Somewhere Between Gandalf and Spock
Or How to get Wisdom Everyday
I’m a philosophy MA student. Well, specifically a philosophy of religion MA student. I used to be a little self-conscious about that, as if ‘of religion’ somehow made the degree less prestigious. Then I saw the curriculum at Palm Beach Atlantic University (where I’m earning my MA) and realized that phil religion is philosophy on hard mode. Just try listening to anything by Joe Schmid if you don’t believe me.
I’m learning that a good philosopher of religion will need to be informed on a stupid amount of other sub-disciplines in philosophy in order to make and analyze arguments for God’s existence. I’ve also found that ‘God’ breathes life into topics I would otherwise find exceptionally unexciting, *cough cough metalogic cough*. One can be excused for seeing debates over the foundations and nature of logic as pointless, that is until the God question comes up. Now all of a sudden there are stakes. Is logic merely a human construct? Does God have to “obey” the laws of logic? Are logical laws on this side of creation? Do they eternally exist in the mind of God? Could God have made a different set of logical laws? etc. I’m getting excited again. Check out these episodes if I’ve piqued your interest:
But all this to say, I’m no longer worried that a phil religion degree is somehow “less than”. But even if is was, who cares? Philosophy isn’t about prestige! It’s about the lucrative job prospects— cold hard cash, and lots of it!
Okay, but what does any of this have to do with wisdom? Well, I’m studying phil religion primarily in the ‘analytic’ tradition (though Brandon Rickabaugh occasionally makes us read folks like Heidegger). The analytic tradition of philosophy often utilizes mathematical methods in attempts to get clear on meanings of words and arguments. While I appreciate the emphasis on clarity, sometimes it gets so technical that it renders the content super unclear after all. At times, analytic philosophy can appear so far downstream from the etymological ‘love of wisdom’ that one (me) can lose their grip on what ‘philosophy’ and ‘wisdom’ really are. Furthermore, what ‘is’ love anyways? And like what are the necessary and sufficient conditions of truly ‘loving’ ‘wisdom’? Oops, now I’m doing it.
Alright let me dial it back in again. I bring up my current training in analytic philosophy (yes, of religion!) to broach an at least apparent break between modern analytic philosophy and the classical “love of wisdom” understanding of the discipline. There’s a bit of a difference between Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations and Timothy Williamson’s Modal Logic as Metaphysics is all I’m saying. But the analytics aren’t the only philosophical game in town. There’s also continental, classical, modern, ancient, eastern, phenomenology, and more—all of which will strain the idea of philosopher as ‘sage’ to various degrees.
So what is philosophy if it’s not just the “love of wisdom”? Well, I’m not sure yet. People keep telling me that philosophy is “polysemous” and I’m afraid finding a sure footed definition will be ever elusive, but here’s a Twitter thread where lots of philosophers weigh in:
I doubt I’ll be the one to settle the debate on what philosophy truly is, but as I’ve been stepping back to think about the nature of philosophy, I’ve realized that I want to broaden my own horizon back out again. I’ve come to like my old folk understanding of ‘philosopher’ once more. A philosopher is the answer-man (or answer-woman); the sage you go to with your deepest questions about reality and life. Sometimes they’ll help you think through your question with rigorous logic, other times they’ll leave you with a proverb or riddle to chew on. That’s the type of philosopher I want to be. If the public thinks that so-and-so is a philosopher, then I want to read that person and have an informed opinion on their work. Likewise, if professional philosophers think that
then I want to think that too. I guess I want to be somewhere between Gandalf and Spock. But that means that I need to get back into the wisdom tradition as well as the other philosophical traditions and subdisciplines.
So what is wisdom then? Wisdom is the proper application of knowledge. What is knowledge? Well, evidence = knowledge of course. Just kidding, I have no clue what I think about Williamson’s E=K yet, but hopefully I’ll have a better grasp after this semester in Epistemology at PBA. Knowledge is… well, you know it when you see it. You have knowledge, even if you can’t give a full explanation of what it is or a satisfactory theory of justification. Wisdom is applying that knowledge that you have in the appropriate way, in the appropriate circumstances. That’s a super basic definition and a lot more can and will be said in future posts and podcast episodes, so stay tuned! But let me end this stream of consciousness post with three tips for gaining wisdom everyday: one theological tip, one practical and just slightly self-serving tip, and one late-stage-capitalist-self-agrandizing-everything’s-a-commodity tip (I told you philosophy is about the money!).
Three tips:
Fear the LORD
The Bible, continually emphasizes that the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. If the Bible is true, then God made this world for His glory and our good. Acknowledging Him as your creator is the principum of wise living (told you it would be theological). To acknowledge Him, to heed His Word, and apply it to your life would be to live along the grain of the reality He created. “Well, that’s a big conditional there, Park. How do we know if the Bible is true?” Take up and read, homie! You can do the hard work of researching the historicity, reliability, veracity, perspicuity, etc., of the Bible—and you for sure should do that—but you can also dive in on the book of Proverbs today and see if there’s really wisdom to be gleaned there.
For the believers reading this, why are you not reading a proverb a day? There are 31 “chapters” or collections of proverbs in the Book of Proverbs. Commit to reading one a day. Just look at the date and read that chapter. Boom. But also, you can just ask God for wisdom (James 1:5). So, commit to asking God for wisdom each and everyday, multiple times a day.
Walk with the wise
If you want to be wise, befriend wise people and learn from them. If someone has a successful marriage ask them about that. If someone is great with their money, take them out to coffee and pick their brain. If you like the way someone interacts with people, ask them about their people skills.
You can also listen to podcasts that wise people produce and appear on and talk to your friends about the ideas covered in said podcasts, thus dragging your friends up and in along the wise path with you. Here’s a great podcast to get you started: https://www.youtube.com/c/ParkersPensées
Sign up for my Daily Wisdom Texts playlist
So, like I said above, I’m returning to my roots of loving wisdom in attempts to become a well-rounded philosopher-sage. That means picking up my old commonplace books, rereading the golden quotes I’ve compiled and adding to them as I find new gems. I used to have grandiose dreams that someday after my death someone would find my commonplace books and journals and benefit from them. But then Samuel from Daily Wisdom Texts reached out to me with a possible collaboration opportunity and now this dream is a reality—and I’m not even dead yet! We were thinking of giving my listeners a special deal on his general wisdom compilation texts but after I told him about my common place books, we decided it would be cool to create a Parker’s Pensées playlist for my own favorite wisdom quotes. So now you can get my favorite gnomic statements, proverbs, riddles, musings, dictums, and more delivered straight to your phone via texts everyday. I will continue to add new entries as I glean them from philosophy, Scripture, comic books, sci-fi and fantasy novels, theological works and more. Sign up for a free 30 day trial of my playlist here and check out my podcast episode with Samuel of Daily Wisdom Texts for the full story on how he got burned out at Amazon and created this app for his own sanity:
I’m pumped to be on this journey to becoming a philosopher-sage, or philosopher-theologian-sage—idk, I haven’t worked out the terminology yet, but I’ll chalk that up to being part of the process. There are lots of ways I’ve commodified myself, and my dog, if you want to support my journey and/or have benefitted from my podcast. Two of the best ways are to support me on Patreon and buy some of my merch (which also supports the artists I work with!). Be looking out for more posts on wisdom simpliciter and applied in the very near future. As always, all glory to God.
You’re awesome Parker!