Understanding Wisdom: Sources, Science and Society 1890151300, 9781890151300

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Understanding Wisdom

laws of l i f e sym p o s i a se ri e s Volume 1, Dimensions of Forgiveness: Psychological Research & Theological Perspectives Edited by Everett L. Worthington, Jr. Volume 2, The Science of Optimism and Hope: Research Essays in Honor of Martin E.P. Seligman Edited by Jane E. Gillham Volume 3, Understanding Wisdom: Sources, Science, and Society Edited by Warren S. Brown

Understanding Wisdom ✦

Sources, Science, & Society

Edited by

Warren S. Brown

templeton p re s s

Templeton Press 300 Conshohocken State Road, Suite 550 West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania 19428 www.templetonpress.org © 2000 by Templeton Press All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of Templeton Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Understanding wisdom : sources, science, and society / edited by Warren S. Brown p. cm. (Laws of life symposia series ; v. 3) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-890151-30-0 (pbk : alk. paper) 1. Wisdom—Congresses. 2. Wisdom—Religious aspects— Congresses. I. Brown, Warren S., 1944– BD181.U68 2000 128'.3—dc21

00-025438

Tyepset and designed by Gopa & Ted2, Inc. Printed in the United States of America 12 13 14 15 16

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Contents

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Preface

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Introduction: A Hierarchical Framework for Understanding Wisdom Nancey Murphy

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Part I: The Sources of Wisdom 1. The Sources of Wisdom R. E. Clements

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2. Profundity with Panache: The Unappreciated Proverbial Wisdom of Sub-Saharan Africa Stan W. Nussbaum

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3. “A House Divided”: From Biblical Proverb to Lincoln and Beyond Wolfgang Mieder

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4. Israel’s Wisdom Literature and the Intrinsic Integrity of Creation Dianne Bergant

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5. Wisdom on Death and Suffering John Goldingay

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6. It Takes Wisdom to Use Wisdom Wisely Robert K. Johnston

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Part II: The Science of Wisdom 7. Wisdom Traditions as Mechanisms for Organismal Integration: Evolutionary Perspectives on Homeostatic “Laws of Life” Jeffrey P. Schloss

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8. Wisdom and Human Neurocognitive Systems: Perceiving and Practicing the Laws of Life Warren S. Brown

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9. A Neurolinguistic Perspective on Proverbs and the Laws of Life Diana R.Van Lancker

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10. On the Emergence of Wisdom: Expertise Development John L. Horn and Hiromi Masunaga

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11. The Science of Art: How the Brain Responds to Beauty V.S. Ramachandran

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12. A Scientific Study of Wisdom (Or Its Contributing Parts) Warren S. Brown

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Part III: The Learning of Wisdom 13. Wise Emotions Nancy Sherman 14. Setting the Stage for the Development of Wisdom: Self-understanding and Moral Identity During Adolescence William Damon 15. Lessons Learned: The Role of Religion in the Development of Wisdom in Adolescence James L. Furrow and Linda Mans Wagener

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conte nts 16. Maxims to Live By: The Art and Science of Teaching Wise Sayings Arthur J. Schwartz and F. Clark Power

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17. Seeing Wisely—Learning to Become Wise Lawrence M. Hinman

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Contributors

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Name and Subject Index

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Scripture Index

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Preface

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riting a book on wisdom is outrageous. Editing a book about wisdom is only slightly less outrageous . . . outrageous because taking on such a task presumes either that one has a sufficient store of wisdom to offer the reader, or that one knows a great deal of all-there-is-to-know about wisdom. Wisdom is, by nature, not conscious of itself. Wisdom is a depth and quality of understanding of specific situations, problems, decisions, and relationships. Individuals who are wise are deeply involved and enmeshed in responding optimally to real-life situations and, thus, they are not typically conscious of their wisdom. An abstract awareness and evaluation of the character of one’s actions is not likely to occur when one is focused on an important problem.Thus, since individuals who are particularly wise are not likely to be self-conscious of this attribute, they are not disposed to write (or edit) a book about wisdom. Nevertheless, however outrageous this project may be, “fools rush in where angels [and those who are wise] fear to tread.”

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I became editor of this book at the request of the John Templeton Foundation. In October of 1998, the Templeton Foundation was planning to hold a board meeting at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. It is the habit of the Templeton Foundation to sponsor academic conferences in conjunction with their board meetings.The Foundation was interested in hosting a conference on wisdom and was looking for someone to organize it, and eventually to develop a book from the papers presented at the conference. In my own research, I study the mental and psychological capacities of individuals with a congenital brain disorder called agenesis of the corpus callosum. It is my theory that an important consequence of this

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congenital brain disorder is diminished or absent wisdom (see chapter 8). Therefore, when I heard about the possibility of a conference on wisdom, I was anxious to be involved and to present my research and my theory. As events progressed, I became organizer, host, and editor. “Fools rush in!” The structure of the conference and of this book views wisdom from three different perspectives. The first part, “Sources of Wisdom,” discusses the preservation and propagation of wisdom through literature. Preserved in the written literature and oral traditions of societies are stories, proverbs, maxims, and metaphors that help the hearer or reader to better understand common life situations and to act more appropriately, optimally, compassionately, and wisely. These sources of wisdom include collections of proverbs and maxims, and more extensive stories, poems, and essays. All of these forms of wisdom literature are found in the Bible, but are also found in other works and in the oral traditions of most cultures. The second part describes the science of wisdom.This part does not deal with direct studies of wise people, or of the nature of wise actions, attitudes, or perspectives. Rather, this part attempts to describe various aspects of the scientific understanding of those human mental functions that provide the substrate or foundation out of which wisdom develops. What is necessary in the biological (evolutionary or ontogenetic) development of humankind for wisdom to become a possibility? What forms of brain disorder have a specific impact on wisdom? What mental and brain processes specifically contribute to a person’s ability to understand the proverbs, maxims, and metaphors that encode and transmit wisdom? What is the relationship between wisdom and intelligence? The last part involves the learning of wisdom. Here the authors focus on issues related to child, adolescent, and adult development of wisdom and character. What community, family, and religious resources are important in the development of wisdom in children and adolescents? How is an increase in wisdom and maturity revealed in the narratives of adolescents? What role do our emotional responses play in the manifestation of wisdom?

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Each of these three parts is followed by reflections and commentary on the various concepts, ideas, and perspectives presented in that particular group of essays.The authors of these reflections attempt to integrate, compare, and contrast the various points of view of the different authors. The reader may wish to read these summaries prior to reading the chapters themselves. A student might find it instructive to read these integrative contributions both before and after reading the relevant chapters. Producing conferences and edited works such as this always requires the involvement of more than one person. The John Templeton Foundation initiated this project, and has supported it with both encouragement and financial resources. Particularly critical to the completion of this project has been the contribution of Dr. Arthur Schwartz of the Templeton Foundation. Arthur and I exchanged a book-length volume of email messages during the planning of the conference. The shape of both the conference and this book owe much to Arthur’s expertise, perspectives, and work. The final version of every book owes much to the work of the publishing house editor, which in this case was Laura Barrett of Templeton Foundation Press. I am also indebted to each of the authors who have contributed to this work by offering their time and expertise to the project, including Dr. Paul Baltes (Max Planck Institute, Berlin), who presented a paper at the conference but declined the invitation to contribute a chapter to this book. Finally, recognition is due to Dr. Richard Mouw (President of Fuller Theological Seminary) and Dennis Prager (author and talk show host on KABC radio in Los Angeles) for their interesting, informative, and entertaining addresses at the two banquets during the conference. Most of the trouble and distress experienced by persons, families, groups, institutions, governments, and nations can be rather easily laid at the doorstep of a lack of wisdom on the part of some individual or group. In our failure to act wisely, we create distress for ourselves and for others. However, in the heat and press of a need for prompt decision and action, it is sometimes difficult to bring wisdom to bear. It is my prayer

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that this book can at least raise the readers’ awareness of the nature of wisdom, where it can be found, and how it can be developed in themselves and others, so that at least some of our future distress might be avoided. Warren S. Brown, Ph.D. Graduate School of Psychology Fuller Theological Seminary

Understanding Wisdom

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introduction

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A Hierarchical Framework for Understanding Wisdom Nancey Murphy

hy would any self-respecting editor put all of these essays together in one volume? As other authors within have noted, these chapters cover a remarkably wide assortment of topics. The first part, “The Sources of Wisdom,” looks at wisdom literature from the Bible, at proverbs from African traditional culture, and at the role of proverbs in public life. The second part, “The Science of Wisdom,” contains chapters on the evolution of moral capacities, on cognitive and behavioral deficits in patients with brain damage, on the learning of nonliteral language, and on the role of expertise in wisdom. The third part, “The Learning of Wisdom,” considers a variety of factors involved in the teaching of wisdom: memorization of proverbs, emotions and emotional attachments to elders, moral self-identity, and religion. Although the term “wisdom” appears in each chapter it is used in many different senses: wisdom as the ability to interpret and apply proverbs, to act effectively in complex social settings, to live in accordance with reality, to perceive the ultimate meaning of life. In this brief introduction I present a model or framework that I hope will be useful for relating the concerns of these varied essays. I shall suggest that our understanding of human life, and in fact of reality in general, depends on the recognition of a hierarchy of levels of complexity or organization.The reason it is possible to have such a variety of approaches to the topic of wisdom is that wisdom is a concept equally at home in several of these different levels of organization. An interesting question,

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then, is how the various levels relate to one another. I suggest that while each higher level depends on and is constrained by those below, the higher levels involve a broader and more complex reality that cannot be exhaustively understood in terms of the lower levels.

a hierarchical framework Throughout the modern era it has been common to think of reality in terms of a hierarchy of levels of organization or complexity, and to think of the sciences as capable of being organized hierarchically to reflect this “layered” feature of reality.The earliest (and most idiosyncratic) version was Thomas Hobbes’s (1588–1679) hierarchy with the “science” of geometry at the bottom and civil philosophy at the top. In the twentieth century it has been widely agreed that the hierarchy of sciences begins with physics at the bottom and then adds chemistry and biology. Physics is at the bottom because it studies the most basic constituents of reality; chemistry studies these “atoms” as they relate in complex structures (molecules)1; biology studies a number of levels of structure, from the biochemical through the levels of organelles, cells, tissues, organs, organisms, to colonies of organisms in their environments. There has been continuing debate in modern Western intellectual history over two issues: (1) whether psychology and the social sciences can be added above biology, and (2) whether all of the sciences are ultimately reducible to physics—that is, whether the laws of physics ultimately determine everything that happens. For my purposes here, the most useful account of these matters is that of the mid-twentieth-century American philosopher Roy Wood Sellars. At the same time that the logical positivists were refining and promoting a reductionist account of the hierarchy of the sciences, Sellars was developing a nonreductionist view of a hierarchy of complex systems. He has called his view by a variety of names, including “emergent realism,” “emergent naturalism,” and “evolutionary naturalism.” A more common term today for such a position is “nonreductive physicalism.” Sellars began in 1916 to explicate a conception of the mental as an emergent property in the hierarchy of complex systems (Sellars,

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1916/1966), and ultimately developed a conception of the whole of nature as forming a nonreducible hierarchy of levels. That is, we recognize a development of complex entities over time. First there is only inorganic matter in the universe. But, in time, life appears. In contrast to earlier, dualist accounts, life is conceived of not as the product of some metaphysical entity being added to inorganic matter, but rather as the result of material systems developing a sufficient level of complexity. Similarly, consciousness appears as a result of the complex neural systems of living organisms.Thus, Sellars’s position is expressly opposed to Cartesian mind-matter (or body-soul) dualism. Equally important, Sellars’s position is opposed to reductive materialism—the logical positivists’ program for the unification of all the sciences by reducing them to physics. While he agrees with the reductive materialists as against the dualists, he criticizes the reductionists for having a view of nature that is overly mechanistic and atomistic. “The ontological imagination was stultified at the start by [the picture] of microscopic billiard balls” (Sellars, 1932/1995, p. 5). In rejecting this reductive materialism, Sellars argues that “[o]rganization and wholes are genuinely significant”; they are not mere aggregates of elementary particles. Reductive materialism overemphasizes the “stuff” in contrast to the organization. But matter, he claims, is only a part of nature. “There is energy; there is the fact of pattern; there are all sorts of intimate relations.” “Matter, or stuff, needs to be supplemented by terms like integration, pattern, function” (Sellars 1970, pp. 136–138). “It will be my argument,” he says, “that science and philosophy are only now becoming sufficiently aware of the principles involved in the facts of levels, of natural kinds, of organization, to all of which the old materialism was blind. I shall even carry the notion of levels into causality and speak of levels of causality” (Sellars 1932/1966, p. 4). The levels that Sellars countenances are the following: the religious or spiritual the moral the social the mental or conscious the organic the inorganic

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In what follows I shall follow Sellars in distinguishing among these six levels of complexity. However, I shall refer to the “personal” level rather than to the “mental” level. Notice that many entities or events can be described at more than one level. Consider the event of a person killing an animal. We can describe the event at the organic or biological level: its throat was cut and it bled to death. The event can be described as an action at the personal level when we include the actor’s intention. However, it is not always possible to describe the intention without referring to still higher levels of description.Why did he kill it? Maybe a psychological description will suffice: he is sadistic and killed for pleasure. But perhaps we need a social description: he is the provider for his family. Or economic: he’s taking meat to market because the price is now right.We might need a religious-level description: it is a sacrifice to the Lord.2 These various levels can be superimposed on one another. He may be slaughtering the animal for sale, but doing so in the manner prescribed by Jewish dietary laws, in which case the religious “supervenes” on the economic, and both supervene on the personal and organic levels. Notice that each higher level depends on the lower—one cannot kill intentionally without killing; one cannot make a sacrifice to God without the intention to do so. But the higher level cannot be reduced to the lower—there is more to a sacrifice than mere killing. Moral descriptions, as Sellars noted, fit into the hierarchy as well: to kill for sadistic pleasure is immoral; to kill for food, many concede, is morally justified but, even so, the particular act of slaughtering will be moral or immoral depending on circumstances pertaining to a variety of levels: is it done humanely (organic level); is the animal one’s own property (social and economic levels)? So a description of the act as moral (or immoral) supervenes on a complex description involving lower-level factors.3

wisdom in the hierarchy of complex systems My argument here is that wisdom is a concept at home in several levels of Sellars’s hierarchy of complexity, and this fact accounts for much

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of the variety in approaches to wisdom represented in this volume. It would be neat if this book could be divided into five sections, dealing respectively with the biological, personal, social, moral, and religious perspectives on wisdom. Yet were this the case it would provide evidence against the thesis of this introduction; namely, that the perspectives of each level depend upon but cannot be reduced to the lower levels. In what follows, then, I shall provide a brief account of the contents of each of the chapters, and in so doing I shall add a few comments on how one perspective seems to call out for enrichment and enhancement from the others. I begin not at the beginning but with the essays in the third part, “The Learning of Wisdom.” Nancy Sherman argues that wisdom is not merely a cognitive attribute (a combination of prudence, judgment, and rational choice) but is also crucially dependent on emotional development. Emotional responses to situations help us track what is morally important and to communicate to others what we care about morally. Wisdom thus draws upon human emotion, but part of the development of wisdom is learning to manage and shape our own emotional experience. It is largely due to arguments such as this regarding the role of emotion in wisdom that I chose to use the term “personal” rather than Sellars’s terms “mental” or “conscious”: these latter terms are too closely associated with human intellectual capacities considered in abstraction from emotional responses. Proverbs and wise sayings constitute a theme that runs through this entire volume. Arthur J. Schwartz and Clark Power consider the role of maxims in conveying the wisdom of one generation to another. Based on reports regarding strategies for effective teaching of maxims, they conclude that the memorization of maxims more often results in adopting wise behavior when the maxims are taught within the context of a meaningful relationship with the teachers. William Damon emphasizes the role of self-understanding in adolescents’ development of wisdom. In particular, adolescents need to develop the ability to understand themselves in terms of moral purposes, which guide critical life choices. These three essays, then, lend support to my thesis that while wisdom can be understood as a personal characteristic and can be considered from the point of view of individual learning and development, such accounts will inevitably need to

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relate the personal to both the social and the moral levels of analysis. James Furrow and Linda Wagener take the next step in an analysis of wisdom, noting that in a pluralist cultural context, moral standards appear more tenuous than in traditional society. Religious traditions play an important role in adolescent development by providing moral guideposts and communal support. Thus, we can see that attention to wisdom at the social and moral levels almost inevitably leads to religious considerations, especially in light of cultural pluralism.4 In Part II, “The Science of Wisdom,” we find essays that in various ways relate wisdom as a personal attribute to the cognitive and biological substrates that make it possible, thus exploring connections with the level below, the organic level. John L. Horn and Hiromi Masunaga agree with Sherman that wisdom is not merely an intellectual capacity; they argue that, in addition, it involves expertise, which is the result of well-structured, deliberate practice. Their focus on the role of long-term working memory in the learning of wisdom creates a bridge for pursuing questions regarding the neurobiological prerequisites for wisdom. Warren S. Brown’s essay, “Wisdom and Neurocognitive Systems,” makes two moves in order to relate wisdom to the biological level.The first, as in Horn and Masunaga’s essay, is to give wisdom a clearer definition at the personal level by employing resources from cognitive science. Wisdom is successful problem-solving ability, particularly in personal and social domains. Brown’s next move is to consider the neurological substrate of wisdom by drawing upon studies of two sorts of brain abnormalities, each of which in its own way results in absence of one or more of the cognitive functions involved in wisdom. The first sort is a congenital disorder in which the corpus callosum, the major connective pathway between right and left hemispheres, is missing.The second sort is damage to the orbital frontal area of the brain. Diana Van Lancker’s essay also relates wisdom to its neurobiological substrate. Her specialization in linguistics leads to an interest in the difference between novel sentences and a broad class of familiar nonliteral expressions. Proverbs and other wise sayings are an important instance of familiar nonliteral language. Whereas most language is processed in the left hemisphere, it appears to be the case that the right hemisphere

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is necessary for processing both the meaning and form of nonliteral expressions. When Brown and Van Lancker turn to the organic level for an understanding of wisdom they are concerned with neurobiology. Jeffrey Schloss focuses instead on perspectives from evolutionary biology. Here he considers attempts by sociobiologists to explain wisdom and morality, and in the process makes many of the points affirmed in this introduction regarding the insufficiency of a reductionist approach. Rather than conceiving of the various perspectives on wisdom as being hierarchically ordered, however, he speaks of a control loop relating the primary level of biological development and the transcendent cultural levels. V. S. Ramachandran’s essay focuses on biological mechanisms underlying, not wisdom, but a related cultural product—art. He points out that neither a purely neurobiological nor an evolutionary perspective gives an adequate account of human phenomena. Ideally one ought to be able to give both an account of the neurobiological structures involved in aesthetic appreciation as well as an evolutionary account as to why those structures should have been valuable for survival. It is clear that this methodological prescription would apply equally well to an analysis of the organic prerequisites for wisdom. The essays in this section nicely illustrate a point I wish to emphasize: the understanding of a phenomenon at each level of the hierarchy can be enhanced by relating it to its neighboring levels. To borrow a term from Schloss’s paper, the levels of a hierarchy are interrelated via “feedback loops.” Increased understanding results from pursuing feedback loops from one level of description to another and back again. In these scientific papers, we begin to learn what brain structures are required for wise judgment and action and to explore the evolutionary processes that have put these structures in place. In the process, we also come to a better understanding of wisdom itself. In Brown’s essay, for example, there is neurobiological confirmation of Sherman’s point that wisdom essentially involves an affective component in that certain brain-damaged patients who lack wisdom also lack evaluative affects that manifest themselves in feelings about various courses of action. In Part I, “The Sources of Wisdom,” we can further trace the inter-

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actions among the social, moral, and religious levels of analysis. Stan Nussbaum’s essay reflects on wisdom at the social and moral levels. He begins with an account of different perspectives on life, scholarship, and wisdom that are exhibited by Western versus African cultures. For Africans, the goal of all learning is right action, not only right in the sense of prudence but in a moral sense. So one could say that for Africans, all knowledge is in the service of wisdom. He offers as a case study a collection of sayings regarding strangers or visitors. Nussbaum emphasizes that there are conflicting attitudes toward strangers reflected in the various proverbs, and so we find both expressions of suspicion or even antipathy, as well as openness to the possibility that the stranger may bring good to the host.Yet the predominant view is negative, and the injunctions to treat strangers with hospitality tend to focus on prudential reasons rather than moral reasons. One may note the contrast between traditional African attitudes toward the stranger and those found in the Hebrew scriptures, which require the Hebrews to welcome the stranger because they themselves had been strangers in Egypt before God rescued them. So we return to a point made above: when social practices differ—and when different moral visions support those practices—questions of the ultimate nature and destiny of human life arise, and it is reasonable to turn to religious traditions to answer these questions. Three essays in this section focus on the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Scriptures. R. E. Clements’s study of the Book of Proverbs relates divine wisdom to the moral level: the goal of wisdom, as it is presented here, is virtue and wholeness. Dianne Bergant’s essay points to the intrinsic relation of human life to the natural environment.Thus, in her essay, considerations from the spiritual level converge with considerations from evolutionary biology: wisdom has to do with human survival and flourishing, and we can only flourish when properly related to our natural environment. John Goldingay, however, attending to the books of Job and Ecclesiastes, reminds us that no amount of wisdom ultimately protects us from disappointment, suffering, and death. Thus, wisdom involves the ability to recognize the relativity of human knowledge and achievement, and to turn to God.

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Wolfgang Mieder’s essay shows that there is a dialectical relationship among the various sources of wisdom. He traces the secularization of the biblical proverb, “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” as it came to be used as a slogan to combat political separation in both the United States and Germany. His essay nicely illustrates the fact that a proverb is not meaningful in itself, but only as it is embedded in a specific context and form of life. As Robert Johnston points out in his commentary on Part I, “It takes wisdom to use wisdom wisely.”That is, wisdom is not merely a matter of knowledge of proverbs but of good judgment about the contexts in which they apply.

conclusion So we see that wisdom is a “many-layered” concept. The teaching of wisdom pertains most directly to the personal level. However, the social level is necessarily involved not only in describing the interpersonal and social settings in which wisdom is taught and learned, but also because this kind of learning is, in the first instance, learning how to get along in the social world. Considerations of wisdom in economic transactions and politics center the discussion at the social level. Most of the essays here, directly or indirectly, relate wisdom to the moral level. That is, we want to know not only how to get along well in society, but how to do good. The question of whether it is good to succeed in a particular political or economic order raises questions about the morality of that order itself, and such questions, many of our authors would concede, cannot be answered except from a religious point of view. One way to put this is as follows: if wisdom is a matter of living in accordance with the way things are, then to live wisely is to live in accordance with Ultimate Reality. Thus, wisdom is a concept at home at the religious or spiritual level, and accounts of wisdom that attempt to detach it from religious accounts of reality will ultimately fall short. Revelation (as a whole) can be taken to incorporate descriptions of Ultimate Reality.Wisdom literature, in particular, gives guidance for the conduct of life in light of that knowledge of God. So it is appropriate that a book on wisdom include a survey of some of this literature.

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If consideration of wisdom at the personal level seems inevitably to draw us upward in the hierarchy of levels of description, we can see that there are equally important reasons to move down the hierarchy of complexity from the personal to the organic: to consider the neurobiological “hardware” that seems to be involved in learning wisdom and acting wisely, and also to consider the evolutionary trajectory that has brought humans to the point of transcending biological determinism.

notes 1 Of course this is an over-simplification: physics itself is now many-layered, and atoms as understood by chemists are no longer “atoms” in the philosophical sense of being the most basic constituents of matter. 2 Despite the fact that Sellars intended to give a nonreductive account of the entire hierarchy, his understanding of the religious level, merely in terms of the highest of human values, would be considered reductionist by many of the authors in this volume. 3 The concept of supervenience was introduced into philosophical discourse to describe the relation between moral and descriptive properties by R. M. Hare (1952) and is now widely used in the philosophy of mind to relate mental and physical properties. 4 During the modern era it became common to argue that morality can be understood purely on the basis of human reason and needs no support from religious traditions; recent scholarship has begun to reverse this trend. See especially Alasdair MacIntyre (1981/1984).

references Hare, R.M. (1952). The language of morals. Oxford: Clarendon Press. MacIntyre, Alasdair. (1981/1984). After virtue: A study in moral theory. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame.

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Sellars, Roy Wood. (1916/1996). Critical realism: A study of the nature and conditions of knowledge. New York: Russell and Russell. Sellars, Roy Wood. (1932/1996). The philosophy of physical realism. New York: Russell and Russell. Sellars, Roy Wood. (1970). Principles of emergent realism: The philosophical essays of Roy Wood Sellars. (W. Preston Warren, Ed.). New York: Warren H. Green, Inc.

Part I ✦

The Sources of Wisdom

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chapter 1

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The Sources of Wisdom R. E. Clements

he issue that we are confronted with is primarily that of determining those features of human experience that provide a resource for understanding the nature of life. What features of the world and what aspects of the human condition provide the best source from which the larger whole can be understood? It is partly a question of perception and partly one of evaluation. The immediate task in this chapter is to consider those biblical writings that have been classed as the products of the ancient Israelite search for wisdom, understood as a particular method of study and instruction (see Crenshaw, 1998a and b; Whybray, 1974; and Clements, 1991). We can begin by noting the writings that have been classed as belonging to the biblical wisdom tradition. Three books from the Hebrew canon are customarily classed as belonging here: namely Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes (Koheleth). In the Old Testament Apocrypha two further books belong to this category, Ecclesiasticus (Ben Sira) and the Wisdom of Solomon (see Collins, 1997). Both of these writings show extensive features of Hellenistic influence, the latter especially so, although much of the Hebrew original of Ben Sira has been recovered. Both Job and Ecclesiastes have highly distinctive features, the former because it is an extensive poem dealing with the problems of theodicy—justifying the ways of God to human beings in face of the fact of undeserved human suffering. Ecclesiastes is highly distinctive because it is the work of a single author, who gives his personal perspective, even though this is heavily steeped in the language and traditions of wisdom. It turns

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very brilliantly the searchlight of wisdom’s methods and aims upon the accrued teachings of wisdom itself, questioning some of them, and repudiating others. The author has accordingly been categorized as rebel, cynic, and nihilistic pessimist, although in truth he can certainly be defended from all three labels. It appears that the writer of Ecclesiastes was essentially following the wisdom method of citing received teaching and subjecting this to critical review in the face of carefully observed experience. Clearly the Book of Proverbs holds the key to understanding the most basic forms of ancient Israelite wisdom. Yet even here a little shrewd detective work is of considerable help, since the book is composed of material couched in different forms and styles. Prov. 10:1–24:34 consists for the most part of short epigrammatic sayings—usually twoline couplets set in poetic rhythm—that describe in declarative fashion the moral and social “facts of life.” This is achieved by pointing out the consequences of particular acts and attitudes, regarding them as leading inevitably to good or bad results in a kind of causal process: The wage of the righteous leads to life, the gain of the wicked to sin. —Prov. 10:16 Sometimes the teaching is affirmed by characterizing types of behavior with the help of comparisons and metaphors that show their danger or foolishness, and often exaggerate their consequences: Laziness brings on deep sleep; an idle person will suffer hunger. —Prov. 19:15 The aim is evidently to encourage and advocate what are regarded as good attitudes and actions, which preserve family life, uphold the economic strength of the household by hard work and prudence in financial affairs, and to discourage violent and irresponsible social behavior:

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An ally offended is stronger than a city; but quarrelling is like the bars of a castle. —Prov. 18:19 Not a little humor and artistic skill is employed in making the exhortations memorable and interesting, overcoming the hearer’s presumed resistance to what is demanded, and generally giving assurance that the longer-term consequences of obeying such teaching are beneficial, healthy, and conducive to prosperity. How to achieve the “good life” is the goal, but of necessity the path to teaching this requires clarification as to what the good life consists of, and what it offers by way of happiness, social honor, and respect. Essentially the popular assumption is taken as a basis for the assertions that wise conduct leads to happiness: The hope of the righteous ends in gladness but the expectation of the wicked comes to nothing. —Prov. 10:28 Yet, beyond this it is ultimately divine approval or rejection that constitutes the final reward: One who justifies the wicked and one who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord. —Prov. 17:15 So there is a tight correlation assumed between the nature of human beings in their social setting and the consequences and events that shape human destiny. Observing this correlation provides laws of life, which can be observed and which show that wise behavior is healthy, promotes life, and leads to happiness.The end result of such a lifestyle is the receiving of divine approval, already in this life, but with some hints that it will be affirmed hereafter. The goal of wisdom is to set out what such rules of living are, to test them in the light of observed experience, and to note limitations, seeming contradictions, and other problems, which may appear to throw doubt on their validity. So a measure of

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defensiveness and of justifying the ways of God in this world becomes evident. The most basic form of wisdom instruction therefore takes the form of explicit declarations contrasting the ways of wisdom with those that constitute folly. It is declarative before it becomes prescriptive. It shows what happens, and derives from this rules of conduct. So wisdom’s declarations are presented as statements of fact; only secondarily do they become admonitions, although it is evident that the hearer is expected to take note of these facts of life and shape his or her actions accordingly. Attitudes and actions that are negative are portrayed as leading to death; they occasion outrage to God as well as to one’s fellow human beings. Those who adopt them end up bringing ultimate ruination upon themselves and their households (cp. Prov. 11:17, 30). The longer introductory addresses in Proverbs 1–9, which are in the form of carefully constructed poems forming didactic homilies, appear as later elaborations of this type of shorter declaratory instruction. The combination of practicality and artistic inventiveness characterizes the aims of wisdom as “Be relevant” and “Be interesting!” Surprisingly these more elaborate poems do not add much by way of the fuller development of wisdom’s basic rules. The most prominent theme addresses young men concerning the avoidance of sexual promiscuity. There is, however, a strong insistence on adopting a right attitude from life’s earliest years.The reader is urged to heed the instruction given by parents. Throughout it is assumed that such attentive obedience will be conducive to preserving the economic strength and honor of the family household (cp. Prov. 2:1–22 etc.). Perhaps of importance from a psychological perspective is the observation in Prov. 9:7–12 that some persons appear perversely incapable of responding positively to what wisdom has to offer: Whoever corrects a scoffer wins abuse; whoever rebukes the wicked gets hurt. —Prov. 9:7 There are limits to what wisdom can achieve and so this section reflects on the hopelessness of trying to educate a fool by rebuking his

