From knowledge to wisdom: guiding choices in scientific research.
Bulletin of science, technology and society
316 - 334.
This article argues for the need to put into practice a profound and comprehensive intellectual revolution, affecting to a greater or lesser extent all branches of scientific and technological research, scholarship and education. This intellectual revolution differs, however, from the now familiar kind of scientific revolution described by Kuhn. It does not primarily involve a radical change in what we take to be knowledge about some aspect of the world, a change of paradigm. Rather it involves a radical change in (...) the fundamental, overall intellectual aims and methods of inquiry. At present inquiry is devoted to the enhancement of knowledge. This needs to be transformed into a kind of rational inquiry having as its basic aim to enhance personal and social wisdom. This new kind of inquiry gives intellectual priority to the personal and social problems we encounter in our lives as we strive to realize what is desirable and of value – problems of knowledge and technology being intellectually subordinate and secondary. For this new kind of inquiry, it is what we do and what we are that ultimately matters: our knowledge is but an aspect of our life and being.
|Title:||From knowledge to wisdom: guiding choices in scientific research|
|Keywords:||academic revolution, wisdom, problematic aims of science, science and values, social science, priorities of research, rationality|
|UCL classification:||UCL > School of BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Science and Technology Studies|
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