Wisdom/Curriculum

Applied Wisdom

T. S. Eliot asked:

This Applied Wisdom Curriculum is being designed by asking how we can best prepare ourselves to solve the great universal problems that prevent us from realizing and enjoying all that is most important in life. Knowledge has not been enough; we need the broad scope, human perspective, and good judgment of wisdom.

Shih-Ying Yang writes: “In the last analysis, individual actualization of conceptions of wisdom in real life, and the positive impact of these wise decisions and actions, may be the vehicle of the advance of human civilizations.”^[1]

This curriculum is based on the simple premise: If folly brings us problems, then perhaps wisdom can bring us solutions. The goal of the curriculum is to help you develop a tough mind and a tender heart.

Attribution: User lbeaumont created this resource and is actively using it. Please coordinate future development with him/her if possible.

Pursuit of well-being is the unifying theme for these courses.

These courses are available now and establish the core of the curriculum:

• Dignity—Improving our world by learning to preserve dignity for all people
• Wisdom—Choosing Humanity
• The Virtues — Attaining intrinsically valuable character traits
• Living the Golden Rule — Treating others as you want to be treated
• What Matters — Identifying what is truly most significant to you, your family, community, nation, and world.
• Limits To Growth — Recognizing the earth is finite
• Grand Challenges — The great problems and opportunities facing humanity
• Global Perspective — Applying our Wisdom to meet the Grand Challenges
• Unmasking the True Self — Exploring the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves
• Knowing How You Know — Developing and applying your own Theory of Knowledge.
• Practicing Dialogue — Thinking Together
• Socratic Methods — Seeking real good by questioning beliefs
• Understanding Fairness — Your interpretation of what is fair is likely to be arbitrary and biased.
• Beyond Theism — A real basis for hope
• Pursuing Collective Wisdom — Improving collaborative decision making.
• Living Wisely — Seeking Real Good.
• A Quiet Mind — Controlling Discursive Thought; cultivating Pure Awareness
• Natural Inclusion — Experiencing the world from nature.

Proposed Courses yet to be Developed

Related Courses, still to be developed, include:

• Determining What is
  • Evidence
    • The Tyranny of Evidence
  • Logic and logical fallacies
  • Theory of Knowledge This is now available as the course Knowing How You Know. This course covers many of the topics listed above.
  • Street Epistemology Learning to conduct genuine conversations that examine the foundations of belief.
  • Using the metric system
• Seeking Real Good
  • Scientific Method
  • Taxonomy of Reality
  • Living by the Golden Rule
  • Deep Pragmatism
  • Ethics
  • Knowing what to do -- Getting from is to ought.
• Developing Accurate Empathy -- Why are they feeling that way?
• Systems Analysis
• Systems Design
  • Problem Seeking
• Rational Decision making
  • The Analytic Hierarchy Process
  • Using decision matrices
  • Quality Function Deployment
  • Choosing Excellence!
• Critical thinking
• Root cause analysis
• Understanding Risk — Estimating likelihood and consequence.
• Problem solving
• Dialogue
• Transcending Conflict
  • Understanding varieties of fairness — Your interpretation of what is fair is likely to be arbitrary and biased. Now available as the course Understanding Fairness.
• Creativity
• Big History — An integrated history of the universe from the Big Bang to the present
• Emotional Competency
• Marriage Excellence (now in development)
• The nature of social constructs
• Designing social constructs for greater well-being
  • Debugging Social Constructs
• Money Architectures — exploring implications and alternatives to national fiat currencies.
• Thorium — the up and coming superfuel.
• Collective Wisdom — This is now available as the course Pursuing Collective Wisdom.
• Forecasting using Bayes Theorem
• Inner Growth
• The wisdom of ubuntu.
• Biomimicry and sustainable design.
• Effecting change - How change propagates, or fails to propagate, through an organization or society.
  • Influencing beliefs

You can help by becoming a student, improving the above list, or by developing one of these courses.

References

1. ↑ Yang, Shih-Ying. 2001. “Conceptions of Wisdom Among Taiwanese Chinese.” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 32(6), November:662-680.