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obstinacy. Such persistence gets nowhere. It is this observation which, in part at least, fosters the general dictum that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Prov. 9:10). Without a sense of reverence for God and the value of life as a God-given gift the benefits of wisdom’s teaching will fall on deaf ears. The concluding chapters of Prov. 25:1–31:31 elaborate the same basic themes, but with rather more color in the method of presentation. The final poem in 31:10–31 on the virtues of a good woman as wife and mother focuses on issues relating to the economy of the individual household. Nothing much is said about her value as a person in and for herself. Overall these later chapters appear as a series of epilogues to the main part of the book, and must once have formed separate collections of related interest. They add little by way of new themes and topics, but give more variation in presentation and verbal imagery to reinforce the message already made. Since the basic form of wisdom instruction consists of short affirmations and admonitions regarding essential points of behavior it is important to look beneath their surface to probe the assumptions about human society and human nature that underlie them. In the forefront we can note that deep respect is demanded toward those institutions that govern everyday life—namely, parents, the household, the world of work and economic reality, and, more distantly, the authorized government of kingship. Neighbors comprise a category of fellow human beings from outside the immediate kin-group who provide a focus of considerable concern. Wisdom’s concern with them is of greater significance than may at first be supposed (see Clements, 1993). They exist primarily among fellow villagers and work colleagues. It is unclear whether the concept of neighbor regarded fellow Jews, and fellow Jews alone, or extended to include gentiles as well. No exclusion is set out, but it is evident that religious differences formed a major barrier to social integration, and it does not appear that wisdom was at first inclined to develop the point.The New Testament parable of the Good Samaritan draws its impact from what must have been the conventional interpretation of the term (cp. Luke 10:29, 36). The importance of ethical regard for a neighbor is rather weakened by the convention that, in the major English versions, the same Hebrew

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word is often translated as “friend” and only sometimes as “neighbor.” Wisdom’s interest in the role of the neighbor is significant in the way in which it presumes that the ties of family and kinship are strongly felt, but sees the practicality of good neighborliness as an opportunity for moral advance.The neighbor is to be accorded the respect and support that otherwise could be taken for granted within the narrower kin-group. Clearly, with the changing patterns of social organization as Judaism emerged as a religion in Diaspora the concept of the neighbor assumed a more prominent place. Geography lent urgency to moral obligation. This highlights the force of the instruction of Prov. 18:24 (cp. also Prov. 17:17; 27:10): Some neighbors play at friendship but a true neighbor sticks closer than one’s nearest kin. The perspective that is expressed here points to an important range of situations, which provides a source for wisdom to consider. Society was so structured that new factors could emerge that challenged the adoption of conventional attitudes as a sufficient guideline to the path of wisdom. Much has been studied concerning the way in which marriage between parties of distinct kin-groups constantly posed a source of difficulty.The interests of the kin-group did not always coincide with the personal needs and attitudes of the individual parties concerned. Such a situation is highlighted in the Book of Ruth where the disadvantages of widowhood, together with Ruth’s gender and vulnerability to antipathy to her racial origin (Moabite) all combined to deprive her, and by implication her mother-in-law Naomi, of the support they were entitled to as kin-group members through Ruth’s marriage. Ruth displayed true family loyalty whereas her dead husband’s kin-group ignored the duties that properly fell to them.They had to be cajoled into honoring their obligations. Wisdom teaching was also quick to recognize the limitations of Israel’s legal system. By and large wisdom teaching does not appear to show a great deal of respect for the ancient Israelite legal system. The wise person is advised to avoid taking his case to court, if it can be

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avoided (cp. Prov. 25:8–10). This is surprising in view of the elaborate care that is shown in a book like Deuteronomy for the setting up and administration of a legal system. The laws of evidence were primitive and the warnings against lies and giving false evidence in Proverbs shows how easily they could be abused (cp. Prov. 14:5; 21:28). Similarly honesty in trading was often lacking and the repeated injunctions against false weights show how difficult it was to implement a proper system of checks (Prov. 11:1; 16:11). Judges could easily be corrupted, as the warnings against such bad conduct show. Gifts of respect could quickly become bribes (cp. Prov. 17:8). So much that wisdom has to say by way of admonition and comment on public justice points to the need for personal integrity and wariness concerning the attitudes and motives of others (cp. Prov. 14:25). Reflection on the situations in which conventional attitudes of kinship loyalty and respect for other human beings needed to be viewed in the light of other factors comes to the surface in the many instructions regarding wealth and poverty. To become poor was a fate to be shunned since it could quickly undermine the values of good-neighborliness, which would otherwise prevail: The poor are disliked even by their neighbors, but the rich have many friends. —Prov. 14:20 Even lending to the poor was a policy that could incur immense risks and danger. It was generally warned against (Prov. 11:15).The many instructional sentences regarding the social influence exerted by wealth show how these distinctions cut across the fundamental demands for kinship loyalty and good neighborliness (cp. Prov. 13:8, 14:20, 22:7, etc.; see also Whybray, 1990). Wealth gave opportunity for oppressiveness, both through the widespread economic practice of usury and the acquisition of means to undermine public justice through corruption. What is surprising is that, in spite of the many declarations in which the plight of the poor is drawn to the reader’s attention, not very much is said regarding the ways in which this could be alleviated. Overall the general assumption prevails that hard manual work and

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extreme caution in financial matters would enable the wise person to escape the net of poverty. In addition there is a general conviction that God would not allow the conscientious and hard-working individual to come to destitution (cp. Prov. 10:3). Ancient Near Eastern legal systems were designed to replace and render unnecessary the age-old cruelties and wrongs of systems of bloodrevenge operated by extended clan-based kinship groups.This provides us with some useful clues for understanding the social background to the sentence instruction of Proverbs 10–30. By and large the exercise of any kind of vengeance is spurned (cp. Prov. 24:17–20). Possibly the background that is presupposed in Prov. 24:15, which refers to violent action against the righteous, may have its origins in vengeance-taking by outraged individuals of families that had suffered from criminal acts. So throughout the Book of Proverbs there is an assumption that the law is to be respected, even though the authors of the sayings were well aware of its limitations in practice. Morality did not exist in a vacuum, but was embodied in social groups with their organizations, structures, and problems, all of which could, in given circumstances, become vulnerable. These institutions were to be respected and upheld, even though their vulnerability to abuse was constantly recognized. A meaningful source of wisdom therefore was found in the testing of theory by experienced fact. Much of the distinctive emphases of proverbial wisdom can be accounted for along these lines. Society as a whole, with its economic uncertainties, the threat of bad harvests and drought beyond the individual’s control, and the shortcomings of the legal system had all to be taken into account. The most striking area where rendering honor to those to whom it was due is made a topic of positive instruction concerns the institution of the monarchy. A number of sayings in the Book of Proverbs make reference to the king, and to court officials, as representatives of public order and justice (Prov. 16:10, 12, 14, 15; 20:8; 22:11; 23:1–3; 25:2–3; see also Porteous, 1955). Kings are, with few exceptions, presented in the most favorable light as honorable, trustworthy, and divinely appointed, pillars of the God-given order of life.Yet it seems unlikely that these sayings are more than a consequence of wisdom’s acceptance of a world

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that had to be accepted, rather than a result, either of first-hand experience or strong monarchic leanings. Scholarly opinion has remained divided as to whether written wisdom may, at one period, have been channeled through people who functioned within the ambience of the royal court. More convincingly this simple faith in royal justice views the king as the embodiment of public authority. Just as kings, princes, and princesses form stock figures in popular folklore, so in the teaching of Proverbs kings appear as symbolic representatives of the given face of political order. The wise person accepts this, and cooperates with it, since kingly power is absolute. Such public figures belonged to the sphere of life, which could not be changed. Even so, the dangers occasioned by wicked rulers are clearly seen (cp. Prov. 28:2–3) and Ecclesiastes finds an exemplary lesson for a wider audience in the way in which a junior court official may have to show tact and learn to hide his true feelings in the presence of a king in order to stay out of trouble (Eccles. 8:1–9). Put metaphorically this is well expressed with the saying: “No one has power over the wind to restrain the wind” (Eccles. 8:8). Although wisdom was undoubtedly flourishing in ancient Israel’s monarchic period, it must be assumed that all these sayings have been retained as part of a conscious “typifying” of the social and political world that existed when most Jews lived under the authority of foreign rulers. The figure of the king simply represents public authority, in whatever form that was manifested, and which clearly varied greatly for those many Jews who lived in a gentile-dominated world of Diaspora. Submission to what could not be changed was in itself a manifestation of wisdom. As soon as the need is recognized for returning to first principles it becomes apparent that the most basic principle of all is that all human beings have been created by God. A kind of quizzical openness is therefore present in such a statement as: The rich and the poor have this in common The Lord is the maker of them all. —Prov. 22:2 (cp. 29:13)

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In this light we can see how a primary goal of wisdom was to look for a larger understanding of moral authority than that provided by the need to protect the family household and the extended kin-group and to find this in religion and universality (see Perdue, 1994, pp. 77–122, 340). By affirming the concept of the divine creation of the human being, and the unique status that this conferred on each individual, wisdom moved toward recognizing fundamentally human, rather than purely kinship, or society-based, rights and duties. A primary point of the social context of wisdom therefore lies in its taking as a starting-point the universal creation of all human beings from one sole God. Such creaturely dependence overrides even the distinctions of kinship and the divisions between wealth and poverty: Those who mock the poor insult their Maker those who are glad at calamity will not go unpunished. —Prov. 17:5 (cp. Prov. 14:31) A provocative aspect of this kind of instruction lies in the absence of any obvious command to act to counter such distinctions. It is more a case of an admonitory warning, lest the hearer should become complacent and fail to accept the implications of the wider spiritual perspective. Throughout the sayings of Proverbs 10–30 the social context of wisdom instruction is almost entirely domestic, rural, and agricultural. It focuses on the individual household as the basic economic and social unit of society. Such households are presumed to own and till land so that its productiveness is essential to the household’s survival (cp. Prov. 12:11; 14:4, 23; 18:9; 20:4, 13). As a consequence the varied attitudes and actions that serve to keep this household together as a viable economic unit constitute a primary educational goal. All its members, even the slaves, depended on the food this land could produce. Commerce was therefore largely concerned with loans to tide over bad times and poor harvests. Only when we look ahead to a late text, such as Ecclesiastes, does a more venturesome capitalist enterprise show up as a possibility. Even then it is regarded as fraught with danger (Eccles. 5:13–17). Debt appears as a real and ever-present threat for all but a few of

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those addressed. A major reason for this would certainly seem to rest on the fact that a considerable part of the agricultural land that was to be farmed was both marginally productive and seriously at risk from periodic drought (the notorious “ten-inch” rainfall line). If we add to this the consequences of war and banditry then we can understand that the margins between mere subsistence and relative luxury and security were quite narrow. Moreover, the penalties for reneging on debts were massive and horrific. The prevalent practice of debt-slavery meant that the consequences for doing so, in personal loss of family and freedom with consequent ruination, were plain for all to see. From this perspective we can understand the repeated injunction never to risk the financial viability of one’s own household by acting as security for another (Prov. 6:1–5; 11:15). Such a rule tells us more about the economics of the time than about the human propensity to self-interest! A further prominent feature of wisdom lies in its interweaving of economic and ethical demands, centered upon working the land as a means of subsistence. Morality, the family, and land possession all constitute aspects of one single order of life, which shapes daily activity. From this overall picture of the social context of the earliest forms of wisdom instruction we can draw some important conclusions. Firstly, we can rule out the idea that wisdom was primarily related to a small group engaged in professional scribal activity—the rural and agricultural background is too evident for this to be deduced. Secondly, we can also rule out that the search for wisdom was a form of courtly scribal expertise, or recreation—the pursuit of a kind of ancient philosophy. The links to the royal court are too tenuous for this to have been so, even though the connections with royal administration and government appear strongly in Egyptian wisdom texts. Thirdly, the concern of wisdom with the household, the frequent use of the form of parental address to children (cp. the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, which contains “my child,” literally “my son”), and the warnings against youthful recklessness and high spiritedness, strongly indicate that the roots of wisdom instruction are to be traced to the home. At what stage specialist teachers, erudite thinkers, and successful administrators came to be regarded as experts in wisdom, are all far from clear. Such a development appears as secondary, rather than

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forming a primary feature of wisdom. No doubt wisdom’s concern with the successful management of life and its demands encouraged the recognition that success was proof of its value. So the highest-fliers were in some measure examples to be followed with respect. Nevertheless a basic assumption of the wisdom of Proverbs is that the kind of insight into the mastery of life that is sought is relevant to, and necessary for, everybody. Understandably in a patriarchally structured society, the primary mode of address is to male youths. The role of the mother in teaching wisdom to her children is given some place (Prov. 1:8; 31:1). It is taken for granted that marriage was usually to a partner from outside the nearer family circle (exogamy), indicating, as in several of the biblical legal prescriptions as well as the Book of Ruth, an area where tensions over kinship structures could be acutely felt. That a larger world outside the immediate household impinged heavily on its activities, and consequently greatly affected its viability and survival, is constantly recognized. At a basic level this impact manifested itself in looking for approbation and respect from fellow townspeople. Nevertheless there is not the same emphasis upon concepts of shame and honor in wisdom as we find in other parts of the biblical material. More surprisingly, the concept of holiness is largely transformed into reproving behavior that is condemned as constituting an “abomination to God” (see Clements, 1996).This appears virtually indistinguishable from being an “abomination” (i.e., causing a sense of outrage) to fellow human beings. So religious, social, and moral values are closely intertwined. The picture is drawn of a world outside the immediate household that is filled with people who cannot always be trusted, and certainly whose conduct must always be subjected to careful scrutiny. Commerce is assumed to be a business requiring the greatest caution, because risks are inevitable and cheats abound. In general wisdom teaching accepts the order of the social and political world that is actually experienced as a given fact.The world as it is, with all its puzzling vagaries and sometimes painful violence, constitutes the subject matter that must be contemplated and scrutinized. Wisdom is therefore largely apolitical, while recognizing that politics

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touches upon everything. Similarly its economic theory is largely to be found in the saying: Where there are no oxen, there is no grain; abundant crops come by the strength of the ox. —Prov. 14:4 Taken at their face value many of the maxims, which are set out as observed facts, or useful admonitions, appear narrowly specific and restricted in their applicability. Some of them even appear almost irrelevant for ordinary men and women, as in the examples of behavior in the presence of the king, or at a diplomatic banquet. As with most proverbial teaching, however, it must be regarded as part of the intention of such sentence instruction that it uncovers a principle, or customary rule, which can be used to illuminate a wider range of situations. This must not be taken to indicate that such instructions were assumed to have universal applicability. They serve simply as guidelines to uncover facets of truth, which require to be kept in mind. So nothing irrational or false is implied by setting side by side two contrasting instructions (e.g., in Prov. 26:4–5). The discerning hearer and reader must learn when to apply one guideline or the other, since each may be true in a specific situation. Overall wisdom sought rules that were directed toward shaping character and attitude, rather than offering anything akin to a law code.The goal is to create a wise person, rather than to define the rules of what wisdom dictates should be done on particular occasions. So far we have used a critical reconstruction of wisdom’s literary history to identify its most basic forms and the concerns that it assumes will animate its pupil-readers. Short pithy sayings, tightly formulated and easily remembered, make up its core elements.Yet the biblical wisdom writings are more sophisticated than this, so that the single-sayings are now embedded in larger documents. It is evident from the books of Job and Ecclesiastes that wisdom could produce elaborate and artistically mature literary works.We must then ask when wisdom acquired a written form and what difference this made.

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A part of the answer to this must lie in the recognition that, from the outset, wisdom possessed a strongly artistic side. It was concerned not simply to say something useful and relevant about life, but to say it in an interesting and skillful fashion. It composed not only instructions and maxims, but riddles, fables, and parables that exploited clever, and sometimes wholly unexpected, word-pictures. It enjoyed exaggeration and humor and made extensive use of ambiguity and puns. If listeners were made to search hard for the right answer, then, when they got it, they would remember the point clearly. At first this may largely have come about as a teaching device, arousing interest and assisting memory retention. In time, however, it developed a rationale and character of its own. If practical truths are to be instilled into the minds of the young, then the more memorable, artistic, and clearly defined the package that contains those truths, so much the better. A primary feature of wisdom sayings therefore lies in their extensive use of word-pictures in the form of similes and metaphors that categorize behavior patterns. This may have worked as a primary basis of proverb construction; let the truth be seen in pictures! The sayings probably built on the assumption that regular patterns and principles of order reveal themselves throughout all life. It fits in fully with the attention to artistic sayings that the teachers of wisdom laid great emphasis upon the value of careful, well thoughtthrough speech. By speech each person gives away the clues to his, or her, character and aims: A fool’s lips bring strife, and a fool’s mouth invites a flogging. The mouths of fools are their ruin, and their lips are a snare to themselves. —Prov. 18:6–7 Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits. —Prov. 18:21 An example of wisdom as a skill at artistic speech is found in the

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story in 2 Samuel 14:1–20 of the Wise Woman of Tekoa who was enlisted to persuade King David to allow Absalom to return to Jerusalem and the royal court. Her skill lay in constructing a story (2 Sam.14:6–7) to establish the point that imposing further penalties on those who had already suffered would bring further injustice and hurt upon the innocent. She is a parable-maker, and there is no doubt that making up riddles, fables, and parables were forms of artistic speech that characterized a particular educational and social skill. It was a variation on the good-speech principle, which was one of the aims of wisdom. So one of the most elementary forms of instruction was the use of similes to lend color and character to an admonition: As the door turns on its hinges so does a lazy person in bed. —Prov. 26:14 Admonitions that would be boringly repetitive if simply presented as “Don’t be lazy” are given a dress of artistic freshness. Even the story of the seductive woman set out in Prov. 7:6–23 may have been designed to hold the hearer’s attention, and in this way to encourage rejection of promiscuous relationships. So wisdom sought to be clever as well as practical, and this accounts for its attraction.The game of “spot the common feature” in the number sayings of Prov. 30:15–31 is a further development of this. Jesus’ use of parables in the Gospels is wholly in line with the development of skills originating in the teaching of wisdom. When metaphors can be ambiguous, or incongruous, all kinds of interesting and memorable effects can be created.The well-known saying of Ecclesiastes 11:1, “Send out your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will get it back” has puzzled generations of scholars as to its verbal mechanics.The context shows that the meaning is clearly “Spread your teaching widely,” but how the metaphors of the whole unit are intended to be understood has aroused much discussion. If the simple use of a metaphor or simile can serve to make a short saying more interesting and memorable, then writing down such a saying lends to the operation even greater potential. Longer compositions can introduce more variations and reflections. Greater ambiguities can

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be explored and more complex literary patterns can be indulged in, which would be missed if simply listened to, but which are more readily recognized when written down. A good illustration is the intriguing composition in Ecclesiastes starting with the unlikely proposition that the day of death is better than the day of birth (Eccles. 7:1–14).The reader is clearly assumed to be affronted and to find such extreme negativity insupportable. Nevertheless the saying is not cited in order to encourage an attitude of despair. Rather it works in the opposite direction as a didactic device because it provokes reaction and holds the hearer’s attention.This then allows the author to make a number of serious reflections upon life, its brevity and uncertainties, and the necessity for retaining awareness of human mortality. Not least it creates awareness of the compassion needed in comforting the bereaved! It shows that there may indeed be more to be learned from attending a grief-filled funeral than from rejoicing over the birth of a child. The provocative contrast at the beginning enables the discussion of a difficult subject. So the skills associated with writing and composition provided a valuable tool for the sage who garnered and cherished useful and artistic sayings. From merely using writing as an aide-mémoire for speech, it became elaborated into a medium by which the artistic side of wisdom could be developed. As a beginning it served to prevent clever sayings from being forgotten, but it quickly made possible all sorts of variations on their cleverness and artistry, which speech alone could not fully explore. In turn the performance of speech could be greatly enhanced by the use of written texts, which made the speaker’s task much easier. Contrasting teachings could be brought side by side; familiar sayings could be turned around in order to provoke strong reaction. Familiar metaphors could be applied to unfamiliar subjects. Games could be played with letters of the alphabet, or the ten fingers of the hand. All through, the aim of wisdom literature appears to have been that of combining practical moral teaching with interesting speech forms and wordpictures. So the technology of writing was itself a source of wisdom, not simply on account of the skills it required, but also because of the way in which it enlarged the scope of wisdom instruction. It increased its range and added fresh criteria for identifying situations that called for a wise response.

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A third aspect of the artistic development of wisdom may be included at this point. The formation of collections of short sayings renders possible their comparison with each other and their mutual interaction in a manner that lies outside their scope when left as individual instructions. The phenomenon of intertextuality manifests itself. Instructions can be set alongside each other to form a kind of handbook. So there gradually emerged the idea of “the wise person’s life style,” rather like those “gentleman’s guides” of the nineteenth century.This, in turn, provided a groundwork for a concept of “the good life” and of virtue regarded as an all-comprehending value and quality, which could be striven for and used as a goal for living. One of the most deeply embedded problems of the Bible as a handbook for constructing a picture of goodness and virtue lies in the fact that its vocabulary for describing right and proper conduct is drawn from widely disparate frames of reference. So “righteousness” and “steadfast love,” or “loyal love,” are given greatest prominence. Rather surprisingly “holiness” is marginalized and rendered difficult because of its quasi-physical and heavily religious connotations. Even “goodness” is nothing like as prominent as one might have expected in a literature that begins by affirming that when God made the world, “Behold it was very good” (Gen. 1:4, 10 etc.)! It seems that only by setting side-by-side the various terms for right or reprehensible behavior could a series of pictures, which outlined a virtuous and approved lifestyle, be developed. So there is no all-comprehending concept of virtue in the Bible.Wisdom literature appears to come closest to achieving this by its open-ended assertion that right conduct leads to “life.” The path is left open for this to reach beyond a hope of longevity to one embracing a more ultimate quality of life. In this connection of defining virtue it is noteworthy that one of the significant and constructive aspects of proverbial instruction was the development of “better than . . .” sayings in which certain lines of action, or attitude, are favored over others. This is done without any overall claim that one line is wholly right and the other wholly wrong.The formula is extensively used in the little Book of Ecclesiastes. It seems a matter of considerable importance therefore that the collecting and eventual canonizing of wisdom sayings forced a process of

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evaluation in which relative goodness and worth were calculated.When we look at the New Testament development of earlier Jewish ethics it becomes evident that it was frequently the conflict of interest between legal, religious, and domestic obligations that gave rise to ethical dilemmas. Much of the way in which the New Testament supplements the Old relates directly to this area. Actions had to be judged in a manner that accorded priority to one set of values over others. Justice had to prevail over holiness; right thinking over right eating! So we find that wisdom’s emphasis upon God’s impartiality provided a major foundation for establishing ideals of goodness, religious tolerance, and social justice. Some actions were better than others, without either option being self-evidently wholly right. A valuable source of wisdom then lay in identifying priorities in human plans and actions where no absolute category of right or wrong could be established. This in turn led to a widening of the horizon for understanding virtue by seeing it as a lifelong quest for an ultimate life-affirming goodness, instead of restricting it to individual actions. Actions were not simply judged in and for themselves, but were seen to be outworkings of character already formed and were finally judged by the long term consequences of the goal to which they led. It is not surprising therefore that the sages focused on a number of ultimate concepts concerning the divine creation of humanity, including the broadly described understanding of “the fear of the Lord” as a groundwork for defining ultimate goodness. Contrastingly, and more starkly, the ultimate goal of folly lay in death. We have already had occasion to point to areas in life in which the authors of wisdom instruction recognized that the individual was powerless to change things. There is a kind of resigned irony in the sharp criticism made of the fool, who proves to be incapable of hearing and absorbing wisdom. His, or her, situation is hopeless, because ingrown attitudes preclude any recognition, or understanding, of the negative state of the hearer’s position. So there could be no positive response to the better advice that was offered since the need for it was not recognized. Perhaps even here we may hope that there is present an element of intentional and provocative goading showing that wisdom was like setting up road signs warning of disaster ahead, which only the hardened

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and complacent would fail to see. There is also a necessary recognition that even the highest wisdom has its limitations: The human mind may devise many plans. but it is the purpose of the Lord that will be established. —Prov. 19:21 (cp.14:12; 20:24) Such perceptions left room for the idea that there was an uncontrollable realm of providential destiny, which human beings could never master, simply because they were human beings. Humility, and a respectful submissiveness before God were called for, if life were to be savored to the full. Room was thereby left for the Job-like character whose very virtuousness drew attention to him, and marked him out as a suitable candidate for testing.

references Clements, R.E. (1991). Wisdom in theology. Exeter: Paternoster Press. Clements, R.E. (1993). The good neighbour in the Book of Proverbs. In H.A. McKay and D.J.A. Clines (Eds.), Of prophet’s visions and the wisdom of the sages: Essays in honour of R. Norman Whybray on his seventieth birthday (pp. 209–228). Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series 162. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Clements, R.E. (1996). The concept of abomination in the Book of Proverbs. In Michael V. Fox et al. (Eds.), Texts, temples, and traditions: A tribute to Menahem Haran (pp. 211–226). Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. Collins, J. J. (1997). Jewish wisdom in the Hellenistic age. Edinburgh: T & T Clark. Crenshaw, J. (1998a). Old Testament wisdom. Louisville:Westminster John Knox Press. Crenshaw, J. (1998b). Education in ancient Israel. New York: Doubleday.

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Perdue, L. (1994). Wisdom and creation: The theology of wisdom literature. Nashville: Abingdon Press. Porteous, N.W. (1955). Royal wisdom. In M. Noth and D. Winton Thomas (Eds.), Wisdom in Israel and the ancient near east: Essays in honour of H.H. Rowley, Supplements to Vetus Testamentum III (pp. 247–261). Leiden: E.J. Brill. Reprinted in Living the mystery: Collected Essays, pp. 77–92. Oxford: B.H. Blackwell, 1967. Whybray, R. N. (1974).The intellectual tradition in the Old Testament. BZAW, 135. Berlin: De Gruyter. Whybray, R. N. (1990).Wealth and poverty in the Book of Proverbs. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series 97. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990.

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chapter 2

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Profundity with Panache: The Unappreciated Proverbial Wisdom of Sub-Saharan Africa Stan W. Nussbaum

the neglect of african wisdom hough no self-respecting westerner would any longer espouse the racist view that whites are intellectually superior to black Africans,Western culture comes very close to a corporate affirmation of that position. If another set of “the world’s great books” were published in the West this year, how many of those books would be from Africa? When an introduction to philosophy class is taught at a Western university, how many of the philosophers studied are Africans? When the West thinks of wisdom, knowledge, profundity, philosophy, or intellectual breakthroughs, Africa does not spring to mind as a potential source. This is not a new problem. Africa’s treasures have long been known by the rest of the world but very few of those treasures have been intellectual. For example, in the tenth century b.c. when King Solomon sent his fleet of trading ships on three-year voyages, thought to have been down the east coast of Africa, his traders were not looking for wisdom.They returned with five African “treasures”—gold, silver, ivory, apes, and baboons.1 In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Africa was seen as the source of slaves, purchased for their brute strength rather than their brains. In our century Africa is noted as the source of raw materials (gold, diamonds, oil), popular music (jazz, rock, and rap), and professional basketball players. Africa is also noted today for a host of things that seem to belie any

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claim it might make to wisdom. What “wisdom” would lead to the famine, disease, poverty, corruption, oppression, violence, and tribalism that have become part of Africa’s reputation? Grasping for some intellectual and moral substance within the African heritage, some African-Americans have turned recently to ancient Egypt. Egypt is geographically part of the Africa continent but culturally and historically in a different universe than sub-Saharan Africa, from which African-Americans originated. Why attempt to build a dubious connection with Egypt 2 when there is a much clearer argument for past and present black African intellectual power staring us in the face? This paper will attempt to present that argument, namely that sub-Saharan Africa is and always has been wise but the West has been unable to appreciate its wisdom. The West stands before African wisdom like a seven-year-old before a Picasso saying, “It is all mixed up. I can draw better than that.” In this paper I will confine myself to one genre of African wisdom, the proverb. I believe the argument built on proverbs may easily be extended to other aspects of African culture, such as stories (which often are summarized in a proverb), rituals, social structures, and other depositories of wisdom little understood or appreciated in the West, but I shall leave that endeavor to those with far more expertise in those areas.

attempts to promote african proverbs as sources of wisdom Of course I am far from the first person to plead for an appreciation of the wisdom of African proverbs. Past and present attempts are so numerous that one cannot do them justice in a paper like this. Following are a very few examples of statements and activities in this field. From Nigeria in 1865, when westerners were still debating whether Africans were human: “In the Yoruba [of Nigeria], however, there is an extraordinary exuberance of these sententious sayings [proverbs] . . . everywhere in the mouths of all, imparting a character to common conversation, and marking out a people of

profundity with panac h e more than ordinary shrewdness, intelligence, and discernment. If brevity and elegance be regarded as the two main excellences of a proverb, the Yoruban aphorisms may claim an equal rank with those of any other nation in ancient or modern times; for besides the condensation of the discriminating sentiment into a small compass—which is always observable in them—there is, for the most part, also an almost poetical contrivance or construction of the parts, which marks a refinement of taste greater than we should naturally have expected.”3 From Ghana in 1879: “May this Collection [sic] give a new stimulus to the diligent gathering of folk-lore and to the increasing cultivation of native literature. May those Africans who are enjoying the benefit of a Christian education make the best of this privilege; but let them not despise the sparks of truth entrusted to and preserved by their own people, and let them not forget that by entering into their way of thinking and by acknowledging what is good and expounding what is wrong they will gain the more access to the hearts and minds of their less favoured countrymen.”4 A pan-African view in 1996: “We wish to enter and explore this fascinating world of [African] proverbs—to listen to their sounds, to capture their flashes, to reflect on their values and message, to open our minds to their almost timeless dimension. . . . Many proverbs act as catalysts of knowledge, wisdom, philosophy, ethics and morals. They provoke further reflection and call for deeper thinking.”5 From Tanzania in 1997: “We two expatriate missionaries have seen and experienced the deep values of the African people and cultures and feel compelled to tell others about them.We feel the urgency of proclaiming the good news of African Christianity just like St. Paul who wrote that he is under compulsion to preach the gospel (1 Cor. 9:16). . . . The values and wisdom of African proverbs, sayings, stories and cultural symbols can respond to the contemporary concerns of people everywhere.The African experience can speak profoundly to the burning questions on the meaning of life, suffering, peace and human relationships.”6

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As for putting all these fine sentiments into practice, there have been more than a few sizable efforts of which the following are especially noteworthy: ✦

Belgium’s Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale sponsored superb collections of the proverbs of Congo (two volumes), Rwanda, Burundi, and Ghana between 1958 and 1983, averaging almost three thousand proverbs per volume.7

✦

The African Proverbs Project (1993–1997) was an international, interdisciplinary project funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts to promote the study, collection, and use of African proverbs.Volumes of proverbs from Ethiopia, Ghana, Uganda, Lesotho, and Burkina Faso were published, as well as two volumes of conference papers.8

✦

A web site and e-mail list administered from Kenya and Tanzania now link people who have ongoing interest in African proverbs, sayings, and stories.9

✦

Two universities and two seminaries in Africa have formed a loose network to promote proverb study and publication in their regions.10

✦

The BBC opens its week-day “Network Africa” program with an African proverb sent in by a listener (contributors receive a BBC t-shirt).The Story Workshop in Malawi is producing a series of radio broadcasts each presenting a story that elaborates a proverb.11

✦

UNESCO has recently sponsored the publication of a collection of Somali proverbs with German and English translations.12

Listed in this fashion, the past and present work done to collect and present African proverbs looks impressive; however, all these efforts combined have yet to make even a blip on the screen of the Western intellectual tradition.

