete particulars of your life. We identify where your responses may tend toward an extreme, and consciously practice actions which pull you toward the virtuous center, building the hexis of a strong character. We engaged in some discussion of this in the previous post on Plato, when we discussed how spiritedness needs to be cultivated into a healthy form, which does not overwhelm the other parts of the soul (excess), while at the same time it does not fail (deficiency) to bring itself forward, just as the warriors and the white horse need to push and act. The context for Aristotle's cultivation of wisdom and virtue is not academic study, rather it is your actual life. Your presenting problems—the grief, anxiety, relational conflicts, career uncertainties, and existential doubts you might otherwise take to mainstream therapy—are not distractions from this philosophical work. They are its raw materials. Your goals, from the immediate to the lifelong, are not separate from this cultivation; they are its objectives. We engage with these problems and pursue these goals not only for their resolution, but also because they provide the essential "grist for the mill." Each challenge is an opportunity to practice wisdom in itself, and instead of foolishness or rationalism, and likewise to cultivate courage, and to exercise justice. Through this process, philosophy ceases to be a theoretical exercise and becomes the active, shaping force of your daily existence, guiding you toward the ultimate Aristotelian goal of eudaimonia: a life of genuine flourishing, through the fulfillment of this, your deeper potential, as a human being. Comments are closed.
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