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the paradigm problem (western versus african) Why has the case for African wisdom, made so well for so long by so many, been accepted by so few? Why is Africa still “Terra Incognita” on the Western maps of wisdom, knowledge, and philosophy? I suggest the culprit is the Western paradigm of wisdom, which like all paradigms reveals certain things and obscures others, often without the observer realizing how his or her view is being filtered and obstructed. Let us raise our wisdom paradigm to the conscious level, reflecting on seven problematic aspects of the wisdom that we value. 1. Metaphysics and Epistemology over Ethics. In the classic division of philosophy into metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, Western philosophy has treated epistemology and metaphysics as the foundations from which ethics is deduced. African proverbs, in contrast, treat ethics as the category of prime importance, while metaphysics and especially epistemology are incidental.13 Westerners conclude that traditional Africans simply have not learned how to think, that they have never realized that all ethical statements are groundless and worthless without metaphysical and epistemological foundations. The African retort is that westerners have never realized that people can discuss metaphysics and epistemology till all the storks have roosted but all that discussion is meaningless if its ethical implications are not expressed. Africans are too wise to waste time on ideas that begin and end in someone’s head, devoid of social implications.14 2. Deduction over Intuition. The Western intellectual tradition has, at least until the post-modern period, sought wisdom in the form of universally true propositions from which deductions can be made. The quest for these propositions drives the Western discussions of metaphysics and especially epistemology, as noted in the first point of this paradigm.The wise person is the one who knows the basic propositions, knows how they can be known, and how to deduce things from them.

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African proverbs do not offer universal propositions; they offer observations that are true as general rules but may not fit every case. The wise person is the one who knows intuitively which proverb carries the content and nuances most appropriate to a given situation. The “thinking” westerner, uncomfortable with intuition, is uncomfortable with the ambiguity of proverbs.They conflict with each other. They defy systematization. The summum bonum is almost impossible to find. In other words proverbs do not measure up to the most basic Western criteria for serious thought. The African reply is that wisdom is judged not by its internal coherence as a system of ideas but by its power to connect with the incoherence and complexity of life. By striving to systematize thought, westerners disconnect it from life, thus trivializing it. Western universities are the proof—every student is forced to learn how to organize essays that climax in a properly deduced conclusion; few students are helped to strengthen the intuitive thinking required to deal wisely with the relationships and situations of ordinary life. 3. Abstract over Illustration; Thought over Communication. Western thought has treated abstract statements as the substance of thought and illustrations as the ephemera.15 Read any textbook in history, sociology, or education. Look at the course requirements of any seminary, where impressive efforts are made to get preachers to understand theological concepts, while negligible attention is paid to how those thoughts can be illustrated in sermons. African proverbs are almost entirely illustrations: “The cow looking at the green grass (on the cliff’s edge) fell over the cliff” (Oromo, Ethiopia). “A proverb is the horse of speech (it carries the conversation)” (Yoruba, Nigeria). To Western ears, such illustrations are trivial.16 They are always secondary to the “real” (abstract) statements. Knowing is always valued more than saying or explaining. The African view is exactly the opposite. Proverbs are the heart of wisdom because they are more powerful than any other form of communication. When one wants to seal an argument in court, use a proverb.When one wants to have the last word in a discussion, use a proverb. When someone uses a proverb against you, use a better one in reply.The wisest person in the community, and

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possibly the most powerful, is the person with the best command of the cultural treasure house of proverbs. 4. Written Treatise over Oral Maxim. Only two major figures in the history of Western thought never wrote a book—Socrates and Jesus—and of these only Socrates is famous primarily as a thinker. Since their time, thoughts rarely qualify as “thought” until they are written down. Would any university today allow its faculty members to retain their positions on the basis of what they said unless they also published it? Would any grant a Ph.D. without a written dissertation? Anything serious is presumed to be written, and anything merely oral is presumed to be frivolous (unless it is slander). Everywhere in Africa except possibly the university, oral communication is more important than written; “sayings” are more important than “writings.” Oral communication always has a speaker and a setting; thus it has meaning. Written words, especially books, are less real, less immediate, less important.17 African proverbs survive and flourish because of their continuing relevance and adaptability, both of which depend on constant oral use. The paradigm battle is quite clear on this point. Westerners expect wisdom to live between the covers of a book. No books; no wisdom. Africans expect wisdom to live in dialogue.To write it down is to alienate it from its nature, like taking a photograph of a steak. One would rather not eat the picture. 5. Individual Wisdom over Group Wisdom. Writing is done by great thinkers, all of whom work alone in quiet places. We study Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Kant, Marx, and Sartre; never their “co-authors” because there were no co-authors. The history of thought is a history of these individuals. African wisdom has no Aristotles or Kants. No one knows who invented each proverb or how it changed into its current form. Proverbs come from the group and belong to the group, just like everything else of any importance. Again the contrast is clear. The West assumes that if a culture has no great thinkers it has no great thought. Africa assumes that great thoughts are not as important as great applications. It matters little who coined a

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proverb. The wise question is, “Who is quoting the proverb now and why?” 6. Elite Wisdom over Common Wisdom. The Western paradigm of wisdom is elitist. In every academic field and at every academic conference, expertise is presented as wisdom, jargon is king, and the lay person is a peon. It is presumed that the wisest thoughts can only be expressed in specially devised terms (or better, terminologies) and in sentences like this one the convolutions and duration of which are apparently taken as reliable measures of its salience and incisiveness by those who, unlike the present author, are unduly impressed with an obfuscatory writing style that appends qualifications to virtually every word so as to render the whole thought at once unintelligible to ordinary people and perfectly defensible from them.What does the man in the street know? Certainly much less than we experts do! Africans expect that any true wisdom will be widely known; in fact, it will be found in sayings that everyone knows. Wisdom is not a matter of knowing more than others, but of cleverly reminding others of what they already know and thus persuading them to live wisely. The two paradigms butt heads once again. The Western view of African scholarship is dismissive. In which academic fields (other than African languages) are African scholars and universities providing leadership for the world? What academic journals coming from Africa are influencing the intellectual elite elsewhere? But Africans may shoot back with some heavy questions of their own: “What is the basis for the Western equation of wisdom and scholarship? When and how will academic wisdom trickle down into Western popular culture and affect ordinary life? Will Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason be made into a movie?” 7. New Wisdom over Old Wisdom. Western thinkers are admired for making breakthroughs, that is, for coming up with new insights or perspectives. Repeating old thoughts is what school-children do before they learn to think. Since proverbs are old thoughts, they can never be breakthroughs. The fact that Africa is rich in proverbs (if we even notice it) is therefore taken as proof of

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Africa’s intellectual poverty. Those who can think think new thoughts for themselves. They do not board up their mental horizons with clichés. Africans do value new things—new cities, new jobs, new foods, new products, new media—but when it comes to wisdom, they tend to prefer the old, tried and true sayings. At least they used to prefer them. This is changing. Though proverbs are still very common, the current generation of Africans knows and uses far fewer proverbs than the previous one. On this point more than the other six, Africa is going Western, trading a sumptuous feast of traditional proverbs for a handful of candied slogans coming over the television.The West has disbelieved in African thought for so long that Africa is starting to disbelieve itself. Table 2.1. Western and African Views of Wisdom. Western Valuer

African Value

1. Metaphysics and epistemology

1. Ethics

2. Deduction

2. Intuition

3. Abstract thought

3. Illustration and communication

4. Written treatise

4. Oral maxim

5. Individual wisdom

5. Group wisdom

6. Elite wisdom

6. Common wisdom

7. New wisdom

7. Old wisdom

Each of the sets of values (see Table 2.1) is woven into an internally coherent paradigm. Putting them side by side, we can begin to see why African proverbial wisdom has been so poorly understood and so little appreciated in the West. For this to change, the West will have to quit making absolute its own culturally prescribed view of wisdom. Changing our Western view from the absolute to the relative should come naturally to us as part of the complex transition from modernism to post-modernism. Some may even claim that we have already done it. Is it not more likely that we have remained locked into the above West-

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ern paradigm of wisdom and adopted relativism as our new Westernbased, world-dominating absolute? If the wisdom of African proverbs is not relativistic (and much of it is not), will we be able to recognize it as wisdom? Can we make relative our own relativism rather than seeing it as the newest, wisest thing on the planet? The possibility of our colossal self-deception as theoretical relativists but practicing cultural neoimperialists is a huge subject that cannot be explored here. We must rather turn our attention to a specific example of the kind of wisdom that will be lost to the West if we keep on blinding ourselves to the African paradigm of wisdom.

a case study: african proverbs about foreigners and guests Some Preliminary Questions are foreigners a profound subject? According to the Western paradigm, serious thought has to do with universals such as truth, knowledge, beauty, wisdom, and meaning or with the philosophy of vast subject areas such as government, education, and science. Foreigners are barely on the agenda, if at all.Why then have I chosen the not very profound subject of “foreigners” (in the broadest sense of the term these are “outsiders” including “strangers” and “visitors”) for a case study demonstrating the profundity of African intellectual activity? My goal is to raise the question of setting the agenda for thought. From an African point of view, outsiders are one of the most basic facts of life, especially when those outsiders arrive uninvited to steal your cattle, rule your country, change your religion or your technology, or engage in some form of trade. If the Western philosophical agenda ignores life and death matters like these, Africans have little use for such “wisdom.” Relations with “foreigners” are very high on the African agenda for another reason. African values are focused first on the extended family and secondly on the ethnic or language group. Relations with outsiders

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are thus very problematic, presenting mostly a danger but sometimes an opportunity.They call for real discernment and wisdom. Many proverbs have developed on this topic.18

are proverbs profound or merely moralistic? Some westerners suppose that proverbs are mere moralisms, closed propositions that call for obedience, not thought. For example, “A stitch in time saves nine,” is a clear and complete piece of advice. No thought needs to be added. However, many proverbs operate in much more complex ways, such as, “If the shoe fits, wear it.” This may carry meanings anywhere on the spectrum from gentle chiding to callous indifference to open hostility. The hearer must think about it and infer which attitude the speaker intends to communicate. Proverbs like “Look before you leap” call for thought of a different kind. The meaning is clear but the hearer must pause and reflect, “Have I looked carefully enough before taking this leap?” Proverbs may be the world’s oldest interactive educational resource, evoking both intellectual and emotional responses. African proverbs are employed primarily when adults educate each other, not when an adult talks to a child.They are not admonitions to the obvious but revelations of the subtle. African proverbs are particularly thought-provoking because so many of them are figurative statements, as we shall see in this case.

can one “african” view be synthesized from many african cultures? Sub-Saharan Africa is a patchwork of forty countries and more than fifteen hundred languages. In this case study I will be grouping proverbs at random from Ethiopia, Nigeria, Lesotho, and elsewhere without reference to their local context. How much validity can generalizations have if they are made on such a wide scale? Obviously it will be limited but my contention is that it will still be significant. In culture as in physiognomy, there are certain general traits that distinguish Africa from India, Melanesia, or Europe. Let me say, however, that I do not believe there is one coherent con-

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cept of “foreigners” held by the many divergent peoples of sub-Saharan Africa.Though this case study will compile a list of loosely grouped proverbs about foreigners, I am not attempting to construct a logically consistent concept of them or to argue that my general description is held exactly by any particular ethnic group in Africa.We shall return to this problem of systematization at the end of the case study.

how were the proverbs selected for this case study? The selection was done electronically from about 28,000 proverbs on The African Proverbs CD 19 through a word search for the following: “foreign*,20 visit*, guest*, stranger*, Europe,* and white man.” The search found 66 paragraphs containing some form of the word “foreign,” and 275, 173, 110, 67, and 36 instances of the other words respectively. Once duplicates and tangential items were removed, I had about 400 proverbs to work with, from which 30 that I considered representative were chosen for this case study. The chosen proverbs came from fourteen languages, with Akan (Ghana) and Oromo (Ethiopia) being the best represented.

Proverbs about Foreigners, Grouped by Characteristics The title of this paper claims that African proverbs contain “profundity with panache.” We have not yet touched on the latter, except in the quotation from Mbiti in footnote 5 above. Panache is not a word one would apply to many works of Western thought but African proverbs are full of it—the flair, the flourish, the memorable image, the dash of humor, the ironic twist, the insinuation, the insult, the multi-leveled meaning.This panache is integrated with the profundity of the proverbs, not merely appended to it. It serves as the trigger for further thought. To put living, breathing proverbs into a list is of course to abuse them—proverbs were made to be used one at a time—but even in this “abused” form they retain enough of their insight and sparkle to make my point. Adding comments to proverbs, as I have done in this list, may also make them dull. It is as clumsy and regrettable as explaining a joke but sometimes it has to be done.

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foreigners are strange, hard to understand, not to be trusted 1. It is the white man who sells scissors, yet his head is overgrown with hair (Akan, Ghana). This humorous observation is an instance of a common problem, the ways of one culture appearing anomalous to members of another culture. The white man appears inconsistent, having the technology but not using it for an immediate personal need. How can this be explained? Should we buy scissors from a person who does not use them? 2. If there had been no poverty in Europe, then the white man would not have come and spread his cloths to sell in Africa (Akan, Ghana).This is another example of an attempt to find the motive behind the actions of foreigners. 3. You talk nonsense like a white man, constantly saying, “ndiyo”; are you all over the place? (Luganda, Uganda). Foreigners have legendary prowess at butchering local languages.The word “ndiyo” means “yes” in Swahili, the trade language which a white man would be expected to speak in Uganda, but it means “I am here” in Luganda, a local language. 4. What the guest would like is what the host is ashamed to offer as not being good enough, and the guest is disappointed (Umbundu, Angola). The desire to treat a visitor politely may backfire, causing miscommunication that hurts both parties. 5. You receive the guest’s [walking] stick, but keep an eye on him (Sukuma, Tanzania). Receiving the stick indicates welcoming someone into the home, as if to say, “You won’t need your stick for a while because you will be staying here with us.” In spite of this apparent welcome, the proverb is taken to mean, “Keep an eye on the visitor; he may corrupt your sister.”

foreigners are critical and burdensome 6. The eye of the guest sees cockroaches giving birth (Oromo, Ethiopia). A guest is bound to notice something wrong.

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7. Though the host may be living on mild beans, the guest expects a handful of boiled corn (Yoruba, Nigeria). Guests have specific expectations of hosts, regardless of the way the hosts normally live. 8. The children of outsiders eat with nine mouths (Oromo, Ethiopia).They are insatiable. 9. If the foreigner doesn’t eat and go, the real members of the family become thin (Akan, Ghana). All the food will be given to the guest and none will be left for the family. 10.A stranger is the cause of one getting money, but he is also the cause of one going into debt (Akan, Ghana).

foreigners are ignorant of local ways 11.A stump that stays in a river for a hundred years does not become a crocodile (Ewe, Ghana, Togo and Benin). The outsider will never become an insider. 12.When the bull is in a strange country, it does not bellow (Oromo, Ethiopia). 13.When a dog crosses a river, it becomes a puppy (Sesotho, Lesotho and South Africa). The river represents a border. Like a human being, an adult dog loses its maturity and confidence when it goes onto unfamiliar territory. 14.A stranger may have very big eyes, but he doesn’t see what is going on among the people he is living with (Akan, Ghana). 15.The sole of a foreigner is narrow (Lugbara, Uganda and Congo). The foreigner will always be “narrow-footed” (unsteady, off-balance) because of lack of understanding of the local situation.The foreigner also will not leave very big footprints or tracks on the local scene; that is, his or her influence may be superficial and fleeting.

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foreigners are not entitled to insider privileges 16.One refuses to give to the outsider from the bumper crop, but gives even the seed grain to a relative (Oromo, Ethiopia). No sacrifice is too great to make for a relative, and no excuse is too small to put off a foreigner. 17.Strangers shall not be rulers (Igbo, Nigeria). 18.The owner, not the guest, decides when the drink is ready for use (Umbundu, Angola). 19.A stranger does not hold the head of a coffin (Ewe, Ghana, Togo, and Benin). Holding the head of a coffin would be the duty of the senior living relative of the deceased.

foreigners are vulnerable to manipulation and harm 20.Have the people who took shelter from the rain gone? Now let me give you the big potato (Luganda, Uganda). Hospitality is part pretense.The best things are kept in secret for the insiders. 21.It is the one who knows English and can speak to the white man who induces him to give gifts (Akan, Ghana). 22.Death has a tendency to happen to strangers (Kaonde, Zambia). 23.A guest is a fowl—he will have his neck wrung (Bondei, Tanzania).

foreigners are in need of hospitality 24.The foreigner has no granary (Lugbara, Uganda and Congo). The foreigner has not been present long enough to plant, harvest, and store grain. Foreigners are therefore dependent on their hosts. 25.A chicken killed for a stranger to eat never dies; it remains alive many days (Kaonde, Zambia). The chicken “lives” in the memory of the stranger who ate it. This proverb promotes hospitality by arguing that the host is wise to use a chicken this way.

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26.One who has only a fish and a piece of cassava but cooks it and invites a stranger to the meal—his name will be praised by the stranger as he goes (Grebo, Liberia). Such unusual and costly hospitality is bound to impress the stranger favorably. 27.The bed on which the guest sleeps is good, but he never takes it with him (Sukuma, Tanzania). When a guest is present, the host should not withhold what he has. Life will go back to normal when the guest leaves.

foreigners are helpful, advantageous 28.The host is saved [from trouble or want] by the guest (Mongo-Nkundu, Congo). This reversal of the normal roles of host and guest is possible. One should consider this before refusing to welcome an outsider. 29.The town that doesn’t permit foreigners to mix with them never becomes a big town (Akan, Ghana).Though foreigners can be dangerous, banning them is not a wise policy. 30.The test of the guest’s value is in the loneliness his departure causes (Umbundu, Angola).

Do all these conflicting proverbs add up to a coherent and wise concept of foreigners and guests? This is a very Western question and westerners become very frustrated when they discover that Africans refuse to categorize and prioritize all their conflicting proverbs. Perhaps this shows that Africans are not skilled thinkers, but more probably it merely shows that Western ethnocentrism can operate in overdrive. The westerners are indicating that they have not yet grasped the way proverbs work. Proverbs were never designed to fit into tightly analytical categories. They present a range of themes and options, cleverly expressed with widely varying overtones and undertones. The African proverbs about foreigners contain so many unresolved ambiguities that one can hardly speak of a “concept” of foreigners at all. Perhaps we could sum-

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marize them by coining a proverb—foreigners are poisons, which may in small doses have medicinal effects—but this does not remove the ambiguity. The ambiguities that seem so problematic to the westerner are actually seen as strengths by Africans. They increase the likelihood that a person who knows many ambiguous proverbs will be prepared for any situation with any foreigner. During the encounter the African will draw on the store of proverbs not by deduction but by correlation, skillfully sensing which of thousands of proverbs applies to this situation. He or she may also adjust the tone of voice in which the proverb is expressed, thus tailoring it to an even more precise fit. To select and tailor a proverb involves an extremely clever form of intuitive thinking.21Without it proverbs are mere addenda to thought. With it they are the tool-kit of thought. In this vast tool-kit a person of intellectual skill can find the proper tool to fit any situation. By quoting a proverb, one shows that the present situation is not unprecedented and it need not disorient or overwhelm wise people.They are prepared. They have the time-tested tools to meet it by saying just the right thing, neither too much nor too little. The westerner with a well-organized concept of the characteristics of foreigners is ready for an exam on foreigners; the African who has a head full of proverbs about foreigners is ready for the foreigners themselves.Which is more profound? Is either one preferable? It depends on which paradigm of wisdom is being used as a yardstick. By the African paradigm, proverbs are profound.

conclusion: a time to wake up to the african drumbeat As Africa’s polyrhythmic music was too complicated for Western ears and was ironically judged at first by westerners to be lacking in rhythm at all, so Africa’s polyvalent proverbs were too complicated for Western minds and were judged to be “pre-logical” thought. The mistake about rhythm has been corrected. Now we know what we were missing and we pay millions of dollars every year to buy it for our listening pleasure.

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The mistake about proverbs is still being made. For over a century eloquent pleas for the West to pay attention have been falling on deaf ears. At the dawn of the post-modern era in the West, it is high time to reconsider our Western denigration of African proverbs and African wisdom, recognizing that the problem all along was ours not Africa’s. We did not have ears to hear; that is, we did not have a paradigm of wisdom that could appreciate Africa’s insights into human life. Proverbs have always been eye-openers; perhaps for us they will be ear-openers as well. Can we learn now to appreciate the “music” of African proverbs as we break down some of the cultural boundaries of our definition of wisdom? Have the few proverbs about foreigners quoted in this paper been enough to hint at the treasures we have been missing—African measures of the rhythm of life? If so, we have much to gain. If not, at least we can learn humility in our interactions with Africans, admitting that Africa—current barbarities and tragedies notwithstanding—may be a source of wisdom for the rest of the world. As the people of Lesotho say, “The wise person is always learning something.”

notes 1 1 Kings 10:22. 2 For a description and critique of the “Afro-centrist” position, see Hughes, 1993, pp. 130–151. 3 Bishop Vidal, quoted in Burton, 1969, p. xx. Burton’s introduction rebuts the charge of African intellectual inferiority with a number of lengthy quotations from various parts of Africa. 4 Christaller, 1990, p. viii. The original version in Twi was published in 1879. The author, a German missionary, was admonishing Ghanaians over a century ago not to lose the wisdom in their heritage of proverbs. 5 Mbiti, 1997, pp. x–xi.The same introduction occurs in the four other proverb collections in the series, Cotter on Oromo proverbs, Dalfovo on Lugbara

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proverbs, Mokitimi on Sesotho proverbs, and Nare and Damiba on Mossi proverbs. 6 Healey and Sybertz, 1997, pp. 13–14. 7 All volumes were published by the Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale, formerly Musée Royal du Congo Belge, Tervuren, Belgium. 8 All the collections and studies produced by the project were compiled on one CD along with reprints of about twenty previously published African proverb collections. See Nussbaum 1996, distributed by First Peoples Institute, Tutmose Family and Community Services, 1205 Shasta Drive, Colorado Springs, CO 80910 or [email protected]. 9 The web site is http://www.afriprov.org. To subscribe to the e-mail list, send an e-mail message to: [email protected]. In the body of the message write: subscribe proverbs-list. 10 University of Ghana, Department for the Study of Religions, Legon, Ghana; Institut Catholique pour l’Afrique de l’Ouest (ICAO), Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire; Hekima College (Jesuit), Nairobi, Kenya; University of South Africa, Missiology Department, Pretoria, South Africa. 11 Personal correspondence from Pamela Brooke, program coordinator for the Story Workshop, August 4, 1997. 12 Aden, 1995. 13 Epistemology and metaphysics are not completely absent from African proverbs. For a discussion of the Kikuyu case, see Wanjohi, 1997, pp. 97–130. 14 A senior church leader from Liberia, the Reverend Abba Karnga, concluded a year of doctoral study at an American seminary recently. He wrote to me about it, citing a proverb from home, “Religion is not a matter for debate.” He had been worn out by the Calvinist-Arminian debate at the seminary, which appeared to him to be a useless Western argument about whether the doctrine of salvation must begin with “faith” or “Calvary.” He asked, “Is God that much more technical about word order than about love?” 15 For a far more extensive and philosophical treatment of the second and third points in this paradigm, see Sumner, 1995. His succinct conclusions on such things as the differences between conceptual and figurative thinking

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stan w. nu s sbaum (pp. 412–413) are cross-referenced to the sections of the book where the subjects are treated in full.

16 Professor Wolfgang Mieder, editor of Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb Scholarship (Burlington: University of Vermont), once remarked to me that grant proposals for any research related to proverbs consistently lost out to other kinds of proposals for research in the humanities. The word “proverb” was a virtual kiss of death as far as foundation funding was concerned. 17 At a faculty development seminar at Carlile College in Nairobi in January 1998, I asked the participants how many books other than the Bible they thought the students from their Bible institute would read during their first year after graduation. The average of the estimates they regretted to make was less than one book. 18 The case for taking hospitality as a serious subject of thought has been admirably made by Healey and Sybertz (note 6 above). Chapter 4, “A Guest Is a Blessing,” pp. 168–202, includes fifty-four proverbs on hospitality, none of which is repeated in the present article. End notes to the chapter give abundant references to African theologians who have reflected on the relation of hospitality to other truths that are more often seen by westerners as fundamental to life. 19 Nussbaum, 1996. 20 The asterisk indicates that all words beginning with the preceding letters will be found in the computer search. For example, a search for “foreign*” will find foreign, foreigner, foreigners, foreignness, etc. 21 See Van Lancker (2000) for a discussion of the probability that the intuitive processing of proverbs and other nonliteral expressions occurs in a different part of the brain than conceptual thinking. See also Gardner, 1991, pp. 12–15 for a description of the “seven intelligences” of human beings, of which the sixth is “interpersonal intelligence.” Gardner argues that Western educational methods should be redesigned to cultivate all seven types of thinking, not just the two Western favorites—the linguistic and logical-mathematical types.

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references Aden, Abdurahman. (1995). From the soul of nomads: Proverbs and sayings of the Somalis. Paris: UNESCO. Burton, Richard W. (1865). Wit and wisdom from West Africa. London: Tinsley Brothers. Reprinted in 1969 by Negro Universities Press. Christaller, J.G. (1990). Three thousand six hundred Ghanaian proverbs from the Ashante and Fante language. (Kofi Ron Lange, Trans.). Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press. Gardner, Howard. (1991). The unschooled mind: How children think and how schools should teach. New York: HarperCollins. Healey, Joseph and Sybertz, Donald. (1997). Towards an African narrative theology. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. Hughes, Robert. (1993). Culture of complaint: The fraying of America. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mbiti, John S. (1997). Introduction to the African proverbs series. In Kofi Asare Opoku, Hearing and keeping: Akan proverbs (pp. x–xi). Pretoria: Unisa Press. Nussbaum, Stan, Ed. (1996). The African proverbs CD: Collections, studies, bibliographies. Colorado Springs, CO: Global Mapping International. Sumner, Claude. (1995). Oromo wisdom literature, volume I, proverbs: Collection and analyses. Addis Ababa: Gudina Tumsa Foundation. Van Lancker, Diana. (2000). A neurolinguistic perspective on proverbs and the laws of life. In Warren S. Brown, Ed., Understanding wisdom: Sources, science, and society, pp. 215–245. Philadelphia, PA: Templeton Foundation Press. Wanjohi, Gerald. (1997). The wisdom and philosophy of the Gikuyu proverbs: The Kihooto worldview. Nairobi: Paulines Publications Africa.

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chapter 3

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“A House Divided”: From Biblical Proverb to Lincoln and Beyond Wolfgang Mieder

iblical proverbs have permeated vernacular languages throughout the world, and the masterfully translated King James Bible helped to spread ancient wisdom literature in the form of new English proverbs with much vigor and success. One of these proverbs appears in three slightly altered variants in three of the gospels of the New Testament, thereby literally assuring its spread through the Englishspeaking world. Matthew records Jesus as having stated that “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand” (Matt. 12:25), while Mark has Jesus make the same statement in a somewhat simpler way as “And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand” (Mark 3:24–25). Luke, finally, has the more complex variant “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falleth” (Luke 11:17). Since Mark’s statement is the closest to the way it was cited by Americans before Lincoln and by him as well, it is stated here in its biblical context (Mark 3:22–27). As can be seen, it is a passage where Jesus talks about the evil powers of the devil, which in the 1850s could be equated with the devilish aspects of slavery:

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And the scribes which came from Jerusalem said, He [Jesus] hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out the devils. 23And he called them unto him, and said unto them

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wolfgang m i e de r in parables, How can Satan cast out Satan? 24And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.25And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand. 26And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end. 27No man can enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house.

Not surprisingly, proverb collections and notably those referring to American usage tend to list both variants or merely the “house” variant, where the more domestic image can refer to the home as well as to the government in general. In these variants it is the house as such that will fall if it is not kept in familial, organizational, or governmental order.1 By the time references of the proverb appear in the early American colonies, the preferred choice is, with very few exceptions, the “house” variant.2 But still, the fact that this second half of the longer biblical passage is indeed wisdom from the Scriptures is for the most part stated directly or certainly assumed to be recognizable as such by people who knew their Bible. By the turn of the eighteenth century the standard short form of the biblical proverb turned folk proverb had become “A house divided against itself cannot stand” in the North American colonies. As time progressed, the proverb’s religious connotations faded until it became a secularized piece of wisdom to be employed frequently in various and very different contexts. The earliest American reference to the proverb is contained in a journal from the year 1704 in which Thomas Chalkley describes the worries of his mother after an attack by Indians on a Quaker settlement in New England put the peaceful coexistence of the native population and new settlers into question: “My mother would often say, ‘A house divided could not stand’; and she could not tell what to do, although she had most peace in staying, yet she had thoughts of moving.”3 Clearly the use of the proverb in this context refers primarily to social issues, and that is also the case in a fascinating broadsheet from after 1765 entitled “Poetical Thoughts on the Difficulties Our Fore-Fathers Endured in Planting Religious and Civil Liberty in this Western World,” which included the following two didactic quatrains:

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So long as we are disagreed, The house divided cannot stand, So let us take all care with speed, To dwell in love with heart and hand. That we might share among the rest, Those towns that’s in America, From North to South, from East to West Our homage to our God we’ll pay.4 It is important to note here that while the proverb might also refer to religious division, it is used with equal effectiveness to bemoan basic human, social, and political disunity. It was Thomas Paine, with his remarkable essay Common Sense; Addressed to the Inhabitants of America (1776), who launched the biblical proverb into becoming a commonplace of sorts in political discourse. Right in the first section “On the Origin and Design of Government in General, with Concise Remarks on the English Constitution” he uses the proverb to describe the English form of government as one that could not work in America: Some writers have explained the English constitution thus: the king, say they, is one, the people another; the peers are a house in behalf of the king, the commons in behalf of the people; but this hath all the distinctions of a house divided against itself; and though the expressions be pleasantly arranged, yet when examined they appear idle and ambiguous.5

Even though Paine does not cite the complete text of the proverb, he is well aware of the fact that his readers will understand the indirect implication that this form of government could not possibly exist in America. By 1787, a fascinating “Address to All Federalists” by one Curtius appeared in the first volume of The American Museum.The author argued vigorously for unity among all factions in the newly proclaimed country, and the final paragraph foreshadows in many ways the words that Abraham Lincoln would utter some seventy years later:

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wolfgang m i e de r Let us, then, be of one heart, and one mind. Let us seize the golden opportunity to secure a stable government, and to become a respectable nation. Let us be open, decided, and resolute, in a good cause. A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF CANNOT STAND. Our national existence depends as much as ever upon our union: and ITS CONSOLIDATION MOST ASSUREDLY INVOLVES OUR PROSPERITY, FELICITY, AND SAFETY.6

Politicians of this era found the proverbial metaphor of the “house divided” extremely useful for the purpose of political argumentation and persuasion. Its biblical character endowed it with moral and didactic overtones, and the argument for unified strength was splendidly enhanced by the opposite image of a house or government crumbling. By the time of the War of 1812, Abigail Adams used the proverb in its political sense in a letter of December 30, 1812, to Mrs. Mercy Warren. She was clearly worried about the state of the union at this troubled time, and the proverb came to her mind as a unifying slogan, as it will be employed later by Lincoln and other public figures to the present day: We cannot be indifferent to the state of our country, our posterity, and our friends. . . . We have passed through one revolution, and happily arrived at the goal; but the ambition, injustice, and plunder of foreign powers have again involved us in war, the termination of which is not given us to see. . . .Yet I hear from our pulpits, and read from our presses, that it is an unjust, a wicked, a ruinous, and unnecessary war. . . . A house divided against itself, —and upon that foundation do our enemies build their hopes of subduing us. May it prove a sandy one to them!7

The integration of merely the partially cited proverb is a stylistic masterpiece! Abigail Adams refuses to cite its pessimistic conclusion, since she does not want to agree with the country’s enemies that the United

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States is plagued by disunity. These false conclusions of a crumbling house are then ironically linked with the allusion to the proverbial expression of “to build on sand.” The misconceptions of the enemies that the United States might be a house divided are thus, she hopes, built on a sandy foundation; that is, they are indeed false and will be proven wrong by her victorious country. By the year 1822, the proverb is for the first time brought up in connection with the issue of slavery, quite indirectly still, but certainly foreshadowing the big slave issues of the middle of the nineteenth century: Ragamuffins vote as well as men of property; and to make the best of it, they are governed by slaves and negroes: for the people to the southward have votes according to the number of their slaves. We expect to hear shortly of blackamoor senators and governors: . . . . the house that is divided against itself cannot stand: . . . they will soon separate.8

This pronouncement is certainly an early hint at a possible separation of the South with its slaves from a Union that is regarded to be anything but perfect. While in England the dramatist John Thomas Haines could write A House Divided (1836) as a farcical comedy in two acts with an obvious allusion to the biblical proverb in its title,9 the proverb was in much more serious and repeated use by a president of the United States. In fact, Andrew Jackson employed it at least seven times in his published writings, but he clearly used this favorite expression of his on many more occasions. For example, on November 28, 1830, Jackson complained bitterly to Mrs. Andrew J. Donelson about intrigues and dishonesty around him. He starts the following paragraph with a well-known proverb about friendship and concludes it with a direct quotation of the “house divided” proverb: I have suffered much and may suffer much more in feeling, but never can I separate from my friend without cause. What a wretch he must be who can. “A friend in need is a friend

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wolfgang m i e de r indeed,” and he who can forsake his friend in distress . . . will get into difficulties, from which danger of disgrace may arise. “A House divided cannot stand.”10

For the most part, the proverb became a leitmotif of sorts in the letters of Andrew Jackson. He used it not so much as a political argument for national policy, but rather as a biblical saying to warn against strife among friends and family members.The proverb thus never assumed the crucial meaning that it occupied in Abraham Lincoln’s political life, and its use was also not yet connected with the thought of the nation splitting apart over the slavery issue. But by the 1850s the schism between North and South and the divergence of opinions over slavery were beginning to tear the Union apart. It was at this time that the biblical proverb began to play a noticeable role in this struggle, and while it did not completely lose its religious connotations, the proverb clearly became a secularized slogan to give moral and political expression to a heart-wrenching struggle.Three powerful and telling uses of the proverb in the early 1850s stand out, and they are part of some of the most significant speeches ever delivered on this issue. The first reference is to be found in an impassioned speech delivered by Senator Sam Houston from Texas on February 8, 1850, in the Senate. His colleague, Senator Henry Clay from Kentucky, had placed a resolution before the legislators, which became known as the Compromise of 1850. Under this compromise, California was admitted as a free state, that is, free of slavery, to the United States, while some new territories were allowed to decide for themselves whether they would allow slavery or not. The debates over this compromise were fierce indeed, and the fear of destroying the Union loomed everywhere. Houston closed his lengthy speech with a strong call for maintaining the Union, not at all that different from Abraham Lincoln’s later plea: I beseech those whose piety will permit them reverentially to petition, that they will pray for the Union, and ask that He who buildeth up and pulleth down nations will, in mercy, preserve and unite us. For a nation divided against itself cannot stand. I

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wish, if this Union must be dissolved, that its ruins may be the monument of my grave, and the graves of my family. I wish no epitaph to be written to tell that I survived the ruin of this glorious Union.11

With great oratorical skill Houston altered the biblical proverb under discussion to “A nation divided against itself cannot stand,” a poignant reformulation of the proverb, which interestingly enough was never employed by Lincoln. It is a known fact that Abraham Lincoln was a great admirer of Daniel Webster, who as senator of Massachusetts was known as one of the greatest orators of the time. On May 22, 1851, in Buffalo, with the divisive problem of slavery growing ever more heated, Webster spoke out against slavery and for the Union and its Constitution, drawing on the biblical proverb to warn people of the danger of destroying the nation: There is but one question in this country now; or, if there be others, they are but secondary, . . . can we preserve the union of these States, by such administration of the powers of the Constitution. . . ? If a house be divided against itself, it will fall, and crush every body in it. We must see that we maintain the government which is over us.We must see that we uphold the Constitution, and we must do so without regard to party. . . . It is obvious to every one, and we all know it, that the origin of the great disturbance which agitates the country is the existence of slavery in some of the States; but we must meet the subject; we must consider it; we must deal with it earnestly, honestly, and justly.12

In this significant speech Daniel Webster did, as usual, show concern for the fate of the slaves, but his primary goal was to stress the maintenance of the Union under the Constitution. That was, of course, quite different from declared abolitionists of this time, something that Lincoln most assuredly was not. In fact, the abolitionist Edmund Quincy published an article entitled “The House

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Divided Against Itself ” in the March 25, 1852 issue of the National AntiSlavery Standard, beginning with an oblique reference to the Bible and with a direct quotation of the proverb: It was said more than eighteen hundred years ago, that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and the truth of the saying is written on every page of history, antecedent and subsequent. It is not unlikely that the history of our country may furnish fresh and pregnant examples. . . . The great national element of division we need hardly say is Slavery. The point of the wedge was inserted next to the corner-stone of our institutions by their founders themselves. . . . By the everlasting laws of moral mechanics it must either be withdrawn or its pressure must grow stronger and stronger and at last make a fissure that will shatter into heaps the proud structure upon the heads of those that put their trust in it.13

What Edmund Quincy’s thoughts and language as well as those of Sam Houston and Daniel Webster show is that—with due respect to Abraham Lincoln’s rhetorical prowess—the beginning of his famous “house divided” speech is quite in line with other orators and writers of his time. For someone who “adopted at several stages of his career the practice of daily Bible reading,”14 it became natural to cite quotations or at least paraphrased verses from the Bible with high frequency in oral as well as written statements. Lincoln scholars have not failed to comment on this preoccupation with biblical phrases, claiming that “his familiarity with and use of Biblical phraseology was remarkable even in a time when such use was more common than now.”15 There is no doubt that “his greatest speeches reflect both Biblical style and Biblical teaching.”16 But scholars dealing with Lincoln’s use of biblical language have forgotten to comment on the numerous biblical phrases that long ago turned into folk proverbs and metaphors. These proverbial utterances gave Lincoln the opportunity to speak and write both authoritatively and somewhat colloquially, adding much imagery and color to his arguments of persuasion or otherwise rather factual letters. This preoccupation

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with biblical phraseology can take on rather overpowering proportions, as in his written reply of May 30, 1864, to a delegation of Baptists: To read the Bible, as the word of God himself, that “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread [Genesis 3:19],[”] and to preach there from that, “In the sweat of other mans [sic] faces shalt thou eat bread,” to my mind can scarcely be reconciled with honest sincerity. When brought to my final reckoning, may I have to answer for robbing no man of his goods. . . .When, a year or two ago, those professedly holy men of the South, met in the semblance of prayer and devotion, and, in the Name of Him who said “As ye would all men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them” [Matt. 7:12] appealed to the christian world to aid them in doing to a whole race of men, as they would have no man do unto themselves, to my thinking they contemned [sic] and insulted God and His church, far more than did Satan when he tempted the Saviour with the Kingdoms of the earth. The devils [sic] attempt was no more false, and far less hypocritical. But let me forbear, remembering it is also written “Judge not, lest ye be judged” [Matt. 7:1].17

What a paragraph! What a rhetorical masterpiece! Without even mentioning that horrid word “slavery,” Lincoln employs three biblical proverbs known to everybody, and certainly to the Baptist ministers, and ridicules countless numbers of slaveholders of the South who have earned their bread through the work of their slaves. He also points out proverbially, that they have forgotten the “Golden Rule,” and by quoting its proverbial wording, he shows vividly how false their behavior has been. But lest he were to elevate himself to an exaggerated self-righteousness, Lincoln closes his “mini-sermon” with the proverb that warns everybody against sitting in judgment over others and forgetting that all people commit sinful acts.The message is direct, clear, and authoritative, and the three biblical proverbs add a didactic and ethical persuasiveness to this masterful statement.18 With plenty of biblical proverbs at his disposal at the time of drafting his acclaimed “house divided” speech for the Republican State

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Convention of Illinois, one wonders whether Lincoln was aware of the interesting fact that he had actually used the “house divided” proverb at least once before in writing on March 4, 1843, in an “Address to the People of Illinois,” which he had put forth jointly with S. T. Logan and A.T. Bledsoe as a campaign circular for the Whig Party. In this early use of the proverb the subject matter is, however, not that of slavery but rather an argument for the adoption of the convention system for nomination of candidates for national office: That “union is strength” is a truth that has been known, illustrated and declared, in various ways and forms in all ages of the world . . . ; and he whose wisdom surpasses that of all philosophers, has declared that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” It is to induce our friends to act upon this important, and universally acknowledged truth, that we urge the adoption of the Convention System.19

Lincoln was about thirty-four years old at this time and stood at the very beginning of his political career, and yet he had already begun to write effective paragraphs based on proverbial argumentation. It is interesting to note that in this case he cited a classical proverb lacking any metaphor whatsoever to start with, but he was quick in adding the biblical proverb as a metaphorical antipode. By also pointing out, albeit in an indirect way, that this proverb carried with it the authority of Jesus, it was made very clear what would happen if political union moved toward disunion. It seems strange, however, that Lincoln never returned to the classical proverb as a positive argument later in his political career. Somehow the apocalyptic “house divided” proverb must have seemed more appropriate to him in light of the troublesome times. There really is no particular reason why Lincoln should have remembered his use of this proverb fifteen years later, especially since its early use was not brought about by its connection to slavery and its danger to the preservation of the Union. However, he did use the biblical proverb in its applicability to the questions of slavery and political union in a significant fragment of a speech that he delivered on May 18, 1858 in Edwardsville, that is, one month prior to his famed Springfield

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address. In fact, Roy P. Basler, editor of the Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, argues convincingly that the fragment’s key passages became a preliminary draft of the June sixteenth speech.20 It is of interest that the proverb is cited in the fragment as a separate and centered heading followed by sentences that are basically the same as the speech delivered one month later in Springfield: A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe the government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. [. . .] I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and put it in course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new.21

Two important matters must be observed regarding this fragment: First, the proverb is not yet integrated effectively as the centerpiece of the paragraph as will be the case in the “house divided” speech, and secondly, this unpublished fragment had, of course, no immediate influence. It is not even known whether Lincoln actually iterated the proverb in Edwardsville on May 18, 1858. This would help to explain an otherwise baffling statement, which Lincoln is to have made in connection with writing his “house divided” speech: It is said that when he was preparing his Springfield speech of 1858, he spent hours trying to find language that would express the idea that dominated his entire career—namely, that a republic could not permanently endure half free and half slave, and that finally a Bible passage flashed through his mind and he exclaimed, “I have found it! ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’” And probably no other Bible passage ever exerted as much influence as this one in the settlement of a great controversy.22

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If this account could in fact be authenticated,23 Lincoln might have meant to indicate by it that he found a way to place the proverb into the center part of the introductory section of his speech. After all, as has been stated, he had just used it as a section title in a speech fragment a week earlier, and it is doubtful that he would not have remembered this (even if this fragment were dated late December 1857, as has been suggested recently).24 Of the numerous statements of this sort surrounding Lincoln’s convention speech, there is at least one that has been sufficiently authenticated to deserve some credence. He made it to his law partner, friend, and confidant William Herndon just an hour or so before he delivered his address in the evening of June 16, 1858. Lincoln had decided to read his prepared speech privately to Herndon, and when Herndon asked him after having heard the first section whether such strong language was politic, Lincoln is supposed to have said: That makes no difference.That expression is a truth of all human experience: a house divided against itself cannot stand, and he that runs may read.25 . . . I want to use some universally known figure, expressed in simple language as universally known, that it may strike home to the minds of men in order to rouse them to the peril of the times. I would rather be defeated with the expression in the speech and it held up and discussed before the people than to be victorious without it.26

The problem with this alleged statement is, of course, that William Herndon has referred to it in different phrasings, putting its authenticity into question. Don E. and Virginia Fehrenbacher have done superb detective work to trace virtually every statement that Lincoln is ever to have made but not preserved in his own writing in their massive collection, Recollected Words of Abraham Lincoln. These scholars give this quotation an authenticity rating with more than average doubt, and others of a similar type are judged to be probably inauthentic. This is particularly true for the claims that Lincoln read the speech to a number of friends in addition to Herndon. Regarding these claims and descriptions of what took place at this prereading of the speech to Herndon and sev-

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eral party leaders, the Fehrenbachers speak of “splendid example[s] of [the] Lincoln myth in the process of elaboration and decoration.”27 There is, to be sure, no doubt about the fact that Abraham Lincoln’s first words during his evening address on June 16, 1858, to the Republican convention in Springfield, Illinois, electrified the audience. People had expected a noncontroversial speech that everybody could listen to without any concerns or turmoil. Instead, Lincoln presented them with a carefully crafted platform that brought the slavery issue and the concern about the Union into the open. His Republican supporters at the convention rightfully felt that this radical statement would cost Lincoln and them the Senatorial election, and it did do exactly that. But Lincoln also accomplished his goal with his bold and not at all rash declaration that “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” It lost him the Senate seat, but it helped bring about his debates with Stephen A. Douglas, it put him into the limelight of national politics, and it certainly put this courageous and ethical person on the path to the White House. The “opening paragraph [of the ‘House Divided’ speech] has already become one of the most celebrated passages in the political literature of the country,” wrote Joseph H. Barret in his early Life of Abraham Lincoln in 1865, claiming that “there is moral sublimity in the rugged honesty and directness with which the grand issues in this whole slavery agitation are presented.”28 The ethical nature of the beginning of the speech was doubtlessly enhanced by the biblical proverb “The house divided against itself cannot stand,” which surely was known to most if not all members of the audience. Lincoln did not need to mention that he was quoting Jesus, “whose wisdom surpasses that of all philosophers,”29 as he had previously done in his campaign circular for the Whig Party on March 4, 1843. It took modern scholars to forget that this famous proverbial utterance had its origin in the Bible. Of course, Lincoln’s name is now irrevocably attached to it, especially in the minds of American citizens.Yet to go so far as to state that Lincoln “had coined a quotable but debatable phrase”30 or that “Lincoln had done the thing which fans a leader’s fame without clarifying his position: he had coined a quotable phrase”31 exceeds historical facts. He had not coined the phrase, but rather brought it into the consciousness of the entire Union. That it was debatable, questionable, and even radical

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for the time in its secularized context of slavery and politics is, of course, true. But what is it then that Abraham Lincoln said on that eventful evening in Springfield, Illinois? Here is what he said: If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated, with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only, not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery, will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new —North as well as South.32

While these few minute paragraphs make up only 5 percent of the entire speech, they represented “an electrifying challenge to conflict.”33 Carl Sandburg in the first part of his celebrated biography, Abraham Lincoln, states quite appropriately: “This was so plain that two farmers fixing fences on a rainy morning could talk it over. . . .What interested the country most, as many newspapers published the speech in full, was its opening paragraph. It became known as the ‘House Divided’ speech. It went far.”34 The second part of the speech (72 percent) deals with a review of the history of slavery in the United States, stressing especially the tumultuous debate of the 1850s over the question of slavery in new states and territories. Stephen A. Douglas, as chairman of the Senate

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Committee on Territories, had pushed the Kansas-Nebraska Act through Congress in 1854; it stated that the citizens of the new territories would decide whether they wanted to admit slavery or not. This concept of “popular sovereignty” basically brought to an end the famed Missouri Compromise of 1820, which was hammered out by such renowned senators as Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. This agreement had argued that slavery was prohibited in any part of the original Louisiana Purchase outside the state of Missouri north of Missouri’s southern boundary of latitude 36°30'. Lincoln strongly agreed with this position, feeling that slavery should be contained within its original boundaries where it would eventually be driven to natural extinction. In addition to Douglas’s argument of “popular sovereignty,” the Supreme Court in 1857 had handed down the Dred Scott decision, which established that Congress did not have the constitutional right to bar slavery from new territories. All of this Abraham Lincoln opposed vigorously, going so far as to accuse Stephen A. Douglas and Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney as well as Presidents Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan unfairly of a conspiracy to allow slavery to spread throughout the Union (third part or 23 percent of the speech).35 Much has been written about this seminal speech, and there is certainly not a book on Lincoln that will not have the term “house divided” in its index. The actual discussions range from a couple of pages36 to entire chapters and separate pamphlets. From the point of view of modern thoughts on racism, the speech did not really go far enough. Lincoln did not go on record as being an abolitionist, and while his introductory statement seemed radical at first, it was in fact rather conservative in that it argued only for the restriction of slavery in the states where it already existed. It would take the revered Lincoln of today a number of years and the horrors of the Civil War until he would and could issue the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. In a letter of August 22, 1862, to Horace Greeley, Lincoln was still adhering to this policy, as he had made clear so many times ever since his convention speech four years earlier: My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union

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wolfgang m i e de r without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.37

Lincoln has thus been called “essentially a middle-of-the-roader in his attitude toward slavery,”38 while an extremist abolitionist judged Lincoln in a newspaper article of January 24, 1866, much harsher: “Lincoln was an emancipationist by compulsion. . . . Lincoln was made a saint and liberator in spite of himself; he was cuffed into the calendar; he was kicked into glory.”39 Perhaps it is best to simply state that “time proved that his straightforwardness was, after all, the best strategy”40 to get things on the political table. What was definitely clear to Lincoln was that “slavery could not be denationalized; it had either to grow or die.”41 But he certainly had no intention of taking the matter to a civil war.“There will be no war, no violence,”42 he declared openly during the seventh debate on October 15, 1858. Whether Abraham Lincoln intended it so or not, his “house divided” speech became “the keynote for the Lincoln-Douglas debates to follow in the Senate campaign, themselves the most famous examples of political debate in American history.”43 The shrewd and experienced debater Douglas used the short first part of Lincoln’s convention speech to brand him a warmongering abolitionist. In fact, the speech in one way or another is cited in twenty of the twenty-one speeches (Lincoln’s opening remarks during the fourth debate on September 18, 1858 in Charleston being the one exception), and Douglas carried Lincoln’s speech in a little notebook along to the debates and other stump speeches to cite freely from it in order to unveil Lincoln’s supposed abolitionist extremism. On the other hand, Lincoln also had with him his “house divided” speech, parts of the Declaration of Independence, segments of Henry Clay’s speeches, and various clippings from newspapers pasted into a little leather book for the debates.44 Douglas twisted Lincoln’s views to such a degree that he also argued that he was against the views of the Founding Fathers, that is, against keeping slavery at

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least in those states where it had traditionally existed. David Zarefsky has summed up Douglas’s plan of attack in the following manner:“Douglas’s strategy, then, was to draw on the filiopiety of the age in suggesting that the ‘House Divided’ speech put Lincoln at odds with the revered Fathers, further proving that the challenger was a dangerous radical who could not be trusted with a seat in the U. S. Senate.”45 Douglas knew he had Lincoln on the defensive, and right from his opening remarks during the first debate on August 21, 1858, in Ottawa, he branded Lincoln as an abolitionist ready to go to war to end slavery: In his speech at Springfield to the convention which nominated him for Senate, he [Lincoln] said: “In my opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’ I believe this Government cannot endure permanently half Slave and half Free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. . . .” Why can it not exist divided into free and slave States? Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Hamilton, Jay, and the great men of that day, made this Government divided into free States and slave States, and left each State perfectly free to do as it pleased on the subject of slavery. Why can it not exist on the same principles on which our fathers made it? (“It can.”) They knew when they framed the Constitution that in a country as wide and broad as this, with such a variety of climate, production and interest, the people necessarily required different laws and institutions in different localities. . . . One of the reserved rights of the States, was the right to regulate the relations between Master and Servant, on the slavery question. At the time the Constitution was formed, there were thirteen States in the Union, twelve of which were slaveholding States and one a free State. Suppose this doctrine of uniformity preached by Mr. Lincoln, that the States should all be free or all be slave had

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wolfgang m i e de r prevailed and what would have been the result? Of course, the twelve slaveholding States would have overruled the one free State, and slavery would have been fastened by a Constitutional provision on every inch of the American Republic, instead of being left as our fathers wisely left it, to each State to decide for itself.46

That is strong and powerful rhetoric and medicine. It is, of course, an argument for popular sovereignty with respect to slavery, something Lincoln vehemently opposed. Douglas presented logical and clear arguments, and the difficulty was that Lincoln had to agree with some of them. This made his position in the response especially difficult. And what is missing from both contestants is, of course, any discussion whatsoever on moral grounds. The whole argument concerns popular sovereignty versus national policy regarding slavery.These arguments seem like hairsplitting to modern readers, but they were the hot issues of the day and the beginning at least of questioning slavery as such. In his response to Douglas, Lincoln started with a discussion of his “house divided” proverb, and he even referred to a “moral constitution of men’s minds.” But there was no moral commitment to the extinction to slavery yet.There was only the hope of final extinction if it remained confined to the present slave states. But here is part of Lincoln’s response, starting with a bit of humor at Douglas’s expense: [Douglas] has read from my speech in Springfield, in which I say that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” Does the Judge say it can stand? [Laughter.] I don’t know whether he does or not. . . . I would like to know if it is his opinion that a house divided against itself can stand. If he does, then there is a question of veracity, not between him and me, but between the Judge and an authority of a somewhat higher character. . . .When he undertakes to say that because I think this nation, so far as the question of Slavery is concerned, will all become one thing or all the other, I am in favor of bringing about a dead uniformity in the various States, in all their institutions, he argues erroneously. The great variety of the local institutions in the

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States, springing from differences in the soil, differences in the face of the country, and in the climate, are bonds of the Union. They do not make “a house divided against itself,” but they make a house united. If they produce in one section of the country what is called for by the wants of another section, and this other section can supply the wants of the first, they are not matters of discord but bonds of union, true bonds of union. But can this question of slavery be considered as among these varieties in the institutions of the country? I leave it to you to say whether, in the history of our government, this institution of slavery has not always failed to be a bond of union, and, on the contrary, been an apple of discord and an element of division in the house. . . . Lately, I think, that [Douglas], and those acting with him, have placed that institution on a new basis, which looks to the perpetuity and nationalization of slavery. [Loud cheers.] And while it is placed upon this new basis, I say, and I have said, that I believe we shall not have peace upon the question until the opponents of slavery arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction. . . .47

Great oratory indeed! But it must have been difficult then, and it is so today, to understand how this “ultimate extinction” of slavery was to come about. Did people think that all black people would die out naturally during the next hundred years? What becomes clear from these two long quotations is that neither Douglas nor Lincoln was yet discussing the real issues, namely the immorality of slavery and the liberation of the slaves.The time for the Emancipation Proclamation had not yet come! After so much discussion of the biblical proverb “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” it was appropriate for Douglas not to mention it again in his half-hour rejoinder at the end of the first debate. Even though some of the water is murky between the two candidates, their basic positions on slavery have become clear: Douglas argued for popular sovereignty, and Lincoln claimed that slavery was a national problem. By the time of the sixth debate on October 13, 1858, in Quincy,

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Douglas was on a roll with ever new twists to this proverb. Lincoln had not used it in his opening speech, but Douglas employed it mercilessly in his hour-and-a-half-long response, this time making sure that people would look at Lincoln and his party as abolitionists. He even went so far as to paint Lincoln as a possible exterminator of the slaves: Mr. Lincoln told his Abolition friends that this government could not endure permanently, divided into free and slave States as our fathers made it, and that it must become all free or all slave, otherwise, that the government could not exist. How then does Lincoln propose to save the Union, unless by compelling all the States to become free, so that the house shall not be divided against itself? He intends making them all free; he will preserve the Union in that way, and yet, he is not going to interfere with slavery anywhere it now exists. How is he going to bring it about? [. . .] He will hem [the slaves] in until starvation seizes them, and by starving them to death, he will put slavery in the course of ultimate extinction. If he is not going to interfere with slavery in the States, but intends to interfere and prohibit it in the territories, and thus smother slavery out, it naturally follows, that he can extinguish it only by extinguishing the negro race, for his policy would drive them to starvation. This is the humane and Christian remedy that he proposes for the great crime of slavery.48

This is a vicious and slanderous and above all false statement, and Douglas knew it! Nevertheless, he made it and thus can stake the claim of having lowered the spirit of the debate to what is today referred to as a mud-slinging campaign. Lincoln responded somewhat indirectly to this nasty outbreak with some humorous relief and then got in an effective slam himself: I wish to return Judge Douglas my profound thanks for his public annunciation here to-day, to be put on record, that his system of policy in regard to the institution of slavery contemplates that it shall last forever. We are getting a little nearer the true issue of

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this controversy, and I am profoundly grateful for this one sentence. . . . When Judge Douglas undertakes to say that as a matter of choice the fathers of the government made this nation part slave and part free, he assumes what is historically a falsehood. More than that; when the fathers of the government cut off the source of slavery by the abolition of the slave trade, and adopted a system of restricting it from the new Territories where it had not existed, I maintain that they placed it where they understood, and all sensible men understood, it was in the course of ultimate extinction; and when Judge Douglas asks me why it cannot continue as our fathers made it, I ask him why he and his friends could not let it remain as our fathers made it?49

This time the damage was to Douglas, but notice how generously and politely, albeit with a bit of irony, Lincoln developed his rhetorical blows. He took the high road, and in due time people recognized it, just as he came to realize that all this talk needed real action, namely the eventual Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863. Lincoln used the proverb three more times in speeches during September of 1859 in the context of referring to his “house divided” speech.50 On December 7, 1860, he even went so far as to prepare a transcript in pencil of the “house divided” section of his 1858 speech for Edward B. Pease, a hardware dealer from Springfield. Surely this citizen must have asked Lincoln for this favor.51 As president and during the Civil War Lincoln interestingly enough used the proverb but once in his published works. In a letter to Major General Nathaniel P. Banks of November 5, 1863, Lincoln expressed certain worries about what type of state government would be established in Louisiana: If a few professedly loyal men shall draw the disloyal about them, and colorably set up a State government, repudiating the emancipation proclamation, and re-establishing slavery, I can not recognize or sustain their work. I should fall powerless in the attempt.This government, in such an attitude, would be a house divided against itself.52

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The fear of even the slightest chance of reintroducing slavery reminded him of his old biblical proverb, which he seemingly had put aside once the Civil War had started. Understandably so, for the proverb “A house divided against itself cannot stand” had proven itself to be true as far as Lincoln was concerned. The Civil War was proof of the wisdom of this biblical proverb. The house had really fallen, and the future of the Union now depended on the outcome of the war. In the fourth quarter of the nineteenth century, the phrase “The house divided against itself cannot stand” became canonized in quotation dictionaries as belonging to Lincoln in some way or another, while it is cited in proverb dictionaries as a folk proverb without any reference to the Bible or Lincoln. As cultural literacy continues to decline, the proverb will more and more push aside its connection to the Bible and Lincoln.This liberation of the proverb “The house divided against itself cannot stand” from its biblical origin and its significant association with Abraham Lincoln is ever more noticeable today. Introductory formulas specifically referring to the Bible or Lincoln are falling by the wayside, except in such cases where books or articles deal either with religious subjects or Lincoln and the Civil War. But usually the proverb is cited without any such hints, and it stands on its own feet just like any other folk proverb for which the origin is lost in obscurity. For some people the proverb will always be connected with the Bible and Abraham Lincoln, and to others it will simply be one of those hundreds of anonymous little pieces of wisdom that float around and find their use whenever the shoe fits. Obviously Lincoln’s name was very much attached to the proverb during the Civil War and immediately after his death. Thus it will not be surprising that the young minister Phillips Brooks cited the proverb in his sermon on “The Character, Life, and Death of Abraham Lincoln,” which he delivered on April 23, 1865, while Lincoln’s body lay in state at Independence Hall in Philadelphia: The President came to his power full of the blood, strong in the strength of Freedom. He came there free, and hating slavery. He came there, leaving on record words like these spoken three years before and never contradicted. He had said, “A house divided

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against itself cannot stand. I believe this Government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall; but I expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.”When the question came, he knew which thing he meant that it should be. His whole nature settled that question for him.53

It is interesting to note that the pastor did not place the proverb into quotation marks as Lincoln had done. Nor did he refer to the Bible at all, something that Lincoln and Douglas both had done on occasion in their use of the proverb during the debates. Phillips Brooks is thus already this early in the development of the biblical proverb after Lincoln making it an expression that was coined by the president. About a month later, on June 1, 1865 the Reverend Richard Fuller delivered a sermon with the interesting title “A City or House Divided Against Itself.” As if to explain the title, he added the biblical proverb “And every city or house divided against itself, shall not stand”—Matt. xii:25.”54 The Reverend Fuller did well in quoting the proverb from the Gospel of Matthew instead of Mark or Luke in his sermon on the need for positive reconstruction after the Civil War. While Mark and Luke, and thus also Lincoln, use only the house image, Matthew speaks of “every city or house divided against itself,” thus alluding to the fact that as the Union is healing from the wounds of the war, individual houses as well as entire cities must be rebuilt. Fuller mentions Lincoln only in passing, whose “blood, shed by the hand of an assassin, fell upon the altar which he was building to generosity, to liberty, to conciliation.”55 Almost becoming the voice of Lincoln, Fuller closes his plea for reconciliation between the South and the North as follows: Let all who truly love the Union now bury dissensions in oblivion. Recollect that schemes for the dissolution of that Union have been cherished and may again be cherished in other quarters besides the South. . . . Let us go home resolving to cherish in our own hearts, and to shed around us, in the church, in our families, in the community, the gentle spirit of peace and love.56

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Interestingly enough, however, there is no reference to Lincoln’s use of the “house divided” proverb in this sermon. Did the Reverend Fuller simply feel that his audience would make that connection all by itself, or did he want to make a different point, stressing the variant from Matthew and leaving Lincoln’s repeated use of the proverb unmentioned? Around the turn of the century, literary references to the proverb generally ignored both the Bible and Lincoln connections.The following excerpt out of William Cowper Brann’s collection of essays entitled Brann, the Iconoclast makes this quite clear, even though it deals with church matters: “I have suffered and sacrificed much for this people,” he said at length, as though speaking to himself, “and it has borne so little fruit. The world misunderstood me. The church planted by toil and nurtured with my blood has split up into hundreds of warring factions, despite my warning that a house divided against itself cannot stand.”57

In this quotation at least the entire proverb is still cited. But in the following excerpt from Booth Tarkington’s The Conquest of Canaan the proverb has been reduced to a mere allusion, giving readers not much of a chance to make any connections with the Bible or Lincoln: “On this, the house divided, one party maintaining that Joe had thus endeavored to evade recognition, the other that the reply was a distinct admission of identity and at the same time a refusal to grant any favors on the score of past acquaintanceship.”58 When Carl Sandburg used the proverb in a wording quite close to the original in his epic poem The People, Yes, published in 1936, he probably had Lincoln’s use of it in mind. After all, Sandburg had already written the first part of his celebrated biography Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and was working on the second part with the title Abraham Lincoln: The War Years. In his long poem Sandburg dealt with a more modern divided house in America, one that is not so much politically motivated as economically:

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Said the scorpion of hate: “The poor hate the rich. The rich hate the poor. The south hates the north. The west hates the east. The workers hate their bosses. The bosses hate their workers. The country hates the towns. The towns hate the country. We are a house divided against itself. We are millions of hands raised against each other.We are united in but one aim—getting the dollar. And when we get the dollar we employ it to get more dollars.”59

In B. English’s detective novel War, published in 1971, appears a version with the noun “city” that is reminiscent of the proverb as cited in Matt. 12:25. Of special interest is, of course, that the author refers specifically to the fact that he is citing a proverb, and most likely one from folk tradition and not from the Bible or Lincoln: “The city was a divided one, and very often, true to the proverb, it did not stand.”60 This is quite an appropriate statement for a novel dealing with war and its destruction of cities. Generally speaking, modern authors have no particular interest in connecting the proverb with Lincoln or the Bible for that matter, unless they write about those subjects. The proverb, originally rooted in the New Testament and then attached to Lincoln, has definitely undergone a liberation process. It is evermore becoming a folk proverb free of any particular associations and ready to serve as a strategic communicative device when called upon. And, more often then not, it is simply cited as the “house divided” remnant. In fact, a computer search for such titles on the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) database yielded 373 titles in January of 1998. There were some duplications of individual titles, and such nondescript allusions as (A) House Divided or (A) Divided House appear again and again. At times books with these titles do not have subtitles, and one wonders how prospective readers are to know what divisive issues are possibly dealt with in these publications. It would be absurd to cite almost 400 titles at this point, but representative titles of books covering various subject areas will illustrate the incredible versatility of the titular manipulation of the proverb.

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On the purely literary scene, H. B. Marriott Watson published a novel entitled The House Divided (1901) taking place in the eighteenth century, followed by Pearl S. Buck’s Chinese novel A House Divided (1935). But then followed a third novel of epic proportions by Ben Ames Williams. He gave his work of 1,514 pages the short title House Divided (1947), and this time the title does in fact reflect its content by indirectly referring to the sociopolitical strife in the United States before and during the Civil War. But there are also four plays with titles alluding to the proverb without an indication as to what divisive problem is brought to the stage in them: A. W. Futter, Divided House (1950), P. Joynson-Wreford, A House Divided (1981), W. Stuart McDowell, A House Divided (1987), and Stephen Barber, A House Divided (1992).There are more books with this basic title where it is impossible to know from a computer search whether they are novels, plays, or whatever. The only thing that this type of title accomplishes is to suggest that some kind of problem is being dealt with that has brought about a separation of sorts. The proverbial remnant “A house divided” has become a household term to be used whenever any schism is being discussed. Often it is doubtful whether Lincoln was on the minds of the authors. However, that is doubtless the case in the following titles that employ parts of the proverb and actually also mention Lincoln as well. Here the authors are very well aware of the fact that Lincoln used the proverb and that an allusion to it will immediately call to mind the strife between the North and the South: ✦

McMaster, John Bach. Our House Divided: A History of the People of the United States During Lincoln’s Administration. Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Publications, 1961. Note that the first edition of 1883 did not have the proverbial title.

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Forgie, George B. Patricide in the House Divided: A Psychological Interpretation of Lincoln and His Age. New York: Norton, 1979.

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Foner, Eric, and Olivia Mahoney. A House Divided: America in the Age of Lincoln. Chicago: Chicago Historical Society, 1990.

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It is also quite natural that scholars writing about the Civil War will draw on the proverb, associated with Lincoln as it was, to create somewhat catchy titles. Some of them tend to get close to verbatim repetition, and authors of the future would do well to run a computer check on titles to avoid unnecessary repetition. There is always still a possibility to find an innovative subtitle: ✦

Sewell, Richard H. A House Divided: Sectionalism and Civil War, 1848–1865. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988.

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Linden, Glenn M., and Thomas J. Pressly (eds.). Voices from the House Divided: The United States Civil War as Personal Experience. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995.

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Dolan, Edward F.The American Civil War: A House Divided. Brookfield, CT: Millbrook Press, 1997.

It is interesting to note from this list that now authors are beginning to cite the informative title first, using the “house divided” statement as an all-encompassing subtitle. A few final examples of titles deal with social and racial problems in the United States. The metaphorical proverb remnant “A House Divided” fits perfectly to illustrate the divisive nature of these issues. One could, of course, ask whether the day will come that authors will be able to change the pessimistic image into one of positive change and hope: ✦

Lokos, Lionel. House Divided: The Life and Legacy of Martin Luther King. New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1968.

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Melady, Thomas Patrick. House Divided: Poverty, Race, Religion, and the Family of Man. New York: Sheed & Ward, 1969.

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Newsome, Yvonne D. A House Divided: Conflict and Cooperation in African American-Jewish Relations. Ph.D. Diss. Northwestern University, 1991.

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Especially studies that deal with racial issues in America will probably have once again used the “house divided” proverb allusion with thoughts of Lincoln and his fight against slavery in mind. One last reference merits mentioning since it is, in a way, a liberation from the original proverb. On June 25, 1997, a short legal report on a case involving a telephone pole as taxable property appeared on the Internet with the headline “N.H. Supreme Court: A Pole Divided May Stand.”The first paragraph helps to understand this absurd title: “A single pole carrying telephone, cable and power lines can be taxable property for one company but not for others, the New Hampshire Supreme Court said in an advisory opinion to legislators.”61 But no matter how far fetched this variation might be, the basic structure of the proverb “A house divided against itself cannot stand” is easily discernible. Whoever dreamed up this innovative rephrasing of an old proverb certainly must have enjoyed the wordplay tremendously. This title is also one more indication of what is still to come. It has been argued that especially in its shortened form of “A house divided” the biblical proverb that became attached to Lincoln’s name in the middle of the nineteenth century is barely reminiscent, if at all, of Jesus’ wisdom or that of Lincoln. The original proverb is, in fact, not cited very often anymore today. In a world where things are communicated by sound bites it is only the short cliché without the deeper meaning that gets plugged into verbal communication. But there is one major exception to all of this, and that is the role that the proverb “A house divided against itself cannot stand” was to play during the reunification of Germany. It must be noted at the beginning of a short account of this intriguing story that this biblical proverb did not become very current in Germany. None of the major German quotation dictionaries include the Bible reference, and with one exception they don’t include any wellknown quotations from Abraham Lincoln either.62 Carl Schulze’s specialized collection of German biblical proverbs entitled Die biblischen Sprichwörter der deutschen Sprache does list “Ein jeglich Reich, so es mit ihm selbst uneins wird, das wird wüste” (Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; Matt. 12:25), but it does not add the next verse

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that contains the “house divided” proverb.63 Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Wander’s massive Deutsches Sprichwörter-Lexikon also includes only this one text from the Bible in a slightly different wording “Wenn ein Reich mit ihm selber vereins wird, so kann es nicht bestehen” (If a kingdom is divided against itself it cannot stand; Matt. 12:25).64 What this means is that neither the “kingdom” nor the “house” proverb from the synoptic gospels has become truly proverbial in German. This is quite different from the popularity of these two proverbs in the Anglo-American language, and it shows that there is a considerable difference between the biblical proverbs from one language to another.65 A German version of the “house divided” proverb may, however, still gain some currency in Germany, and if that were to become the case, the credit most assuredly should go to Willy Brandt, former mayor of West Berlin (1957–1966) and chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (1969–1974).The reason for such a possible spread of this biblical proverb in Germany goes back to the year 1959 when the then mayor of West Berlin was invited by the city of Springfield, Illinois, to give a lecture at the sesquicentennial celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday on April 12th. It is not known, of course, whether Brandt wrote his address himself, but he certainly was fluent in English, and he was able to address dignitaries and normal citizens alike on that day in perfect English.Whoever prepared this speech knew a considerable amount about the legacy of Abraham Lincoln. Among a number of quotations from Lincoln’s famous speeches cited by Willy Brandt was also the “house divided” proverb. In light of the fact that Brandt came from a divided city and country, this was the perfect metaphor for him to speak about at this memorable event: Abraham Lincoln spoke of the duty of the whole people to never entrust to any hands but their own the preservation of their liberties, a duty which, after bitter experience, the great majority of the German people also acknowledge. He spoke of the eternal struggle between democracy and tyranny.We know that this struggle has torn apart the European continent and that it has assumed world-wide dimensions. He

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wolfgang m i e de r quoted the passage from the Bible about the house divided against itself, and expressed his conviction that this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. The truths which Lincoln spoke here in Springfield in June, 1858, are perhaps even more applicable to the present situation of the German people than to the one which he faced: that is, to the arbitrary disruption of their lives, for which, of course, they are not without guilt themselves.66

A German translation of this speech appeared with the fitting title “Amerikanische und deutsche Einheit” (American and German Unity) in a journal in Germany, indicating explicitly that Brandt’s speech dealt with the idea of a “union” just as Lincoln’s speech had done almost exactly one hundred years earlier. The center paragraph just cited in English was translated from the following German text: Er sprach von dem ewigen Kampf zwischen Demokratie und Tyrannei. Wir wissen, daß diese Auseinandersetzung den europäischen Kontinent zerrissen und daß sie weltweite Formen angenommen hat. Er stützte sich auf das Wort vom geteilten Haus, das keinen Bestand hat, und gab seiner Überzeugung Ausdruck, daß ein Staat nicht auf die Dauer mit einer versklavten und einer freien Hälfte bestehen kann.67

Obviously the contextualized use of the proverb in the nontraditional wording of “das Wort vom geteilten Haus, das keinen Bestand hat” (translated as “the passage from the Bible about the house divided against itself ”) could not be of any influence in spreading the biblical proverb or Lincoln’s quotation of it in the German language. German readers of the speech were not even made aware of the fact that Lincoln was quoting the Bible. Whoever translated this speech must have been solidly steeped in cultural literacy. It seems that this speech was written by a German who had studied American history and politics and who was literally translating this particular passage from the English when creating the German text for Willy Brandt. In that case the word “Wort” could in a way stand for “passage from the Bible.” But again, it would

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have been the rarest German reader who would have made the connection to the Bible. But be that as it may, Willy Brandt did not forget the proverbial metaphor in his subsequent political career, which saw him rise to the position of chancellor and European politician. As a person dedicated to the idea of unifying Germany, Brandt’s use of the proverb “A house divided against itself cannot stand” became a fitting leitmotif for him that gave figurative expression to the desire for reunification. Just as Lincoln most likely used the biblical proverb frequently in oral communication, Brandt probably did the same in his many political discussions. Fortunately some of these have been recorded, notably an interview conducted by political journalists of the German news magazine Der Spiegel on August 28, 1978. In fact, in the following quotation Brandt states explicitly that he quoted Lincoln frequently when he argued for German unity abroad. In such discussions Brandt would have been speaking in English most of the time, and he could count on the fact that his audience would know either the biblical proverb or Lincoln’s use of it or both: Ich habe über viele Jahre hinweg im Ausland um Verständnis gebeten, daß wir auf die Dauer nicht als ein wegen der Nazi-Zeit innerlich gespaltenes Volk leben könnten. Ich habe mich häufig auf einen Satz von Lincoln, der auch nicht von ihm kommt, sondern den er wieder aus der Bibel hat—was ja auch keine Schande ist— , bezogen, daß ein in sich gespaltenes Haus keinen Bestand haben kann.68 (For many years I have asked for understanding abroad that we [Germans] cannot live forever as an internally divided people because of the Nazi era. I have often referred to a sentence by Lincoln, which does not stem from him but which he in turn got from the Bible—a fact that is nothing to be ashamed of— that a house divided against itself cannot stand.)

Brandt specifically tells the journalists and thus their German readers that the proverb that he is citing from Lincoln does in fact have a biblical origin. This obviously is of considerable importance for the possible dissemination of the proverb/quotation as a loan translation in Germany.

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A dozen years later during the tumultuous and truly exciting time of German reunification in 1990, Brandt not surprisingly remembered his previous fascination with this proverb, which so aptly fit the German political situation for several decades. In an address on January 31, 1990, in Tutzing, with the title “Die Sache ist gelaufen” (The Matter [Reunification] Has Run Its Course), Brandt made the following extremely important statement at the end of his remarks. First of all he declared that he had made the “house divided” proverb the closing leitmotif in all of the speeches that he delivered throughout the recently liberated former East Germany.Then he cited the proverb in German together with the English version and its association with Lincoln. He did not mention the Bible though, thus spreading the new German loan proverb primarily as one originating with Lincoln: Meine Kundgebungen in der DDR schließe ich nicht von ungefähr mit den schönen Lincoln-Worten, daß ein in sich gespaltenes Haus nicht Bestand hat. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Das gilt für die gespaltene deutsche Nation; über die aktuellen Aufregungen hinaus auch für die Zukunft der DDR, die wieder zusammenfinden muß und nicht in Haß und Rache untergehen darf.69 (I don’t close my speeches in the GDR for nothing with the beautiful words by Lincoln that a house divided against itself cannot stand. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”That is true for the German nation; beyond the present-day excitement also for the future of the GDR, which must find its way to reunion and which must not vanish in hate and revenge.)

By citing both the German translation and the English original in his speeches, Brandt was not only trying to indicate the linguistic dependence of the German version. He knew very well that many if not most Germans could perfectly well understand the English text quoted from Lincoln. If the proverb has in fact gained some currency in Germany today, it is most likely cited either in German or preferably in English. The incredible influence of the Anglo-American language has, as is well known, brought a flood of English words and phrases into the German language.70

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If the proverb were ever to become current in the German language, it would be in the wording “Ein in sich gespaltenes Haus hat keinen Bestand.” The German biblical versions of “Eine jegliche Stadt oder Haus, so es mit sich selbst uneins wird, kann’s nicht bestehen” (Matt. 12:25) and “Wenn ein Haus mit sich selbst uneins wird, kann es nicht bestehen” (Mark 3:25)71 have not attained proverbial status in hundreds of years, and they will not do so considering the diminishing role that religion plays in German society. If this useful and historically rich proverb ever were to become current in German or English in Germany, then the credit would definitely have to go to Willy Brandt, who used it frequently as a metaphor to argue for German reunification and subsequently as a warning to keep the newly established Union intact.There is no doubt that Brandt admired Lincoln, and Lincoln in turn would have had equal respect for Brandt. Two great minds and politicians used the same proverb to keep their people together! The use of the “house divided” proverb in connection with Germany has been picked up in more recent publications, illustrating that it is in fact a fitting metaphor for the German situation. Stephen J. Silvia entitled a scholarly pamphlet on collective bargaining in the reunited Germany by employing the long established formulaic remnant of the proverb: A House Divided: Employers and the Challenge to Pattern Bargaining in a United Germany.72 And during the writing of this chapter an English translation of Hans-Dietrich Genscher’s autobiography Erinnerungen (Memoirs) appeared. As Germany’s longest serving foreign minister (1974–1989), Genscher had played an important role in moving Germany step by step toward reunification and also in bringing the Cold War to an end.When the marketing strategists at Broadway Books in New York planned an appropriate title for the American edition of Genscher’s memoirs, the following title must have come to them almost naturally: Rebuilding A House Divided: A Memoir by the Architect of Germany’s Reunification (1998). From everything that has been said and presented in this chapter it comes almost as a surprise that the title Rebuilding A House Divided has not been used before. It would have been most fitting for the many studies that have treated the period of reconstruction that followed the Civil War. Perhaps Abraham Lincoln used it orally before his tragic death

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as he began to concentrate on the rebuilding of the Union. The same might be true for Willy Brandt before his death as he struggled to reconstruct Germany after its division had ceased. But there is no need for speculation at the end of this study of the proverb “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” There is no doubt that it expresses in a metaphorical fashion and thus by means of the “art of indirection”73 a fundamental truth about sociopolitical reality and human behavior confronting it. Its message since the Bible and through the age of Abraham Lincoln on to the modern age rings loud and clear for all to hear: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

notes 1 Only “house” variants are listed in Lean, 1903, vol. 3, p. 391; Stevenson, 1948, p. 1191 (no. 4); Barbour, 1965, p. 95; and Simpson, 1992, p. 132. Mieder, Kingsbury, and Harder 1992, p. 315 and p. 349 list both the “house” and “kingdom” variants. 2 One of those exceptions is the variant “A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand,” which appears in Snapp, 1933 p. 60. 3 Chalkley,1790, p. 43. I owe this as well as the subsequent references including those from Andrew Jackson to the invaluable yet very short citations in Whiting, 1977, p. 226. 4 The entire broadsheet with seventy-two stanzas is included in Winslow, 1930, p. 185 (part 2, stanzas 7–8). 5 Paine, 1989, pp. 6–7. I owe this reference to my graduate student Olga Trokhimenko, who found it through a computer search of the University of Virginia Electronic Library (Modern English Collection) database. Scholars are certain that Lincoln read Thomas Paine, and thus must have known this reference to the proverb. See Basler, 1946, p. 6. 6 Curtius, 1787, p. 384. 7 Adams, 1878, p. 502.

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8 Stansbury, 1822, p. 153. 9 See Haines, 1836. 10 Bassett, 1929, vol. 4, p. 208. 11 Part of the lengthy “Speech of Mr. Houston of Texas, in the Senate of the United States, Friday, February 8, 1850.” 1850, vol. 22, part 1, p. 102. I owe this reference as well as the following one from Daniel Webster to a footnote in Forgie, 1979, p. 201 (note 2). 12 Webster, 1903, vol. 4, pp. 243–244, p. 245, and p. 258. 13 Quincy, 1852, p. 174. I owe this valuable reference to Nevins, 1947, p. 78. See also Quincy, 1863. In this 23–page pamphlet Edmund Quincy (1808–1877) does not cite the proverb again, but he makes the following statement: “The entire history of the United States is but the record of the evidence of this fact [the existence of slavery]. What event in our annals is there that Slavery has not set her brand upon it to mark it as her own? In the very moment of the nation’s birth, like the evil fairy of the nursery tale, she was present to curse it with her fatal words”(p. 9). 14 Trueblood, 1973, p. 58. Trueblood includes a revealing chapter on “Lincoln and the Bible” (pp. 48–71) in his informative book. Lincoln also was an avid reader of The Believer’s Daily Treasure, 1852, which was reissued with an introduction by Carl Sandburg and the title Lincoln’s Devotional 1957. Many of the biblical proverbs used by Lincoln are also included in this book with precise references. It should be noted, however, that the “house divided” proverb does not appear in the collection. I owe this reference to my friend William White. 15 Nicolay, 1912, p. 364. 16 Edwards and Hankins, 1962, p. 98. 17 Basler, 1953, vol. 7, p. 368.This edition also provides an Index volume (New Brunswick, 1955), a Supplement 1832–1865 volume (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1974), and a Second Supplement 1848–1865 volume (New Brunswick, 1990). All citations from Lincoln are from this edition, and they are henceforth indicated by Collected Works followed by the volume and page numbers. It should be noted that Lincoln’s original spelling has been maintained throughout!

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18 For Lincoln’s “use of ethical persuasion” (without referring to the employment of proverbs) see Bauer, 1927, 29–39 (especially pp. 36–39). 19 Collected Works, vol. 1, p. 315 (the entire circular on pp. 309–318). 20 See Collected Works, vol. 2, p. 448 (note 1). 21 Collected Works, vol. 2, pp. 452–453. 22 Bryan, 1968, p. 95. 23 The fact that the account is not included in Fehrenbacher and Fehrenbacher, 1996, can be taken as a solid indication that there is no truth to it. 24 It should be pointed out that the reliable Lincoln scholar Don E. Fehrenbacher has presented an argument that this fragment was most likely already written during the last days of December 1857. However, this does not change the fact that Lincoln had used the “house divided” proverb in writing shortly before the June 16, 1858 speech. See Fehrenbacher, 1960, 637–641. In his recent biography on Lincoln, David Herbert Donald agrees with this earlier date of the fragment (Donald, 1995, pp. 206–207). 25 The meaning of the statement “He that runs may read” might cause the modern reader some trouble. It is a Bible quotation that has gained some proverbial status:“And the Lord answered me, and said,Write the vision, and make it plain upon tablets, that he may run that readeth it” (Habakkuk 2:2). A couple of meanings are possible for this proverb rarely used today: Referring to Lincoln’s “house divided” proverb, it might mean that people who hear (read) it will make haste to escape from the danger of letting the Union be destroyed. It might also simply mean that the “house divided” proverb is so clear that the listener (reader) should be quick in understanding it. See Stevenson, 1948, p. 1938 (no. 13). It should be noted that Lincoln never used this biblical proverb in his Collected Works, placing immediate doubt on the authenticity at least of this proverb in Herndon’s account. 26 This is what William Herndon claimed in a lecture delivered about Lincoln on January 24, 1866, which was published much later (see Herndon, 1944–1945, p. 184). See the same text in Fehrenbacher and Fehrenbacher, 1996, p. 251. The statement also appears in slightly changed wording in Herndon and Weik, 1892, vol. 2, p. 67. See also the accounts of this popular paragraph in Holland, 1866, p. 161; Browne, 1886, pp. 178–179; Nicolay and Hay, 1905, vol. 3, pp. 1–2 (note 1); Morgan, 1908, pp. 118–119; and Berry, 1931, pp. 34–35.

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27 Fehrenbacher and Fehrenbacher, 1996, p. 267. Not wishing to spread these myths concerning the speech before and after its delivery any further, I simply refer the reader to several far-fetched accounts presented in this excellent book based on serious scholarly work (see pp. 17–18, 145–146, 250–251, 266–267, 326, 334, 352, 439, 488, 537–538). 28 Barret, 1865, p. 144. 29 Collected Works, vol. 1, p. 315. 30 See Randall, 1946, vol. 1, p. 107. 31 Luthin, 1960, p. 193. 32 Collected Works, vol. 2, pp. 461–462. 33 See Basler, 1946, p. 24 . 34 Sandburg, 1954, p. 138. 35 For a detailed discussion of these three parts of the speech see Fehrenbacher, 1960, pp. 615–646 (the percentages are given on p. 641); Leff, 1983, pp. 6–9 (the 20-page pamphlet is based on the Van Zelst Lecture in Communication delivered on May 19, 1983 at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois); and Zarefsky, 1990, pp. 44–45. 36 For some of these shorter comments see Dodge, 1924, pp. 55–56; Randall, 1946, pp. 105–107; Anderson, 1970, pp. 114–121; Bradford, 1979, pp. 10–24 (especially pp. 18–19); Fehrenbacher, 1986, pp. 31–49 (especially pp. 41–42); and Grafton, 1991, pp. 24–25. 37 Collected Works, vol. 5, p. 388. 38 See Cole, 1923, p. 6.The entire pamphlet contains thirty-six pages and is the printed version of a lecture delivered before the Chicago Historical Society on March 15, 1923. 39 Cole, 1923, p. 7. Cole cites this reference from the Columbus (Massachusetts) Crisis newspaper. 40 See Newton, 1910, p. 174. 41 Anderson, 1970, p. 115.

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42 Collected Works, vol. 3, p. 316. 43 Neely, 1993, p. 50. 44 See Holzer, 1993, p. 17. 45 Zarefsky, 1990, p. 143 (see also p. 142). 46 Collected Works, vol. 3, pp. 7–9. 47 Collected Works, vol. 3, pp. 17–18. 48 Collected Works, vol. 3, pp. 265–266. 49 Collected Works, vol. 3, p. 276. 50 Collected Works, vol. 3. p. 407 (September 16, 1859); p. 438 (September 17, 1859); and p. 464 (September 19, 1859). 51 Collected Works, vol. 4, p. 147. 52 Collected Works, vol. 7, p. 1. 53 Brooks, 1990, p. 56. 54 See Fuller, 1865. 55 Fuller, 1865, p. 10. 56 Fuller, 1865, pp. 19–20. 57 Brann, 1919, vol. 1, p. 73. I owe this and the next two references to my student Olga Trokhimenko, who found them on the University of Virginia Electronic Library (Modern English Collection) database. 58 Tarkington, 1905, p. 101. 59 Sandburg, 1964, p. 71 (end of section 36). See also the significant fifty-seventh section on “Lincoln” (pp. 134–139). Here Sandburg cites Lincoln’s “government of the people by the people for the people” (p. 134), but he does not quote the “house divided” proverb.

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60 This reference is cited from Whiting, 1977, p. 328. It appears on p.15 in the novel. Unfortunately I did not succeed in locating this book, and for this reason no context can be cited. 61 This last reference I also owe to my student Olga Trokhimenko. 62 Thirteen quotations from Lincoln in German translation are included in Kirchberger,1977, pp. 238–239. The “House Divided” proverb is not included. 63 See Schulze, 1860, p. 145. 64 See Wander, 1964, vol. 3 (1873), col. 1602 (no. 21). 65 For an interesting comparative study see Pfeffer, 1975, pp. 99–111. 66 These paragraphs are quoted from a 12-page double-spaced typed manuscript that Willy Brandt made available to journalists for morning newspapers of Friday, February 13, 1959. It has the title “Address by Willy Brandt, Governing Mayor of Berlin[,] delivered at The Lincoln Sesquicentennial Banquet[,] Springfield, Illinois, February 12, 1959.” For an interesting local newspaper report regarding Brandt’s speech see “Brandt Tells Of His People’s Fight” in the Illinois State Register (Springfield, Friday, February 13, 1959), pp. 1–2. In all the secondary literature read for this essay, I came across only one reference to Brandt’s Springfield address (see Peterson, 1994, p. 366). I would like to thank Nancy Crane and Angus Robertson from the Bailey/Howe Library at the University of Vermont for obtaining a copy of this speech from a “News Kit” housed at the John Hay Library (Special Collections) of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Nancy Crane also located the newspaper report from the Illinois State Register through the help of the town library in Springfield. 67 Brandt, 1959, p. 210. 68 Brandt, 1993(a), p. 273. I discovered this and the following references together with my student Sonja Eggert, who was working on her honors thesis (“‘Kleine Schritte sind besser als keine Schritte’:Willy Brandts sprichwörtliche Rhetorik,” University of Vermont, 1998) about the proverbial rhetoric of Willy Brandt. Her thesis includes a detailed index of all proverbs and proverbial expressions used by Brandt during his long political career. 69 Brandt, 1993, p. 82.

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70 For hundreds of examples with detailed notes and bibliographical references see Carstensen and Busse, 1993–1996. As an example of how the American proverb “A picture is worth a thousand words” has entered the German language both as a loan translation and in English see Mieder, 1989, 25–37. 71 The passage by the apostle Luke is very different in the German Bible translation, namely “Ein Haus fällt über das andere (11:17)” (One house falls over the other). It also has not reached any proverbial status. 72 Silvia, 1995, a 33-page pamphlet. 73 See Hurt, 1980, 352. Hurt argues convincingly that “Lincoln’s art, then, is an art of indirection, of finding a way of representing a deeply personal vision indirectly through parable-like stories and jokes, and, we might add, images and symbols.” At the end of this essay, let me simply add that proverbs are clearly part of this “art of indirection,” albeit one based on the emotive and expressive power of folk speech.

references Adams, Abigail. (1878). Letter to Mrs. Mercy Warren. In Correspondence between John Adams and Mercy Warren. Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 44, 501–502. Anderson, David D. (1970). Abraham Lincoln. New York: Twayne Publishers. Barbour, Frances M. (1965). Proverbs and proverbial phrases of Illinois. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Barret, Joseph H. (1865). Life of Abraham Lincoln. New York: Moore, Wilstach & Baldwin. Basler, Roy P. (1946). Lincoln’s development as a writer. In Roy P. Basler (Ed.), Abraham Lincoln: His speeches and writings (pp. 1–49). Cleveland, OH: World Publishing Company. Basler, Roy P., Ed. (1953). The collected works of Abraham Lincoln, 8 vols. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

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Bassett, John Spencer, Ed. (1929). Jackson, Andrew. Letter to Mrs. Andrew J. Donelson. In Correspondence of Andrew Jackson, vol. 4. Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington. Bauer, Marvin G. (1927). Persuasive methods in the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 13, 29–39. Berry, Mildred Freiburg. (1931). Lincoln:The speaker. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 17, 25–49. Bradford, M.E. (1979). Dividing the house: The gnosticism of Lincoln’s political rhetoric. Modern Age, 23, 10–24. Brandt, Willy. (1959). Amerikanische und deutsche Einheit. Abraham Lincoln zum 150. Geburtstag. Festansprache gehalten am 12. Februar 1959 in Springfield (Illinois), USA. Außenpolitik, 10, 209–213. Brandt, Willy. (1993a). Die “Spiegel”-Gespräche. (Erich Böhme and Kalus Wirtgen, Eds.). Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt. Reprinted in 1995 Reinbek: Rowohlt Verlag. Brandt,Willy. (1993b). Die Sache ist gelaufen. In Willy Brandt, “. . . was zusammengehört”: Über Deutschland (pp. 74–83). Bonn: J.H.W. Dietz. Brann, William Cowper. (1919). The complete works of Brann the iconoclast, vol. 1. New York: Brann Publishers. Originally published in 1898 as Brann, the iconoclast: A collection of the writings of W.C. Brann, 2 vols.Waco, TX: Knight. Brooks, Phillips. (1990). The character, life, and death of Abraham Lincoln. In Waldo W. Braden (Ed.), Building the myth: Selected speeches memorializing Abraham Lincoln (pp. 47–61). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Browne, Francis Fisher. (1886). The every-day life of Abraham Lincoln. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Bryan,William Jennings. (1968). Lincoln as orator. In Lionel Crocker (Ed.), An analysis of Lincoln and Douglas as public speakers and debaters (pp. 91–95). Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas. (1852). The believer’s daily treasure; or, texts of Scripture, arranged for every day in the year, 4th ed. London: Religious Tract Society. Reissued in 1957 as Lincoln’s Devotional. Great Neck, NY: Channel Press.

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Carstensen, Broder and Busse, Ulrich. (1993–1996). Anglizismen-Wörterbuch, 3 vols. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Chalkley, Thomas. (1790). A journal of the life, labours, travels, etc. of Thomas Chalkley. In A collection of the works of Thomas Chalkley (p. 43). Philadelphia: James & Johnson. Cole, Arthur Charles. (1923). Lincoln’s “house divided” speech: Did it reflect a doctrine of class struggle? Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Curtius. (1787). Address to all federalists. The American Museum, or, Repository of Ancient and Modern Fugitive Pieces, 1, 381–384. Dodge, Daniel Kilham. (1924). Abraham Lincoln: Master of words. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Donald, David Herbert. (1995). A house divided. In David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (pp. 196–229). New York: Simon & Schuster. Edwards, Herbert Joseph and Hankins, John Erskine. (1962). Lincoln the writer: The development of his literary style. Orono, ME: University of Maine. Eggert, Sonja Brunhilde. (1998). “Kleine Schritte sind besser als keine Schritte”: Willy Brants sprichwörtliche Rhetorik. Burlington,VT: University of Vermont. Fehrenbacher, Don E. (1960). The origins and purpose of Lincoln’s “housedivided” speech. Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 46, 615–646. Fehrenbacher, Don E. (1962). Prelude to greatness: Lincoln in the 1850s. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Fehrenbacher, Don E. (1986). The words of Lincoln. In John L. Thomas (Ed.), Abraham Lincoln and the American political tradition (pp. 31–49). Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press. Fehrenbacher, Don E. (1987). Lincoln in text and context: Collected essays. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Fehrenbacher, Don E. and Fehrenbacher, Virginia. (1996). Recollected words of Abraham Lincoln. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

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Forgie, George B. (1979). Patricide in the house divided: A psychological interpretation of Lincoln and his age. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Fuller, Richard. (1865). A city or house divided against itself: A discourse. Baltimore: J.F. Weishampel. Grafton, John. (1991). Great speeches [of] Abraham Lincoln. New York: Dover Publications. Haines, John Thomas. (1836). A house divided: A farcical comedy in two acts. London: J. Dicks. Reprinted in 1839 as Uncle Oliver, or, a house divided: A farce in two acts. London: James Pattie. Herndon, William H. (1944–1945). Facts illustrative of Mr. Lincoln’s patriotism and statesmanship. Abraham Lincoln Quarterly, 3, 179–203. Herndon, William H. and Weik, Jesse W. (1892). Abraham Lincoln: The true story of a great life, vol. 2. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Holland, J.G. (1866). The life of Abraham Lincoln. Springfield, MA: Gurdon Bill. Holzer, Harold, Ed. (1993). The Lincoln-Douglas debates. New York: HarperCollins. Hurt, James. (1980). All the living and the dead: Lincoln’s imagery. American Literature, 52, 351–380. Kirchberger, J.H. (1977). Das Große Krüger Zitaten Buch. Frankfurt am Main: Wolfgang Krüger Verlag. Lean, Vincent Stuckey. (1903). Collectanea: Proverbs, folk lore, and superstitions. Bristol, England: J.W. Arrowsmith. Reprinted in 1969 Detroit: Gale Research Company. Leff, Michael C. (1983). Rhetorical timing in Lincoln’s “house divided” speech. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University School of Speech. Luthin, Reinhard Henry. (1960). The real Abraham Lincoln. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Mieder, Wolfgang. (1989). “Ein Bild sagt mehr als tausend Worte”: Ursprung

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und Überlieferung eines amerikanischen Lehnsprichworts. Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb Scholarship, 6, 25–37. Mieder, Wolfgang, Kingsbury, Stewart A., and Harder, Kelsie B. (1992). A dictionary of American proverbs. New York: Oxford University Press. Morgan, James. (1908). Abraham Lincoln: The boy and the man. New York: Macmillan Company. Neely, Mark E. (1993). The last best hope of earth: Abraham Lincoln and the promise of America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Nevins, Allan. (1947). Ordeal of the nation: A house dividing 1852–1857. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Newton, Joseph Fort. (1910). Lincoln and Herndon. Cedar Rapids, IA: Torsch Press. Nicolay, Helen. (1912). Personal traits of Abraham Lincoln. New York: Century Company. Nicolay, John G. and Hay, John, Eds. (1905). Complete works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 3. New York: Tandy-Thomas Company. Paine, Thomas. Political writings. (Bruce Kuklick, Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1989. Peterson, Merrill D. (1994). Lincoln in American memory. New York: Oxford University Press. Pfeffer, J. Alan. (1975). Das biblische Zitat im Volksmund der Germanen und Romanen. In Beda Allemann and Erwin Koppen (Eds.), Teilnahme und Spiegelung: Festschrift für Horst Rüdiger (pp. 99–111). Berlin:Walter de Gruyter. Quincy, Edmund. (1852).The house divided against itself. National Anti-Slavery Standard, 25 March 1852, 174. Quincy, Edmund. (1863). Where will it end? A view of slavery in the United States in its aggressions and results. Providence, RI: Anthony Knowles. Randall, J.G. (1946). Lincoln the president, vol. 1. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company.

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Sandburg, Carl. (1954). Abraham Lincoln: The prairie years and the war years. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company. Sandburg, Carl. (1964, first edition 1936). The people, yes. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World. Schulze, Carl. (1860). Die biblischen Sprichwörter der deutschen Sprache. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht. Reprinted in Wolfgang Mieder, Ed. (1987). Bern: Peter Lang. Silvia, Stephen J. (1995). A house divided: Employers and the challenge to pattern bargaining in a united Germany. Cambridge, MA: Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University. Simpson, John. (1992). The concise dictionary of proverbs, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Snapp, Emma Louise. (1933). Proverbial lore in Nebraska. University of Nebraska Studies in Language, Literature, and Criticism, 13, 51–112. (1850). Speech of Mr. Houston of Texas, in the Senate of the United States, Friday, February 8, 1850. Appendix to the congressional globe for the first session, thirty-first Congress: Containing speeches and important state papers, vol. 22, part 1, pp. 97–102. Washington, DC: John C. Rives. Stansbury, P. (1822). A pedestrian tour of two thousand three hundred miles, in North America. New York: J.D. Myers & W. Smith. Stevenson, Burton. (1948). The home book of proverbs, maxims, and famous phrases. New York: Macmillan. Tarkington, Booth. (1905). The conquest of Canaan. New York: Harper & Brothers. Trueblood, Elton. (1973). Abraham Lincoln: Theologian of American anguish. New York: Harper & Row. Wander, Karl Friedrich Wilhelm. (1867–1880). Deutsches Sprichwörter-Lexikon, vol. 3 (1873). Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus. Reprinted in 1964 Darmstadt: Wissenschafliche Buchgesellschaft. Webster, Daniel. (1903). Reception at Buffalo [May 22, 1851]. The writings and

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speeches of Daniel Webster, vol. 4 (pp. 242–262). Boston: Little, Brown & Company. Whiting, Bartlett Jere. (1977). Early American proverbs and proverbial phrases. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Whiting, Bartlett Jere. (1989). Modern proverbs and proverbial sayings. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Winslow, Olga Elizabeth. (1930). American broadside verse. New Haven, CT:Yale University Press. Zarefsky, David. (1990). Lincoln, Douglas and slavery in the crucible of public debate. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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chapter 4

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Israel’s Wisdom Literature and the Intrinsic Integrity of Creation

1

Dianne Bergant

wisdom literature of ancient israel he narrative character of the Bible has led most people to presume that it contains some kind of history. They hold that God had chosen this people, guided them, revealed the law to them, and rewarded and punished them according to their fidelity to that law. In effect, God is perceived as the principal actor in the drama of this people’s history. Although historical-critical analyses have enabled interpreters to distinguish between actual events and the religious interpretation that Israel gave to them, the characterization “salvation history” still enjoys great prominence.The national epic of Israel, beginning with the call of the ancestors and concluding with the Roman occupation, is considered by many the basic literary framework of the entire First Testament and the primary theological category of Israel’s theology. A rigid linear perspective of Western interpretation recognized its own preference for history in the biblical narrative and concluded that the ancient worldview was not much different from its own. Using a developmental model of interpretation, it judged earlier customs and theology inferior to those that followed. In addition, it frequently dismissed as borrowed from heathen sources anything that did not in some way fit into the pattern of Israel’s story. This, coupled with the wisdom tradition’s lack of specific Israelite religious concern, has caused many to relegate wisdom material to a minor place in the tradition, some

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biblical theologies even placing it as an addendum at the end of the book. The wisdom tradition of ancient Israel is not unlike that of the rest of the Near Eastern world. It shows that earlier people were both awed by the wonders of nature and concerned with human behavior, human accomplishment, and human misfortune. Observation of nature and reflection on life led the sages of Israel to conclude that there was some kind of order inherent in the world. They believed that, if they could discern how this order operated and harmonize their lives with it, they would live peacefully and successfully. Failure to recognize and conform to this order would result in misfortune and misery. A primary function of this tradition seems to have been instruction in a style of living that would assure well-being and prosperity. Captivated by the wonders of nature, the Israelites believed that their God was the great Creator responsible for the world, its organization, and everything within it.They maintained that the splendor of creation could have come only from one who was both powerful and wise.This creator was not only the primeval architect of the universe and provident sustainer of reality, but also the demanding judge who preserved established order. Since Israel believed that social order was but a reflection of the natural order of the universe, it is quite possible that creation ideology played a more significant role in its worldview than was previously thought. In line with this, the contemporary concern for the integrity of creation provides us with a lens through which to investigate the wisdom tradition in order to discover traces of this significance.

the integrity of creation In 1988, the World Council of Churches sponsored a consultation at Annecy, France, which attracted scholars espousing various liberation and other political theologies. All of the participants came to realize that the theme of liberation can be applied to questions dealing not only with the human family, but also with all life forms and, indeed, with the earth itself. The report of this consultation, delivered to the World Council, was remarkable for its “emphasis on linking concerns

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of ecological sustainability with concerns of social justice; on moving beyond oppressive understandings of God; on recognizing the deleterious effects of exclusively Western understandings of development on the peoples of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Oceania; on recognizing the importance of science for contemporary Christian thought; on recognizing biblical resources for affirming what the World Council has called the integrity of creation” (Birch, 1990, p. 290). We are natural creatures and everything about us is a part of the natural world or mediated to us through it. For this reason, the concept of “the integrity of creation” is here considered the architectonic category of all experience and understanding. “The value of all creatures in and for themselves, for one another, and for God, and their interconnectedness in a diverse whole that has unique value for God, together constitute the integrity of creation” (Annecy report quoted by Birch, 1990, p. 277). Recognition of the fundamental integrity of all of creation may be commonplace in the domains of the physical and life sciences, but it is relatively new to most branches of theology, with the exception of process theology (Cobb, 1982, pp. 111–134; Daly, H., 1989, pp. 190–203) and some forms of ecofeminism (Daly, L., 1990, pp. 88–108; Merchant, 1980; Primavesi, 1991; Ruether, 1975, pp. 186–211). Should such a concept be universally accepted, its ramifications would be felt in all branches of theology. The concept of “integrity of creation” has led us to reexamine our dominant worldview. In the past, technology has sometimes led us to believe that we can step outside of our environment to examine it and control it. It is important to remember that we do not merely live within our environment as we live within a building. We may be a unique dimension of the natural world, but we are not separate from it. We are part of it, and it is part of us. Humankind is embedded in nature, in the very creative matrix that has given life and continues to give life (Peters, 1991, p.9). Nature is also embedded in human beings. “We are truly children of the universe, made of the same stuff as the mountains and the rain, the sand and the stars. We are governed by the laws of life and growth and death as are the birds and the fish and the grass of the field. We thrive in the warmth of and through the agency of the sun as does every other living thing.We come from the earth as from a mother, and

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we are nourished from this same source of life” (Bergant, 1992, p. 28). It is through this lens that some sections of the biblical wisdom literature will be examined below.

job Theology begins and ends with the activity of God. For that reason, the characterization of God sets the tone for understanding the dynamic of the Book of Job. Everyone in the story addresses the nature and extent of God’s involvement in human life. Even the Satan knows that, though reigning from the far distant heavenly council, God controls the lives and fortunes of people on earth.The debate between Job and his antagonists is over God’s compliance to the standards of retribution prescribed for human society. Is God in fact just? Is divine power used fairly, or are women and men victimized by it? With very few exceptions (11:7–12; 34:13–15; 36:26–37:13), the characterization of God espoused by these individuals is fundamentally anthropocentric, focused on God’s relationship with human beings. The divine speeches reveal an entirely different representation of God, a representation that is not simply one among many.This is a theophany, a divine self-revelation.Through this theophany, God is revealed to Job as the source of mind-boggling creativity, not as an arbiter preoccupied only with human affairs. God shows that divine artistry and protection have been lavished on all creation, not merely on human beings. Furthermore, the value of this extravagant creation does not rest in its instrumental usefulness for humans. Its value is intrinsic to creation itself as having come from God. The wonders of creation that are paraded before Job were not unknown to him before this revelation. By and large, they constituted the world that he knew, but which he did not understand; the world within which he lived, but which he seems to have taken for granted. This breathtaking experience of creation has catapulted him out of his narrow confines of anthropocentrism into the vast expanses of mystery. It has brought him to realize that human history unfolds within the broader context of the natural world, and not vice versa. The natural

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world does not merely serve the ends of human history. His encounter with the ineffable Creator-God has led him to this new and transformative insight. In his last response to God, Job admits that he has been converted to God’s point of view.The God whom he previously knew and to whom he had been faithful was a God of righteousness, one who had recognized Job’s integrity and had rewarded him for it. The God whom Job now knows is the mysterious power who brought forth the world, as a man begets or as a woman brings forth, and who is somehow revealed in and through that world.This is a God who can provide for the entire resplendent universe without being distracted from the specific needs of fragile human beings. This can be done, because God’s designs are grander than, but do include, human history. God has taken suffering, the most pressing concern of human history, and has situated it within a broader context.That context is material creation in its entirety.There, in the midst of measureless natural grandeur, the ambiguity of human life can be confronted with the honesty and humility that it requires, an honesty and humility that can admit to and accept the limited capacity of human comprehension. Creation itself has expanded Job’s vision and called him to a deepening of faith that goes beyond understanding. The implications of such an attitude are profound as well as widereaching. The shift from an anthropocentric to a cosmocentric worldview requires not only a new cosmology (Berry, 1988), but also a reexamination of many, if not most, of the tenets of the faith (Berry and Clark, 1991; Nash, 1991). Notions such as frugality and sufficiency, viability and sustainability play an indispensable role in theological discourse. The impertinence of human autonomous rule is replaced by a sense of responsible stewardship, and the bottom line of monetary calculation of resources gives way to aesthetic contemplation of natural beauty, a contemplation not unlike that of Job.

psalms The concept of “the integrity of creation” leads us to an examination of the use of nature imagery in the Psalms. Since the use of nature

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imagery is a characteristic of poetry generally, its presence in the poetry of the Bible is not exceptional.The fecundity of the natural world lends itself as a metaphorical vehicle of meaning to the characterization of the righteous person, and the fleeting nature of life and the stark reality of decay and death to a comparable characterization of the sinner (e.g., 1:3f; 37:2, 35; 128:3).While in the psalms distinctive traits of various animals are often descriptively ascribed to human beings (e.g., 49:14; 119:176), the fundamental differences between species are not blurred (49:12, 20; 73:22). Interestingly, nature imagery is also used in representations of the law (19:11; 119:72, 103). In a more substantial discussion of natural creation, nature imagery is linked not only with the law (Psalm 19), but also with adherence to the covenant (Psalm 37), and with the mighty acts of God in the history of Israel (Psalm 78). Psalm 19 suggests that the psalmist intended to depict the law as built right into natural creation itself. Such an assertion not only grants extraordinary legitimation to the law, but also provides some insight into the concept of causal relationship between reward/punishment and natural occurrences. If the social and religious orders that the law intends to reflect and preserve are indeed a part of the very structure of creation, then the natural world will play a part in realizing the consequences of adherence to or disregard of that law (cf. 37:3, 9, 11, 20, 22, 29, 34). The interface of the orders of nature, society, and law suggests that the structures and functions of one order both support and influence the others. While the psalms presume that human beings are subject to these orders, they show that God is not so bound to them. In fact, the history as told is a history of divine intervention on Israel’s behalf.There we see that God not only undermines the power and authority of other nations, but engages the forces of nature to do so (cf. 78:42–55). These forces serve other divine purposes both in providing for Israel’s physical needs (cf. vv.12–16, 20, 23–29) and in carrying out the sentence passed on it for its faithlessness (cf. vv.21, 30f ).These miracles show that God and God alone controls the forces of nature, and does so even in those lands that ascribe sovereign power to different deities. Nature imagery is also used in Psalms 19, 37, and 78 to underscore the excellence of the law, the interrelatedness of the orders of law and

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nature, and the universal and exclusive sovereignty of YHWH. Nowhere in the psalms is creation’s significance reckoned from an anthropocentric point of view. It is perceived as God’s handiwork, it is a divine blessing that flows from fidelity to the covenant, and it becomes the avenue through which God’s miraculous power is manifested. Creation may be used by God for the instruction and discipline of human beings, but as such it is at the disposal of God and not of the human beings that it serves. This fact is wonderfully demonstrated in the opening words of Psalm 19: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims God’s handiwork.”

proverbs Incorporated within the instructions of the first section of the Book of Proverbs (Prov. 1:1–9:18) is a poem (8:1–36) that finds Wisdom, personified as a woman, at the crossroads, at the gate of the city. From this vantage point she cries out to all who would hear her, assuring them that her words are righteous and her instruction is as valuable as silver or gold or precious jewels (vv.1–21; in 3:14f and 8:10f they are more valuable). She offers herself to the simple (v.5) just as she offers herself to kings, rulers, and nobles (vv.15–16). As the poem continues, this unusual woman becomes even more unique. After praising her own merits,Wisdom recounts her beginnings. From the pathways of human society, she transports her hearers to the primordial arena of creation (vv.22–31). The exact relationship between this mysterious figure and the creator is not clear. Wisdom admits that she herself was created (v.22). She also claims to have had some part in other acts of creation (v.30). Is this mysterious figure a personification of some divine attribute, in other words, merely a stylistic feature employed by the author? Such an explanation does not take into account the fact that Wisdom is identified as an entity separate from the creator (v.22). It is apparent that once Wisdom is created, she has a life of her own. It is also clear that she is a creature with cosmic dimensions. She existed before the rest of creation, and she appears to have been active beyond the confines of space and time. All of this suggests a mythological origin (Lang, 1986).

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This description of the cosmic dimensions of Wisdom should be interpreted within its literary context. The placement of this unusual characterization in the midst of an account of Wisdom’s involvement with human beings is rather interesting. In an earlier poem, Wisdom reports that her counsel was rejected and her invitations ignored (1:24f ). In this poem she affirms her importance by claiming that the influential leaders of the community owe their success to her (8:15f ). Is this mere boasting on her part, or is it a means of prodding those who earlier had shown themselves reluctant to listen to her? If the latter is the case, as proposed here, she reinforces her distinction by revealing her mythological character and origins. If the youth cannot independently recognize the value of her advice, then he (or they) should accede to it on the basis of her cosmic stature. This poem makes another notable point. If the figure of Wisdom is the same on earth as in the primeval realm, then there is a connection between the insights garnered in the marketplace and the very structures of creation.This leads one to conclude that the various kinds of wisdom delineated in the Book of Proverbs are not so much separate realities as they are different aspects of the same reality. Just what role does creation play in this instruction? As already mentioned, the metaphorical use of nature imagery, a literary technique found in most folk literature, is used here to encourage a variety of values, including marital fidelity (5:15–19), speed and agility (6:5), and diligence (6:6, 8), as well as to warn against taking steps that will eventually lead to being trapped (7:22f). But is the use of nature merely metaphorical? The most significant discussion of nature is found in the references to Wisdom’s role in creation. Incorporated within the instructions of the Book of Proverbs are three poems that stand out as unique creations, independent of their literary contexts. These take the form of speeches by a mysterious figure, personified Woman Wisdom (1:20–33; 8:1–36; 9:1–18; see Brenner, 1993, pp. 193–198; Whybray, 1994, pp. 35–43). In the description of the primordial events found in the second poem (8:22–31), personified Wisdom maintains her place of distinction as the first fruit of God’s creative venture. First came Wisdom and then followed the material universe.

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In order to understand exactly her role in creation, the meaning of ‘amôn would have to be determined (v.30). Is she a participant in the events as a “craftsman” (New American Bible [nab] and New Jerusalem Bible [njb]), “master worker” (New Revised Standard Version [nrsv])? Or is she merely a spectator, a “darling” (New English Bible [neb])? The Hebrew is not clear (for a summary of positions see McKane, 1970, pp. 356–358). As noted above, the placement of this description of the creation of the universe provides cosmic legitimation for experiential wisdom. In other words, from the point of view of literary content, the description of cosmic events is bracketed between two references to the marketplace. However, the meaning intended by this literary arrangement calls for an interesting reversal. In reality, the wisdom of the marketplace is authenticated by its presentation here within the context of the wisdom displayed in the marvels of the cosmos. The substance of much of the gnomic teaching in Proverbs presumes a knowledge of the working of the natural world. In fact, much of the comparison found in the proverbs themselves actually requires such knowledge. Since the intention of this knowledge is practical (success in human endeavor), might we conclude that the similarities described in the comparisons are more than figurative? The ants and the badgers and the locusts and the lizard all display a certain kind of wisdom (30:24–28), a wisdom that would benefit humans as well. Amidst the incalculable diversity of natural phenomena, might their common origin from God through the agency of wisdom (3:19f ) and their similarity of behavior suggest that on some level there lies a type of commonality or affinity? Some have referred to this affinity as “the order of reality” (Perdue, 1994, pp. 46–48). We have seen that Woman Wisdom who calls out in the marketplace is none other than the Wisdom present with God at the creation of the universe (8:1–34). She makes this known in order to confirm the authority of the wisdom she offers to the youth. In other words, the wisdom of the marketplace is authenticated by its presentation here within the context of the wisdom displayed in the marvels of the cosmos. All of this leads to the following conclusion. The counsel found in Proverbs may be manifestly anthropocentric, but the wisdom that is

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the real goal of the sapiential teaching is broader than any limited human focus.

qoheleth (ecclesiastes) Qoheleth questions the legitimacy and value of an anthropocentric understanding of the theory of retribution. While some may presume that human beings can and should be able to discern the patterns within the mysterious workings of the world, Qoheleth has come to realize that this is impossible and that it is “vanity” to expect otherwise. He never really doubts the existence of order. On the contrary, he perceives order in the patterns and regularity of nature (1:5–7) and maintains that there is also a proper time for everything pertaining to the events that constitute human life (3:1–9). However, he does not believe that human beings will ever be able to comprehend, much less exploit, this order. He argues that the meaning and control of all things are found in God and in God alone (v.11). This is the basic new insight from which flow all of Qoheleth’s exhortations. Appropriating this pivotal insight would oblige us to reevaluate how we perceive the relationships between the cosmic order, the social order, and the moral order. It should deter us from forcing the meaning of our lives into inadequate systems of interpretation and from employing these systems to pass precipitous judgment on the circumstances of the lives of others.

song of songs In the Song of Songs, the natural world is not merely the stage upon which the drama of heterosexual love is played, the props of which can be set up and dismantled once a scene is completed. Rather, human love is an expression of the natural world. It is born because of it, and as a part of it. It is an aspect of the allurement that is at the heart of the macrocosmic universe (Swimme, 1984, pp. 41–52). Lovers look into each other’s eyes and there glimpse the passion of creation. As they applaud

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each other’s body (the tenor of the metaphor) employing figures of speech, the lovers are also enhancing their appreciation of the world (the vehicle of the metaphor) with the eyes of love. That is the way metaphors function (Richards, 1971, pp. 96). As they describe their experience of each other’s physical charms, they are investing their experience of creation with the love that has left them spellbound. More evidence of the fundamental significance of creation is seen in the fact that the riches of the prosperous are actually the riches of the land.The precious metals, the fragrant nard, the luscious fruits are all the harvest of the earth, provided willingly by that earth with no thought of social restriction determining who might receive them. The earth itself is prodigal, and the extravagance of the imagery of the Song illustrates this. From it springs the heady aromas, the enthralling visions, the delectable tastes, the captivating sounds, and the gratifying tactile sensations portrayed in the poetry. In order to extol their passion, the lovers call on elements from the natural world. They can do nothing else, for everything beautiful, everything enchanting, everything satisfying comes through the wonders of creation.The glorification of the physical charms of each of the lovers can only be done through figures of speech drawn from nature (Landy, 1987, pp. 308), for that is the only source of imagery available to them, or to us. This is an excellent example of the affinity that exists between human beings and the rest of natural creation.

wisdom of solomon The cosmological perspective of Pseudo-Solomon cannot be overlooked.This author unmistakably moves from creation to salvation, the natural world itself acting as the agent of God’s saving power. He accomplishes this through his use of the syncrisis, a Hellenistic form of comparison (chaps. 9–11.) In a midrashic reflection on some of the Exodus events, he compares the plight of the Israelites with that of the Egyptians. (Scholars debate whether there are five such comparisons, see Wright, 1967:177; Murphy, 1990:90f; Perdue, 1994:294; or seven, see Reese, 1970:98-102;Winston, 1979:227.) The contrasts themselves function in several different ways. Most obviously, they demonstrate how

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God works through nature to reward the righteous and punish the wicked. A closer look shows that an element of the natural world acted as the agent of Israel’s blessing as well as the means of Egypt’s chastisement (11:5, 13). The elements used include: land and water (11:6–14); small animals (11:15–16:15); manna or storms from heaven (16:16–23); real or metaphorical darkness (17:1–18:4); the salvation or death of the first born (18:5–25). In these comparisons we see that the punishment of the Egyptians was frequently effected through the very things by which they sinned (11:16).The apocalyptic imagery used to describe this punishment (5:16b–23) depicts God as the cosmic warrior arrayed with all of the powers of creation in mortal combat against the evil brought into the world because of sin. Because it conforms to the order created by God, the universe is on the side of righteousness (16:17c). Each syncrisis demonstrates this. It also shows that a corresponding affliction befell the enemies of Israel precisely in order to retain the natural balance in creation. This last point underscores the difference between Pseudo-Solomon’s rendition of Israel’s salvation and the version found in the books of Exodus and Numbers. In the earlier tradition, the acts of nature are deemed miracles of direct divine intervention. In the Wisdom of Solomon creation is perceived as working according to its natural laws (19:6), as if reward and punishment were built into the very structures of the universe. More than this, Israel was saved because creation was fundamentally renewed. In Pseudo-Solomon’s account, creation may have been transformed, but its transformation happened according to its own natural laws.

sirach Even a cursory reading of Sirach reveals the cosmological perspective underlying the entire book. As has been seen in other books of the wisdom tradition, cosmology is not merely one aspect among many. Rather, it is the context within which all else is found.This can be seen

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first in Sirach’s basic literary structure. Poems praising creation frame whatever else is being taught. Two of the three major sections (chaps. 1–23 and 24–43) begin with a poem describing the intimate relationship between Wisdom and creation. Each of these poems sets the mood for understanding what follows.The third section (chaps. 44–51) follows a poem that exalts the glories of creation. If the praise of the ancestors, which constitutes the last section of the book, is in fact an addition to an earlier well-organized treatise of exhortation, as many commentators believe (Mack, 1985; Lee, 1986), then the last poem along with the opening one functions as a kind of inclusio (Perdue, 1994, pp. 248), bracketing Ben Sira’s early treatise within a creation framework. The first poem (1:1–10) praises personified Wisdom’s primordial origin.There she is described as having been created before the rest of the universe, and her incomprehensibility is compared to the unimaginable scope and wonder of the cosmos. This metaphorical comparison celebrates both Wisdom and the created world, for the splendor of one serves to describe the marvels of the other. The first part of the second poem (24:1–7) recounts anew Wisdom’s beginnings, and then depicts her as holding sway over the heights, the depths, and all the earth. Once again, the author has employed the wonders of creation in order to sketch the glories of Wisdom.The lengthy poem that forms the second half of the inclusio (42:15–43:33), is longer than the others and far more lyrical. It leaves the believer standing in awe of the wondrous yet mysterious works of God in creation. These works somehow originated in wisdom, remain established through wisdom, and point to the incomprehensibility of both wisdom and the Creator-God. There is no doubt about Ben Sira’s desire to demonstrate the superiority of Israelite religious tradition. His identification of Wisdom with the book of the covenant, the law (24:23), is evidence of this. However, what makes this such a special privilege for Israel is the cosmic character of this Wisdom. She is not merely the Sophia of Greek philosophy. She is the mist that emanated from the mouth of the Most High, the one who dwelt in the highest heavens, whose throne was in a pillar of cloud, who compassed the vault of heaven and traversed the depths of the abyss (vv.3–5).This is cosmic Wisdom.Were she not the foundation of all of creation, her lodging in Israel would not be as momentous as

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it is. The Wisdom of Solomon asserts that the grandeur of Wisdom and the privilege accorded Israel that flows from this grandeur, are rooted in Wisdom’s primordial cosmic origin.

conclusion A careful look at the Bible will show that it displays a fundamentally theocentric (God-centered) perspective within which the principal value of creation lies less in its usefulness to humans (instrumental value) than in the fact of its existence from God (intrinsic value). No one would deny that creaturely limitations make it impossible for us to measure reality from anything but a human point of view. However, it is quite another thing to maintain that humankind is itself the actual measure of everything. The intrinsic value of creatures is presumed in biblical passages such as the creation narratives (Gen. 1–3), the account of the Noachic covenant (Gen. 9), the YHWH speeches (Job 38–41), and various other poetic sections (e.g., Ps. 104, Eccles. 3:1–9, etc.) They contend that the world has not been created merely for human use. The Bible is very clear on this point.The original couple may have been told “to subdue and have dominion” (Gen. 1:26, 28), “to serve it and to guard it” (Gen. 2:15), but the primary relationship humankind has with the rest of creation is less mechanistic than it is organic (Merchant, 1980). The affinity of creation theology to the wisdom tradition of Israel has long been recognized. However, in most studies, creation has usually been considered one theme among many, rather than the basis of all theology as has been proposed here.The present study has been distinctive in that the lens through which the wisdom literature has been examined and the standard against which it was evaluated was not the bias and tyranny of unyielding anthropocentrism, which has held sway for so long, but a perspective sensitive to the integrity of creation and its intrinsic value, a perspective that realizes that “the earth is the Lord’s” (Ps. 24:1).

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notes 1 Adapted and reprinted by permission from Israel’s Wisdom Literature: A Liberation-Critical Reading by Dianne Bergant, copyright © 1997 Augsburg Fortress.

references Bergant, Dianne. The world is a prayerful place (Reprint ed.). Michael Glazier, Inc., Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1987/92. Berry,Thomas. (1988). The dream of the earth. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. Berry,Thomas and Clarke,Thomas. (1991). Befriending the earth: A theology of reconciliation between humans and the earth. Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications. Birch, Charles, Eakin,William, and McDaniel, Jay B., Eds. (1990). Liberating life. Maryknoll: Orbis Books. Brenner, Athalya. (1993). Some observations on the figuration of woman in wisdom literature. In Heather A. McKay and David J.A. Clines, Eds. Of prophets’ visions and the wisdom of sages: Essays in honor of R. Norman Whybray on his seventieth birthday. Journal for the Study of Old Testament Supplement Series 162. Sheffield: JSOT Press. Cobb, John B., Jr. (1982). Process theology as political theology. Manchester: University Press. Daly, Herman E. and Cobb, John B., Jr. (1989). For the common good: Redirecting the economy toward community, the environment, and a sustainable future. Boston: Beacon Press. Daly, Lois K. (1990). Ecofeminism, reverence for life, and feminist theology. In Birch, Eakin and McDaniel (Eds.), Liberating life (pp. 88–108). Maryknoll: Orbis Books.

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Landy, Francis. (1987). The Song of Songs. In Robert Alter and Frank Kermode (Eds.), The literary guide to the Bible. Cambridge:The Belknap Press of Harvard. Lang, Bernhard. (1986). Wisdom and the Book of Proverbs: An Israelite goddess redefined. New York: Pilgrim Press. Lee, Thomas R. (1986). Studies in the form of Sirach 44–50. Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series 75. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Mack, Burton L. (1985). Wisdom and the Hebrew epic: Ben Sira’s hymn in praise of the fathers. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. McKane,William. (1970). Proverbs (Old Testament Library). Philadelphia:Westminster. Merchant, Carolyn. (1980). The death of nature: Women, ecology and the scientific revolution. San Francisco: Harper & Row. Murphy, Roland E. (1990). The tree of life (Anchor Bible Reference Library). New York: Doubleday. Nash, James A. (1991). Loving nature: Ecological integrity and Christian responsibility. Nashville: Abingdon. Perdue, Leo G. (1994). Wisdom and creation: The theology of wisdom literature. Nashville: Abingdon. Peters, Karl E. (1991). Interrelating nature, humanity, and the work of God: Some issues for future reflection. Unpublished paper,Templeton Foundation Symposium. Primavesi, Anne. (1991). From apocalypse to Genesis: Ecology, feminism and Christianity. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. Reese, James M. (1970). Hellenistic influence on the Book of Wisdom and its consequences. Rome: Biblical Institute Press. Richards, I.A. (1971). The philosophy of rhetoric (paperback reprint). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Ruether, Rosemary Radford. (1975). New woman/New earth. New York: Seabury. Swimme, Brian. (1984). The universe is a green dragon: A cosmic creation story. Santa Fe: Bear & Company. Whybray, Roger N. (1994). The composition of the Book of Proverbs. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series 168. Sheffield: JSOT Press. Winston, David, (1979). The wisdom of Solomon (Anchor Bible). New York: Doubleday. Wright, Addison G. (1967). The structure of the Book of Wisdom. Biblica 48, 165–184.

✦

chapter 5

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Wisdom on Death and Suffering John Goldingay

here shall wisdom be found?” It is a question raised in the story of Job (28:12). David Allan Hubbard, the distinguished former president of Fuller Theological Seminary, once gave a paper on Old Testament wisdom in which he summarized its diverse perspectives in this way: “Proverbs seems to say, ‘These are the rules for life; try them and find that they will work.’ Job and Ecclesiastes say, ‘We did and they don’t’” (Hubbard, 1966, p. 6). I have often made the quotation the basis of an examination question, requiring students to discuss its truth and significance. What Proverbs affirms, Job and Ecclesiastes agonize over. Now one should not draw the distinction too sharply: Proverbs does acknowledge the complexity of human experience even while looking for generalizations, and in different ways both Job and Ecclesiastes affirm Proverbs’ generalizations. But the mood is different. The mood of Proverbs is confidence. The mood of Job and Ecclesiastes is questioning. And the key expression of that questioning is their concern with death and with suffering, for these are two key human experiences, which threaten to subvert the confidence of wisdom. To put it another way, if wisdom cannot embrace these realities, if it cannot speak to these, then it subverts its own capacity to speak to anything else. Death and suffering are universal human experiences of which wisdom must take account. It is because the two books are preoccupied with these realities that they speak particularly effectively in our own context. There are some interesting overlaps between the way in which death and suffering fea-

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ture in the Old Testament and in the modern Western world. On the one hand, we often reflect on the fact that the modern world avoids talk of death (belying what we say by the frequency with which we make the point), and in an oddly parallel way the Old Testament in general talks about death relatively little, though the reason may be different. But Ecclesiastes is the great exception, for here the reality of death stands on or between the lines of every page. On the other hand, the modern world is very aware of suffering. It is one of the questions in the philosophy of religion, one of the questions that ordinary people raise in discussing the credibility of Christian faith, and one of the issues that sells books (“Why do bad things happen to good people?”). It is also one of the issues that runs through the Old Testament, whether in telling stories about it or showing how to pray in the midst of it or promising you that God will do something about it or urging you to do what you can do to reduce it. It thus features throughout the Old Testament; but Job is the Old Testament’s great repository of reflective thought on the subject. One of the striking features of the position of suffering in the modern world is that it seems if anything to be felt as more of a problem in our well-fed, well-doctored, and well-counselored societies as it is in societies where people have nothing. Among seminary students there is hardly an aspect of the Old Testament that engages people more personally than the study of the Psalms of lament. They prize the discovery of the freedom these give them to voice their hurt and anger to God. Now these are a collection of bright and suntanned people who enjoy the benefits of living in a country that has more of the world’s resources than any other. Yet they are not happy. And what is true of them is true of the rest of our lonely, driven, anxious modern societies. To put it another way, they prove the truth which Ecclesiastes expounds, that it is possible to have everything, but to have nothing.

ecclesiastes Ecclesiastes is a Greek word that means “churchman” and which attempts to provide an equivalent to the Hebrew title “Qoheleth.” The

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book goes through the motions of pretending to be written by King Solomon. I say “goes through the motions” because it never quite says that it represents the voice of Solomon (only the voice of an anonymous son of David), because it does not try to talk in Solomon’s way (the Hebrew is the Hebrew of a much later period, as presumably author and audience would be able to tell, as we know we do not speak Shakespeare’s English), and because it drops its guard from time to time (for instance, talking about relating to kings in a way that Solomon presumably would not). What it does is invite its audience to an act of imagination, to imagine Solomon speaking in its own day—Solomon who is the great Old Testament symbol of wisdom as Moses is the symbol of Torah and David is the symbol of Psalmody. But Solomon is more than the great symbol of wisdom. Solomon is the great temple-builder, the great achiever, the great politician, the great city-planner, the great activist, the great businessman, the great entertainer—and also the great womanizer. Indeed, he is the great Californian. What happens when you look with the eyes of wisdom at these activities and achievements? They all look like “vanity and a chasing after wind” (e.g., 1:14; 2:11). “Vanity” is the word hebel, which literally means a breath: these things are as insubstantial and evanescent as a breath. Outside the wisdom books hebel came to be applied especially to aspects of other religions, which Israelites saw as particularly pointless and empty. Preeminent among these was the making of images, which could look very impressive but could never adequately represent any being who deserved to be called God.These were pointless and empty, but also deceptive and dangerous. The notion of chasing after wind in turn suggests the attempt to capture something that cannot be captured (and which may destroy you in the attempt).The striving for success, the drive to achieve, the addiction to activism, the quest for entertainment: they are all hollow. In the end, the same judgment applies to wisdom itself. Wisdom is also ultimately pointless and empty. Ecclesiastes does not mean that wisdom is completely useless. It is indeed absolutely useless, but it is relatively useful. Wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness (2:13), which is a very marked degree of excelling, even an absolute one, we might say.

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Wisdom is important because it enables us to face the fact that success, achievement, activism, sex, and entertainment are ultimately futile. It enables us to face these facts and think about what we do with them and about what stance to take to life in the light of them. Yet wisdom is absolutely useless because it is itself relativized by the fact of death, which comes to us all, we know not when (2:14–15).Wisdom cannot give us any control over that. I have hinted at the possibility that people in Old Testament times generally avoided thinking about death the same way as we do. At one level they may have been more accepting of it than we are.They did not rail against death, at least not when it came at the end of your three score years and ten.They recognized that death then is the natural end to life. Life is like a symphony or a song or a film: it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. By its nature it does not go on for ever. The time comes when you go to be with your ancestors. People accepted this, but they did not talk about it a great deal. Ecclesiastes attempts to force them to talk about death, because it reckons that death makes a radical difference to the way we need to look at life.There are, no doubt, psychologists who would say that the relentless commitment to activism, achievement, sex, entertainment, and success, which characterizes our own culture and the one Ecclesiastes contemplates, is but a relentless striving to avoid the fact that we are going to die, and/or a striving to find ways of living on. Ecclesiastes does not offer such a diagnosis, though its analysis is compatible with that depiction. It concerns itself with getting people to face the facts about the future and then to live in the present in the light of these facts. In the ancient Middle East, people knew as we do that dying does not mean you cease to exist.They could see the body there, and they knew that the body represented at least 50 percent of the person, so the person has not ceased to exist. Its problem is that there is no longer any life in it. It cannot move, or act, or speak, or worship, because these are all activities that involve the body.What then happens is that this inert person goes to join other inert persons in a family burial place or a community burial place. They join their ancestors in a quite literal sense. They transfer from one community to another, from a living community to a dead one.

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Israel portrayed what happens to the inner person, the personality, the “soul,” in an analogous way. I imagine that they reasoned by analogy from what they could see to what they could not see. The inner person, like the body, does not cease to exist, but it becomes lifeless. It, too, moves from a living community to a dead community, called Sheol, the Hebrew equivalent of Hades. This is not a place of punishment or suffering, except in the sense of being a place of loss. It is a place of negation. Ecclesiastes gives a particularly systematic account of this. Its most concentrated collection of negations comes in chapter 9. Death is indiscriminate (it points out): it comes to the just and the unjust, the good and the bad, the clean and the polluted, the religious and the irreligious, the honest and the dishonest. It constitutes a great contrast with life. Everyone rushes madly around the freeways of life, says Ecclesiastes, till the earthquake finally happens and they have driven off the edge of the freeway. Death is the place where there is no hope: “a living dog is better than a dead lion,” says Ecclesiastes in one of its more memorable aphorisms (9:4). Death is the place where there is no knowledge: there sounds a threat for a sage, a philosopher, a theologian. The living at least know that they will die; the dead know nothing. The living enjoy rewards for what they do, not least other people’s recognition. The dead become the forgotten. “Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished; never again will they have any share in all that happens under the sun” (9:6). “There is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going” (9:10). When the New Testament documents were written, a quarter or half a millennium after Ecclesiastes, the facts about death were again looked in the face, but in the context of something else having happened.They are written in the light of Jesus’ having come back from the dead—not merely being resuscitated but rising to a transformed, heavenly kind of life, which gives empirical evidence for the possibility of such a transformation after death.The Old Testament is also resolutely empirical. It knows that in its day there is no evidence of life after death, as opposed to feeble existence in the grave. It is not that human thinking or divine revelation had not yet progressed as far as envisaging life after death.The Egyptians knew the idea well enough; that is the reason for the pyramids. But Israelite faith is

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resolutely life-affirming and empirical; it does not go in for religion as the opiate of the people. Only at one point does its resolve seriously falter, in a vision in Daniel 12. There it finally gives in to the theological pressure of the fact that people often cannot enjoy their three score years and ten, and it imagines some of them brought back to life to do that. But in general the Old Testament sticks resolutely by the empirical convictions that Ecclesiastes propounds most directly. Just before the end of the book it offers an unexpectedly poetic picture of death’s reality. Death is the moment when “the silver cord is snapped, and the golden bowl is broken, and the pitcher is broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to God who gave it” (12:6–7). The description leads into the conclusion, which was also the author’s starting-point: “Vanity of vanities. . . . All is vanity” (12:8; cf. 1.2). So what are we supposed to do? Or rather, how does wisdom help us look at life in the face of death? Ecclesiastes’ most significant suggestion is that we need to see life as God-given. It repeats this observation several times. It is there in that poetic picture of death, for this is the moment when our life returns to the one who “gave it” (12:7). “This is what I have seen to be good,” Ecclesiastes says (you see, the perspective is indeed empiricist). “It is fitting to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of the life God gives us. . . . All to whom God gives wealth and possessions and whom he enables to enjoy them, and to accept their lot and find enjoyment in their toil—this is the gift of God. For they will scarcely brood over the days of their lives, because God keeps them occupied with the joy of their hearts” (5:18–20). To us this may not seem empiricist because it assumes that God is part of the reality in the light of which we seek to make sense of life. That has, of course, been the assumption of most cultures; we ourselves happen to belong to a strange blip in the history of civilization, which came to believe that one needs to prove the existence of God, though usually it is oddly content not to have to prove one’s own existence or to prove the reality of other elusive realities such as love or justice. Ecclesiastes assumes that God is part of the picture. It then reminds us that the experience of anything depends on the stance you take in

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relation to it, on how you look at it. In my house I have a number of things that are simultaneously worthless and precious. They are worthless in the sense that they will cause no stir on the “Antiques Roadshow” when my effects are disposed of, but they are precious because they were given to me by people who loved me. Ecclesiastes’ wisdom then is,“The relentless pursuit of success, of fame, of achievement, of pleasure, of amusement is folly. So is the relentless pursuit of wisdom, if you think it will give you ultimate answers or tell you the meaning of life. Death relativizes all that, either at your three score years and ten, or earlier if you fail to live that long. Instead, accept the life, the happiness, the fame, the success, the achievements, and the pleasures that come, accept and treasure these as God’s gifts. And stop hurtling up and down the freeway and in and out of the transit lounges.” It is an important piece of wisdom for the seminary and the church, and for the university and the world if we could only embody it.

job I am dealing with the subjects of death and suffering in that order because we are used to linking suffering and death, aware that the former may lead to the latter. Ecclesiastes and Job remind us that they are separate subjects. Ecclesiastes presses the question of death on us, mostly independently of the question of suffering. Job presses the question of suffering, independently of the question of death. Job tells the story of a man whose life falls apart as a result of the ancient equivalent to a visit to the physician that leads to your being told you have cancer or AIDS. Job is a man of faith and commitment to the community, so his experience more than anyone’s raises the question whether there is any link between one’s relationship with God and one’s health and happiness. The book comprises a discussion of possible understandings of the nature of that link, a discussion that takes the form of a drama. The LA Weekly commented on the 1998 Merchant-Ivory movie A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries that “one senses James Ivory’s heartfelt attachment to his characters, but the question that hangs over the movie

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is,What’s the question?”There is no doubt that there is a question in the book of Job, indeed several. What are we to make of the way in which calamity can destroy a life? What does it say about the nature of our relationship with God? How are we supposed to handle the experience, and help someone else handle it? The movie is apparently an “autobiographical novel”; perhaps its problem is then that it is more autobiography than novel and that facts get in the way of there being a “question.” Fiction is so much easier a medium with which to handle a question, unconstrained by facts. Perhaps that is why God inspired so many wonderful fictional stories in the Bible: Ruth, Esther, Jonah, Jesus’ parables—and Job. I guess that like many a piece of historical fiction, Job may be based on something that actually happened, but this has become the vehicle for a work of the theological imagination in which a dramatist walks round a “question” and analyses it from various angles and has the characters embody a variety of stances to it. Suffering is something that tests us, for instance; it reveals who we are as maybe nothing else does. The book invites us to let suffering contribute to our formation as people. It implies that we must face the possibility that our suffering issues from our own acts, though it also urges us not to be pressured into assuming that this must be so. The bulk of the book is a dialogue between Job and three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. But “dialogue” is for more than one reason quite the wrong word. Argument, quarrel, confrontation, dispute, altercation, or struggle might be better ones. It is also not a dialogue because that implies that people respond to each other, the way they do in a tennis match. Job and his friends resemble tennis players serving a continuous stream of balls, which their opponents decline to return, except sometimes in the next rally but one, or tennis players serving on two different courts (though perhaps in the end they are both serving on the same side of the net). This is so because Job’s experience, or rather (as his friends see it) Job’s interpretation of his experience, Job’s willful resistance to facing the implications of his experience, scandalizes his friends. They represent a hard-line version of the belief that what happens to us is the fruit of our own acts, that you make your own good luck, that anyone can succeed

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if they follow the right rules, if they live by wisdom. “These are the rules for life; try them, and you will find that they work.” Job has tried them, has believed them, has proved them for some years, but then has found that they fail to work. The rules say, “If you live a holy and just life you will find that your life works out well.” As a prophet has God once putting it to a failed priest, “Those who honor me, I will honor” (1 Sam. 2:30). On Job’s account of his experience, this is not true. It may often be true, but it is not always true, and therefore perhaps it ceases to be true at all. In claiming that, Job is an affront to his friends’ world, to the basis upon which they live their own lives. By implication, there is nothing about their devotion to God or their lives that makes them inferior to Job; they are also committed to God and committed to justice. That is precisely the problem.They can see themselves mirrored in him. If what he says is true, their own world collapses. It is an uncomfortable experience when your world collapses. A piece of current conventional wisdom says that we therefore do not let this happen until we have an alternative world to put in its place; we prefer an inadequate world to no world at all. So scientific hypotheses sometimes continue to reign long after they have ceased to be convincing, because there is nothing to put in their places. Job and his friends have nothing to put in the place of their old theory about how life works. Like them, Job might nevertheless have continued to hold to the old theory long after it had been discredited; people do sometimes deny the reality of what has happened to them in that way. But Job does not. And his friends cannot handle it. Perhaps one reason why Job can handle it is that he spends as much of his time confronting God with his questions as he does confronting his friends. Like John McEnroe he serves at the referee and not merely across the net. One of the possibilities I suggest to students for their grade papers is that they write a letter to God about the issues the course has raised for them, and one of the freedoms this gives them is that they do not have to have the answers to all the questions they raise. That is the nature of asking questions. Life’s worthwhile questions tend not to have answers, otherwise they would not be worthwhile questions. If I can persuade students of this, I may be able to reconcile them

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to the fact that seminary turns out to be a place that adds to their questions at least as much as answering them. There is a psalm that paradoxically begins “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Ps. 22). How can you ask God a question like that if you believe the person to whom you are addressing the question has gone? Yet somehow the process works, not merely because the enterprise the psalmist or Job is involved in is mostly one whose point is to get things off your chest, but because it presupposes that there must be more to the situation than meets the eye. It presupposes the reality of God and the faithfulness of God, and in Job’s case the conviction that God is a moral God and that this is a moral world, even when the experience of the person praying is that this is not so. I have hinted that an implication of the story of Job is to suggest how we may handle the experience of our lives falling apart, and how we may help someone else handle it (or rather, mostly, how not to help them, except for the week at the beginning when the friends simply sit silent with Job, until they are unable to cope with his questions). One of the book’s chief contributions to what we call the problem of suffering is to invite us into an extraordinary freedom to say the most outrageous things to God in the midst of suffering. Pain is allowed to talk; it does not have to come out indirectly in the way Job treats his wife. Job’s solution to the problem of suffering is thus a practical one. The book no more claims to be able to solve the theoretical problem of suffering or the problem of evil than Ecclesiastes does. It witnesses to that in at least three ways. First and most explicitly, when God appears to Job at the climax of the book, it is essentially to say “I’m not going to tell you the answer.” Again, I sometimes have the impression that students think that I know more answers than I do to the tricky theological questions. American students love to call their teachers “Professor” and “Doctor,” and perhaps their teachers like the experience, too. In Britain I was just “John,” and that is a parable of the fact that before life’s big unanswerable questions the ground is level. Job no more knows the answer to the question about suffering than his friends do; and the author of the Book of Job no more knows the answer than Job does. Perhaps God knows the answer, but if so, God is not letting on.

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What God does do in an amazing speech at the climax of the book is rub Job’s nose in two points. First, the world is much bigger than Job and he has to accept his place as rather a small cog in a big wheel. He has been talking as if the world revolved around him and as if it could therefore be arranged to make sure that his needs are met. It does not and will not. God’s second point is that if Job is capable of doing a better job of running the world than God is doing, he is welcome to have a go, but he had better look first at the dimensions of the task (and incidentally at the evidence that God does not do so feeble a job of it).With delicious irony, God then goes on to tell Job’s friends what a great person Job is for the way he has been “telling the truth” about God in all those protests and questions, as they have not in parroting their theological orthodoxies (42:8). The freedom to say the most outrageous things to God is affirmed. Such, I think, are implications of God’s speech. But when we study Job in courses, I always get students to take part in a dramatized reading of the book, and whenever I take part in this reading, I feel like tearing up my lecture notes, as I imagine a teacher of English must do after taking students to a Shakespearean play. My one-sentence summaries of the points made in the book’s various sections now seem so trivial. Indeed, I now realize, I should have been getting the reader to read Ecclesiastes and Job, not talking about them.You might think about doing so. The second way in which the book witnesses to its inability to solve its problem is that God’s refusal to tell Job the answer has as a paradoxical part of its background the fact that there actually is an answer to the question why calamity came to Job, but Job is never told it. The book opens with a scene in heaven, a meeting of the presidential cabinet. God comments on what a great person Job is, but one of God’s presidential aides whose task is to sniff out people who might be other than what they seem suggests that Job’s piety may be only a front. Perhaps Job is only religious because it pays. God doubts whether this is so; we usually reckon that we can tell if our best friends are the real thing. But God cannot actually prove it. So God agrees that this accuser can put some screws on Job to see whether it is so. And the entire story develops from there.There is a perfectly good reason for Job’s suffering:

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it is designed to vindicate the seriousness of his commitment to God. Now you may think that this is far from being a perfectly good reason for Job’s children to be killed and Job’s wife to be put on the rack, let alone for Job to go through what he does. To put it another way, when Job pressed to be told the reason for what had happened to him and his family, suppose that God had simply appeared and told Job the answer to this question. I do not imagine he would simply have responded “Oh, well, that’s okay then.” The explanation would only have provoked more questions, as it does for us. But at this point there may be consolation in the fact that this is after all a piece of fiction, the opening chapters in particular. (Even if the rest of the story issued from something the author had witnessed, the opening did not.) The point about the beginning of the story is to illustrate the possibility of a logic behind calamity. It sets the scene for what follows by establishing the fact that there is an answer to Job’s question “Why in hell are you making me go through all this?”, an answer that is at least logical even if it raises some other problems. The point still is, Job is never given this answer. That means that he has to go through his experience of calamity the same way as everyone else does. The introduction illustrates the possibility of imagining reasons for one’s suffering but still leaves us having to go through it not knowing what the reason is. A third way in which the book witnesses to its inability to solve its problem is the fact that after God appears and confronts Job, Job’s life is restored to what it had been before, and everyone lives happily ever after. The story thus reasserts the truth of the assumptions about the question that much of the book is devoted to denying. It affirms that Proverbs is right. The book starts from the wisdom conviction with which we all approach life, the conviction that ultimately life is fair. It is the conviction that we all want to be true even though we recognize the evidence to the contrary.The book makes us look in the eye the fact that life is not fair. But then, lo and behold, in the last scene it turns topsy-turvy and says “Well, it is really.” The man of that supreme commitment to God and to other human beings is fine in the end. This is so, I suggest, because in the end, perhaps the End with a big E, that conviction must be true, otherwise we could not live with the

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consequences. If life is random, if there is no cosmic morality, how could we live at all? What would life mean? Job declares that we must not view our experience of suffering as the end of the story. Israelite faith worked by betting on the conviction that in the end there was cosmic morality.This was not merely a matter of whistling in the dark. Israelites knew that they had empirical evidence for their conviction. It is empirical evidence analogous to that empirical evidence that would give some later Israelites such as Paul grounds for their conviction that death is not the end. It is not empirical evidence of the scientifically repeatable kind, but of the historical kind. Israelites knew that their own lives stemmed from an extraordinary act of their God. They had immigrated into Egypt and become a privileged minority group as Europeans did in Africa, but they had lost their privileged position and become more like African Americans in the south a century or two ago. Then their God intervened and forced the imperial authorities to let them leave so as to start a new life with their God somewhere else. Israelites took that experience as a key to understanding the world and life and God. They bet on the conviction that that experience showed that this is a moral universe. And they looked at creation and saw evidence of the same dynamic. They saw that creation evidenced the restraining hand of God holding back the terrifying forces that might overwhelm us. And it is on this basis, the evidence of God’s activity in creation, that Job argues. God’s speech points to that arena. Indeed, these books, which the world of scholarship calls the Wisdom Books, do not refer to the Exodus at all. Admittedly it may be that by being books about “Yahweh,” the God revealed to Israel in Egypt, they do presuppose that other arena. Certainly they are set in its context by virtue of being within the scriptures that tell of that deliverance from Egypt near their beginning. Perhaps Job itself also implies it in the way it handles that question with which I began. “Where shall wisdom be found?”, it asks in a poem, which follows on the argument between Job and his three friends (28:12). By human endeavor you can find many things, it says, but you can never find wisdom. To use Ecclesiastes’ terms, the quest is futile. There are no answers. The only person who knows the way to wisdom is God. And

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God is not giving you wisdom in the form of answers to your philosophical questions; they will remain questions. On the other hand, “reverence for the Lord, that is wisdom; turning from evil, that is understanding” (28:28). Since the time when the Old Testament was translated into Greek, that statement has been rendered as if it meant that “the fear of the Lord” is wisdom. Recent English translations recognize that this gives a false impression of the significance of the Hebrew word. It can mean fear, but it also covers awe and worship, and the Old Testament does not regularly assume that God is someone to be afraid of. So there is no basis for introducing the idea here. “Reverence for the Lord, that is wisdom.”

references Hubbard, David Allan. (1966). The wisdom movement and Israel’s covenant faith. Tyndale Bulletin, 17, 3–34.

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chapter 6

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It Takes Wisdom to Use Wisdom Wisely Robert K. Johnston

lthough proverbs are based on careful observation, they sometimes come to opposite conclusions. Consider these two sayings, which follow one after the other in the Book of Proverbs:

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Do not answer fools according to their folly, or you will be a fool yourself. Answer fools according to their folly, or they will be wise in their own eyes. —Prov. 26:4–5 Which is correct? Both . . . and neither. There is a fundamental ambivalence to life that defies codification. As Gerhard von Rad said in his classic work, Wisdom In Israel “Israel, with great openness, gave precedence to the contingent event over the logos achieved by means of abstract calculation. . . . Every sentence was, in principle, open to any possible amplification” (von Rad, 1972, p. 311; see also Johnston, 1987). Sometimes that further observation might seem even a contradiction. But the redactor of the Book of Proverbs knew better; the editor simply put the two observations next to each other and invited the reader to choose which was best in a given situation. It takes wisdom to know how to use wisdom. In the Book of Ecclesiastes, the Preacher laments, “And I thought the dead, who have already died, more fortunate than the living, who are still alive; but better than both is the one who has not yet been, and

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has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun” (Eccles. 4:2–3). Yet the same writer can conclude not too many paragraphs later, “But whoever is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion” (Eccles. 9:4). Is this ancient sage confused? Or does it not take wisdom to know how to understand wisdom wisely? As my grandmother’s favorite country singer used to strum, “You need to know when to hold ‘em, and know when to fold ‘em.” The five chapters in this section help us understand the “science” (or should we say the “art”) of wisdom.They do so by reference both to the wisdom of the Bible and to African proverbs. In particular, they focus on the wisdom literature found in the Old Testament. Such a purview brings with it certain difficulties, not the least of which is the very term “wisdom” itself. In both ancient Hebrew and modern English, for example, definitions are multiple and distinct. I have noted elsewhere, “for both the ancient Hebrew and the modern English-speaking individual, wisdom’s range of overlapping and at times contradictory meanings extends from craftiness to sagacity, from erudition to common sense” (Johnston, 1982). Thus we cannot naively read any one particular way of understanding the word “wisdom” into a text. A second difficulty has to do with Professor Nussbaum’s observation that African wisdom has been largely neglected in the West. If this is the case, and it is, it is not just African wisdom that has been neglected. For biblical proverbs share the same thought-forms and stylistic features as African proverbs.Their origin in the Fertile Crescent (Egypt, Palestine, and Mesopotamia) is no more “Western” than is Africa’s. Perhaps the issue is a uniquely “modern” one, where universals have been sought and abstractions valued. But in our increasingly post-modern world, the analytical is being re-valued and the nonlinear newly appreciated. As Walther Zimmerli has noted, wisdom is “per definitionem tahbuloth, ‘the art of steering,’ knowledge of how to do in life, and thus it has a fundamental alignment to man [and woman] and (our) preparing to master human life” (Zimmerli, 1964). As such, a memorable proverb has always captured the hearer’s attention.This is true across cultures, as our reading of the African proverbs in this section illustrates.We don’t need Professor Nussbaum’s commentary for these sayings to come alive (in fact, his comments seem at times limiting). Instead, a good proverb is

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transportable across boundaries, as Professor Mieder has so helpfully illustrated. His article thus allows us a common ground on which to bring the essays in this section into dialogue with each other.

speculating about a biblical proverb In his chapter, “‘A House Divided’: From Biblical Proverb to Lincoln and Beyond,” Wolfgang Mieder looks at a proverb from the mouth of Jesus: “And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.” (Mark 3:24–25) He provides a fascinating window into the evolution of a biblical proverb into a folk proverb (or perhaps we should say, of a folk proverb into a biblical proverb, and back into a folk proverb). As this proverb was used in America, it was the “house” variant (the second line) that was typically quoted. Moreover, over the decades, the reference often was shortened to simply “a house divided.” Thomas Chalkley, Thomas Paine, Abigail Adams, Andrew Jackson, Sam Houston, and Daniel Webster all made use of this rule of life as they argued the rightful shape of our nation. But it was Abraham Lincoln who memorialized the phrase as he applied it to the problem of the maintenance of the Union given the existence of slavery. Mieder shows how even a hundred years later, this biblical proverb turned American folk proverb had ongoing authority as it was recognized and reappropriated by Willy Brandt, the former mayor of West Berlin and then chancellor of the Republic of Germany. Here was a powerful metaphor for German reunification, too. Professor Mieder wishes that Lincoln had understood the full moral implications of Jesus’ proverb—that humankind, whether black or white, was one.1 The proverb should not have been limited narrowly to the political arena, he thinks. But despite Lincoln’s myopia, Mieder believes that Lincoln used Jesus’ proverb wisely and to good effect. Professor Mieder ends his illuminating study with these words: But there is no need for speculation at the end of this study of the proverb “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” There

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robe rt k. joh n ston is no doubt that it expresses in a metaphorical fashion and thus by means of the “art of indirection” a fundamental truth about sociopolitical reality and human behavior confronting it. Its message since the Bible and through the age of Abraham Lincoln on to the modern age rings loud and clear for all to hear: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

Although Mieder believes one need not speculate as to why this proverb speaks so strongly across cultures and ages, I cannot help but do so. Perhaps you had similar questions in reading the essay, particularly as it is seen in light of the other chapters in this section. (1) Is the continuing power of this proverb, for example, based more on its “art of indirection” than on its surface message? Is there an open-endedness to it that invites further probings? (2) Is its continuing authority over our lives also to be associated with the proverb’s original biblical source? (3) And what are we to make of the proverb’s original context, that is, the situation in which Jesus is reported to have uttered these memorable words? What light might the original sitz-im-leben shed on our use, or lack of use, of this proverb? (4) Finally, why did Lincoln use the second of Jesus’ proverbs and not the first, particularly when the first was specifically about government? Did his choice add to the power of his argument? Such questions seem as significant as the surface clarity of the message. And as we seek answers, the papers by Professors Clements, Nussbaum, Bergant, and Goldingay provide helpful clues. (1) In their discussion of wisdom, whether biblical or African, Professors Clements and Nussbaum discuss how the poetic form of a wisdom saying is designed to sink into the hearer’s subconscience.Through the use of exaggeration, figurative language, humor, and artistic skill, wisdom declarations seek to shape character and attitude. In the words of Nussbaum, proverbs are “the world’s oldest interactive educational resource, evoking both intellectual and emotional responses.” They do so by speaking concretely, but always, as Clements observes, in order to “illuminate a wider range of situations.” There is often, he says, “a kind of quizzical openness” to wisdom. Consider the following:

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Four things on earth are small, yet they are exceedingly wise: the ants are a people without strength, yet they provide their food in the summer; the badgers are a people without power yet they make their homes in the rocks; the locusts have no king, yet all of them march in rank; the lizard can be grasped in the hand, yet it is found in king’s palaces. —Prov. 30:24–28 Here is an important truth: wonderful things are often small and powerless. But it would be wrong to assume that such wisdom can be reduced to this pedestrian summary, or that we are being given anything akin to a universal “law.” My mother, who was not tall of stature, often recounted the story of an employer who told her, “Diamonds and perfume come in small packages.” My mother was so pleased by the compliment, until her boss added, “And so does poison.” Wisdom can uncover important truths concerning human experience, but it remains more admonitory than prescriptive. Moreover, wisdom always invites one to look more deeply. During the discussion that followed the presentation of Professor Clements’s paper at the conference, he commented on the opening verses of Proverbs 25, where “rules” are given as to what you do when you are invited to a royal banquet. “Be careful,” might summarize the given advice. But it would be wrong to conclude that these proverbs are meant to function simply as a book of rules concerning how to act at a formal occasion. Rather, a deeper principle is at work. When people are being nice to you, look for the reason. It is not so much the surface meaning of a proverb like this that makes it memorable, but its ability to invite one to reflect on life’s mystery and depth. In his paper on African proverbs, Professor Nussbaum echoes this insight: wisdom’s proverbs, he says, “are not admonitions to the obvious but revelations of the subtle.” It is important to not approach wisdom

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deductively or linearly.Whether biblical or African, wisdom is rooted in the whole person. Nussbaum suggests it is an African trait to say, “wisdom is judged not by its internal coherence as a system of ideas but by its power to connect with the incoherence and complexity of life.” But this is not just an African attitude. It is also typical of biblical wisdom. In fact, in introducing his paper on the wisdom of Ecclesiastes and Job, Professor Goldingay read several of his favorite African (!) proverbs. They brought laughter, but also ongoing reflection: A wife is like a blanket. For even though it scratches you, you are cold without it. To marry is to put a snake in one’s handbag.

Such proverbs are not easily parsed. So too, one’s life. Is this not much of the power and authority of wisdom? (2) “A house divided” has become a colloquial expression. Perhaps that was part of its power to attract and convict, even in Lincoln’s day, as Mieder suggests. Surely in an age when 10 percent of all Americans believe that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife, we must recognize that biblical illiteracy is the norm.2 But does the folk status of this proverb (“A house divided”) deny it the increased moral suasion that comes from its biblical rootage? Surely not. Professor Mieder notes Lincoln’s preoccupation with biblical phrases. He emphasizes that many sayings had largely become folk proverbs and metaphors by the time Lincoln used them, but he admits that their power and authority (their “didactic and ethical persuasiveness”) also resulted from their biblical context. How else is one to understand Lincoln’s use of biblical phraseology to a group of Baptist ministers or of Phillip Brook’s reference to Lincoln’s use of the phrase “a house divided against itself cannot stand” in his sermon on Lincoln as the president’s body lay in state? Surely a biblical “halo” should be attached, as well, to Booth Tarkington’s use of the words “the house divided” in his novel The Conquest of Canaan (1905), as the metaphor of “Canaan” well indicates. It would seem natural, as well, to find indirect biblical allusion in the use of “a house divided” in the titles of recent volumes on racial issues

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in America: House Divided: The Life and Legacy of Martin Luther King; House Divided: Poverty, Race, Religion, and the Family of Man; A House Divided: Conflict and Cooperation in African American-Jewish Relations. After all, each of these volumes deals with religion explicitly. This is also the case in Willy Brandt’s use of the proverb, as when he is quoted in Der Spiegel in 1978: “I have often referred to a sentence by Lincoln which does not stem from him but which he in turn got from the Bible—a fact that is nothing to be ashamed of—that a house divided against itself cannot stand” (translation, Mieder’s). Professor Mieder rightly comments on Brandt’s use of the proverb when he was abroad and would speak in English:“. . . he could count on the fact that his audience would know either the biblical proverb or Lincoln’s use of it or both.” But if such is the case, does this proverb not gain in depth because of its biblical and/or patriotic context? In their discussions of wisdom, Professors Goldingay, Bergant, and Clements all speak of the transcendent dimension of biblical wisdom. Although biblical wisdom is not referenced to salvation history, it does find its foundation in God as Creator and sees divine approval as the end result. Though God is rarely mentioned, God is everywhere assumed. Here is the reason for the extended theological prologue concerning Woman Wisdom in Proverbs 1-9, as well as the repeated aphorism,“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (e.g., Prov. 9:10). How else are we to understand Job’s theophany or the psalmist’s linkage of law and nature? In Professor Clements words,“Without a sense of reverence for God and the value of life as a God-given gift the benefits of wisdom’s teaching will fall on deaf ears.” What I am not suggesting is that all folk wisdom is unconsciously religious. It is dangerous, if not dishonest to claim for all wisdom a religious subcontext. Even Justin Martyr’s aphorism, “All truth is God’s truth,” runs the risk of falsely baptizing secular insight. But the perspective of biblical wisdom is also inviting. Wisdom has a depth that opens out into reflection on the transcendent.When that becomes manifest (as when “a house divided” is understood as being biblically rooted), then the authority and force of wisdom’s insight is increased. In his essay on “Wisdom on Death and Suffering,” Professor Goldingay reflects on the ending of the Book of Job, where Job’s life is restored:

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“If life is random, if there is no cosmic morality, how could we live at all? What would life mean? Job declares that we must not view our experience of suffering as the end of the story.” “Where shall wisdom be found?” was Job’s question (Job 28:12). There is no simple answer, as even a cursory reading of the Book of Job reveals. In fact, the quest is futile, as the writer of Ecclesiastes also realized. But though there are no answers, there is an answerer.3 “. . . reverence for the Lord, that is wisdom; turning from evil, that is understanding” ( Job 28:28, Goldingay’s translation). Does not the use of the phrase “a house divided” participate in the authority and strength of this insight? (3) The original context of the proverb, “a house divided,” is a fascinating one, one both difficult and troubling for many commentators (cf. Matt. 12:22–32; Mark 3:20–30; Luke 11:14–23). Jesus has cured a demoniac, someone who was also blind and mute.When the man could again speak and see, the crowds with Jesus were amazed. Jealous of the adulation, the Pharisees sought to discredit Jesus by linking him to Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons. It is in this situation that Mark writes, “And he called them to him and spoke to them in parables” (Mark 3:23).That is, he spoke to the Pharisees (Matthew) and the scribes (Mark) and the gathered crowd (Luke) in the language of wisdom. His words had an elusive and enigmatic character. What did it mean, for example, that the strong man must be bound up before his property could be plundered? And what is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? Is this narrative theology to be generalized and universalized? Jesus’ larger point seems to be that one is either on Satan’s side or God’s, and one’s actions will prove clarifying as to which is which. But the particular narrative is filled with difficulties. That Mark wants his readers to understand Jesus’ teaching primarily in its cosmic dimension is evident from the very next paragraph. As Mark relates the event, when Jesus finished his remarks, he was informed that his mother and brothers and sisters were outside, asking for him. Jesus replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” (Mark 3:33) Although he has just stated that a house divided against itself cannot stand, Jesus proceeds to question who is his family! The irony is intentional in Mark’s editing. Did Jesus not understand the very point of his parable? Shouldn’t he have meekly submitted to his family after they

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tried to restrain him (Mark 3:21)? If the proverb speaks of a fundamental rule of life that is self-evident, why is it that in the narrative Jesus does not get the point? He does not act as a son of his family; he seems to divide the house. Was Jesus cruel to his mother? Many interpreters are uneasy. What did it mean for Jesus politically and domestically that a kingdom/house divided against itself cannot stand? Jesus’ larger point is that those who do the will of God are his family, and those who deny God’s presence stand without, condemned. “A house divided against itself will not be able to stand” must have rung true to those original hearers as it does to us today, but context dictated its application. As Professor Mieder tells his students, “If the proverb fits, use it. If not, don’t.” A proverb is a truth that needs wisdom to be applied. It isn’t enough to know the sound byte. Or as my mother would say, “Even the devil can quote Scripture.” (4) Finally, it is interesting to reflect on why politicians have typically chosen the second half of Jesus’ proverb (“If a house is divided. . . .”) rather than the first (“If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.”). Perhaps a literalistic reading of the text would equate “kingdom” with Satan’s realm—and the connotation would be off-putting. But a more adequate explanation would see Jesus as speaking of two social units, one “macro” and the other “micro.” Jesus is referencing sociopolitical conflict in the first comparison and domestic conflict in the second. Why was it then that the family metaphor has been transposed now into the political realm? Or to put it more in the idiom of Lincoln’s day, why would Lincoln use the example of divided families to speak of the threat of a divided Union, when Jesus also spoke in the same proverb of civil war? Professor Mieder suggested one possible answer in the discussion that followed the reading of his paper. He noted that in the early nineteenth century in American political life, the word “house” took on the meaning of the “government.” It had nothing to do with the family, but with the House, the Congress. We still speak of the situation in government when our two parties disagree as a “divided house.” Many of Lincoln’s hearers would have made this connection to Washington, D.C. Others, however, would have referenced Lincoln’s remarks more directly to the

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home. They would have understood it to be also referring to the family—not just the government, or even God’s household of faith, but one’s human family. (Here is Mark’s intention in including the brief discussion of who is Jesus’ real family in the paragraph after Jesus is described as giving the parable.There was a need to clarify the focus of Jesus’ remarks in that particular context.) For such hearers, the power of the household metaphor would have thus been brought into play in order to increase the affect of Lincoln’s argument. If the Union split, brothers would be fighting on both sides of the battlefield. All of us feel the tragedy, the agony, in such a situation. In short, the connotations associated with “home” made a unified “house” a particularly compelling political image. Unity is something everyone longs for.

the search for order or observations on life During the seventies and eighties, Bill Gothard toured the country holding workshops with his Institute for Basic Youth Conflict. His point was this, if you just learned the rules for life provided by the Book of Proverbs, conflict would cease; families would thrive; success would follow. The teachings of Proverbs were for Gothard absolute rules to be absolutely followed. The problem, of course, is that such “rules” don’t always work out. Should a wife stay with an abusive husband? What if the discipline of a child doesn’t work? Is lying ever a tragic necessity? Professor Goldingay began his essay by referencing the comment by David Allan Hubbard regarding Old Testament wisdom:“Proverbs seems to say,‘These are the rules for life; try them and find that they will work.’ Job and Ecclesiastes say, ‘We did and they don’t’” (Hubbard, 1966). Here is the rub. The search for order in an increasingly chaotic world seems to flounder on the shoals of real life. What can be said? First, it is important to keep in mind Professor Clements observation that wisdom is more declarative than prescriptive. The wisdom writers watched the habits of animals and drew lessons. They viewed human experience and noted the results of good and bad behavior. At times their descriptions simply drew attention to realities,

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which they observed without judgment. For example, Prov. 18:16 states quite simply that bribes work: A gift opens doors; it gives access to the great. Or again, note Prov. 11:16b: The timid become destitute, but the aggressive gain riches. More often, however, such observations are in reality admonitions: Those who are kind reward themselves, but the cruel do themselves harm. —Prov. 11:17 Or again: Do not eat the bread of the stingy; do not desire their delicacies; for like a hair in the throat, so are they. “Eat and Drink!” they say to you; but they do not mean it. You will vomit up the little you have eaten, and you will waste your pleasant words. —Prov. 23:6–8 There is little doubt what the intentions of these proverbs are. Be kind, not cruel. Look out for stingy people. But even here, there is a humility that is evident. Old Testament proverbs are not hard and fast “rules,” but sage observations that prove true.While they are meant to teach and persuade, they are neither manipulative nor magical. The authority of their admonitions is in the empirical evidence, or lack there of.Their strength resides in the hearer recognizing that “Yes, this is how life usually works.” Such wisdom is always open to correction and enlargement.Though the sages

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teach, for example, that “One who spares words is knowledgeable,” they also can observe that “Even fools who keep silent are considered wise.” (Prov. 17:27–28). Proverbs give a perspective(s) more than a precept. It is true that wisdom was (and is!) involved in ongoing development. Professor Clements emphasizes wisdom’s original locus in the family (just as Professor Nussbaum notes the oral and common character of African wisdom). It is here that an Israelite first learned life’s perspectives (cf. Deut. 5:1–5). But family blended with court, and court with school, as wisdom took on an increasingly international context. Even in these more public settings, however, wisdom refrained from offering “anything akin to a law code.” (Again, the parallel with African wisdom is interesting to note.) As Professor Clements rightly observes, “The goal is to create a wise person, rather than to define the rules of what wisdom dictates should be done on particular occasions.” Wisdom’s concern is life, not law. Wisdom’s path leads to life (Prov. 10:17). Its teaching is “a fountain of life” (Prov. 13:14). Wisdom is “a tree of life” (Prov. 3:18). As Roland Murphy rightly argued, the kerygma of the Book of Proverbs is life (Murphy, 1966). And now, my children, listen to me: happy are those who keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it. Happy is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors. For whoever finds me finds life And obtains favor from the Lord; But those who miss me injure themselves; All who hate me love death. — Prov. 8:32–36

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the integrity of creation Seeking life, wisdom is committed to the integrity of creation.Wanting to correct too univocal a reading of the Old Testament in terms of “salvation history,” Professor Bergant argues for wisdom’s cosmic rootage. She opposes our Western linear thinking as foreign to wisdom. Instead, she makes an apology for wonder given the cosmos. Here is an important contribution to our contemporary understanding of biblical wisdom. I am reminded of Kathleen O’Connor’s words: “Wisdom’s preference for the daily concerns of human existence, for example, its attention to creation, its depictions of God as mysterious and elusive— perspectives that once kept wisdom on the edges of historically oriented biblical theology—now seem to provide essential theological resources for a postcolonial, postmodern world” (O’Connor, 1995). Professor Bergant opposes any anthropocentric reading of wisdom, arguing instead for a shift to a cosmocentric worldview. She proposes that there is an order inherent in the world, put there by the Creator. She then turns to the seven wisdom books of the Old Testament to illustrate how this cosmic perspective is played out. She notes that the wisdom of the marketplace is authenticated by its cosmic context, not the reverse. Protecting the environment, for example, is not to be argued, first of all, because it is good for the human community. Such a notion of stewardship remains anthropocentric. Instead, we should take care of the earth’s resources because the earth is the Lord’s. It is not ours. Surely, such a recognition of the multiple theological perspectives of the Bible is salutary. We must not reject the Epistle of James as Luther was prone to do, because it did not coincide with the theology of Paul’s letters. There are four gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—each with their distinct theological perspective.There is salvation history and creation theology. The question is whether these are to be understood as varied perspectives within a common whole, or whether these differences should be seen as essentially contested notions. Professor Bergant would seem to want to replace the anthropocentric historical perspective of Exodus 2 with the creational cosmology of Genesis. She finds affinity with process theology and with some forms

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of ecofeminism and suggests that a cosmocentric worldview would necessitate “a reexamination of many, if not most, of the tenets of the faith.” I would rather say that the emphases and orientation of Old Testament wisdom literature reflect different experiences of life and of God than the rest of the Old Testament with its more narrative shape. It is an alternative theological perspective. As such, it does not deny the historical, as much as it broadens our theological horizons to include the interconnectedness of life, human relationships, routine work, and the like. Wisdom centers in the quotidian. It elevates ordinary life. Divine revelation need not be limited to salvation history; it can include daily existence.

the shoals of life For those who would seek cosmic legitimization for their theology, they must ultimately run up against the shoals of life. Death and suffering prove intractable. Thus, the last paper in this section focuses on the limits of the wisdom tradition. What can one say about life’s “order” when it so often proves disorderly? The morning of the symposium was the morning of the funeral for Tom Bradley, the mayor of Los Angeles for twenty years during the seventies and eighties. Bradley is the only African-American mayor that Los Angeles has had, and many credit him with bringing Los Angeles into the prominence it now possesses. As I drove to the symposium, the radio commentator said, “This is a live service. Family are going by the open casket. Some are crying; some are gently smiling.” And then we heard the Reverend Cecil Murray begin the funeral with these words as gospel music played in the background; “Praise be the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the midst of dying, we are caught up in living.” Here is the perspective of all wisdom. Professor Goldingay asks in his essay why the proverbs of the Old Testament sometimes don’t work. He could have added to the list those of Jesus, an African sage, and my grandmother from Oklahoma. In particular, why doesn’t wisdom “work” in the face of death and suffering? This essay began by noting the paradoxical assertions of the writer of Ecclesiastes. The Preacher could both think the dead who had already died

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more fortunate than the living and say, “a living dog is better than a dead lion.” How are these wise sayings to be voiced together? Did the sage ultimately mean one more than the other? Or is the writer simply confused? No, what Ecclesiastes is doing is reflecting on the empirical evidence. And the evidence demands that life’s fundamental paradox be recognized: “In the midst of dying, we are caught up in living.” On the one hand, we experience the gift of life and wonder before its value. Here is the perspective of Professor Bergant’s chapter. As we observe life, we encounter the answerer to life’s mystery, even if not all the answers. But on the other hand, we also observe life’s ongoing absurdity and need to give it the negative evaluation it deserves. Life presents us with unbelievable horror and indescribable joy. And it is wisdom’s task to hold onto both of these empirical observations concurrently, without letting one trump the other.The writer of Ecclesiastes, like the author of Job, heard wisdom’s dialectical call. Thus they provide both negative evaluation and positive judgment. After all, such is life! Ours is an era when wisdom is seen as increasingly paradoxical. As 2000 dawns, the polls tell us that the American people like President Clinton’s social policies while abhorring his personal ethic. What then is a proper response? Chemotherapy prolongs life but compromises life’s value. Many must choose whether or not to take it. It will not do to say an answer is self-evident, or that it will all work out for the best. We know at least in this life, often “the good they die young.” But neither will it suffice to become cynical and say, “Eat, drink, for tomorrow we die.” What is called for is discernment. Wisdom sayings provide their readers memorable observations based on real life experience. As such, they can be our teacher. Nevertheless, wisdom’s proverbs are never selfevident, applicable by any dolt. In life it remains the case that it takes wisdom to use wisdom wisely.

notes 1 At the Huntington Library in Pasadena, California in 1997, a major exhibition of Lincoln material was mounted. The letters on display made it abundantly clear that Mieder’s criticism of Lincoln is justified. For most of

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his public life, Lincoln’s overarching concern was for the continued unity of the country, not for the full equality of blacks. 2 Quoted by J. Walker Smith,Yankelovitch & Partners, based on a survey for Robert Schuller Ministries (personal correspondence, December 12, 1997). 3 The phrase is from David Hubbard, former president of Fuller Theological Seminary.

references Hubbard, David Allan. (1966). The wisdom movement and Israel’s covenant faith. Tyndale Bulletin, 17, 6. Johnston, Robert K. (1982). Redefining “wisdom.” Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation, 34, 44. Johnston, Robert K. (1987). Wisdom literature and its contribution to a biblical environmental ethic. In Wesley Granberg-Michaelson (Ed.), Tending the Garden (pp. 66–82). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Murphy, Roland E. (1966).The kerygma of the Book of Proverbs. Interpretation, 20, 3–14. O’Connor, Kathleen. (1995). Wisdom literature and experience of the divine. In Kraftchick, Myers, and Ollenburger (Eds.). Biblical Theology (p. 183). Nashville: Abingdon. von Rad, Gerhard. (1972). Wisdom in Israel. Trans. James D. Martin. Nashville: Abingdon. Zimmerli,Walther. (1964).The place and limit of the wisdom in the framework of the Old Testament theology. Scottish Journal of Theology, 17, 148.

Part II ✦

The Science of Wisdom

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chapter 7

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Wisdom Traditions as Mechanisms for Organismal Integration: Evolutionary Perspectives on Homeostatic “Laws of Life” Jeffrey P. Schloss

introduction or more than a hundred years, the most profound implications of evolutionary theory for our understanding of unique human cognitive capacities have been largely supported by promissory notes. The robust good credit of science in general has bolstered confidence in the explanatory solvency of evolutionary naturalism, even though it has lacked ability to reduce substantially the debt of our ignorance about puzzling and ostensibly distinctive human behaviors. Specifically, we have lacked a theory for the emergence of integrative, higher order cognitive functions. I am referring not merely to language or rationality, although these are thorny problems in themselves, but to our abilities, indeed our penchant, to formulate metaknowledge: an understanding of understanding as reflected in religion, morality, and wisdom traditions. Many aspects of these traditions have appeared to confer no direct adaptive value, and some have entailed ostensibly counter-reproductive forms of radical self-relinquishment. This situation constitutes both a challenge and an opportunity for evolutionary theory. It entails challenge because, until recently, there were few proposals that appeared even to have promise of explanatory efficacy. At the same time, it presents an opportunity because, as Holcomb (1993) has observed, meeting the challenge would largely complete the evolutionary project. Moreover, it would enable the reform of,

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or at least would substantially inform, so very many areas of both scholarly and personal inquiry. Hence the topic of meta-cognitive notions of meaning—particularly in moral and wisdom traditions—is a crucial one for evolutionary theory and for its relationship to other disciplines. In the last twenty years, even in the last few years, significant new perspectives have developed on the evolution of human meta-cognition and transmission of cultural meaning (Barkow, Cosmides, and Tooby, 1992; Blackmore, 1999; Crawford and Krebs, 1998; Cziko, 1995; Durham, 1991; Fodor, 1983; Gardner, 1985, 1993; Mithen, 1996; Pinker, 1994, 1999; Plotkin, 1993, 1997; Richerson and Boyd, 1999;White, 1992). I intend to examine the relationship of these notions to the issue of human wisdom by asking two questions. Firstly, how is the general capacity for human wisdom thought to have evolved and what implications does this have for our understanding of wisdom’s “function”? Secondly, is there specific content of wisdom traditions that reflects widespread evolutionary or biological principles (e.g., laws of life)? Correspondingly, is there content that does not comport well with present evolutionary understanding? From the start, I want to acknowledge that evolutionary theory can be used to shed light on human nature in two different but complimentary ways. Firstly, given a particular picture of human nature, one can attempt to construct an evolutionary history that could have given rise to it. Secondly, given a particular understanding of evolutionary processes, the range of perspectives on human nature can be constrained to match it and observational data can be interpreted thereby. The second approach has generated resistance to some evolutionary explanations of human nature on the basis of religious and nonreligious concerns about deconstructing human nature to fit a particular, ideologically biased version of evolutionary theory (Keller, 1991; Keller and Ewing, 1993; Gilkey, 1995; Gould, 1977; Johnson, 1991, 1995; Kass, 1985; Kaye, H., 1986; Midgley, 1979, 1980, 1982, 1986; Rolston, 1999; Sahlins, 1976; Schwartz, 1986;Voorzanger, 1987). For example,Voorzanger (1987) maintains, “Instead of using evolutionary history to get to know ourselves, we have to know ourselves in order to give an evolutionary reconstruction of our behavior.” Particularly since there are so many highly contrasting accounts of human cognitive evolution, it is important to heed his concern that we avoid compressing our understanding

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of humanity to fit one particular evolutionary perspective. On the other hand,Voorzanger’s dichotomized choice is both unrealistic and undesirable—for two reasons. Firstly, although a particular version of evolutionary theory should not provide the determinative interpretation of humanity, biological explanations must surely play a role in understanding ourselves because we are organic beings. Our picture is incomplete if evolutionary theory is not at the palette. Secondly, science does not, indeed cannot, merely explain what we observe wholly with our extra-scientific faculties, since all theories not only explain what we see, but condition what we see. It is not only unavoidable, but desirable that this should be the case.

general considerations Wisdom The task of discussing the relationship between evolution and the human quest for wisdom is rendered not only difficult, but arguably pretentious, by the fact that the nature of “wisdom” is so elusively difficult to define. Indeed, the sense that wisdom can be recognized but not adequately explained is itself a characteristic of wisdom, which as Crenshaw (1981) understatedly points out, “possesses a certain indescribable quality.” Moreover, although “the care and cultivation of this experiential knowledge” may be something to which “every nation with a culture has devoted itself ” (von Rad, 1975)—like religion, art, or other forms of meta-cognition—there is the risk that its essence may be obscured rather than illuminated in the light of generalization. Nevertheless, we need a starting point and will begin with the minimalist and hopefully not too stringent common denominator proposed by Crenshaw (1981): “Wisdom is the reasoned search for specific ways to assure well-being and the implementation of those discoveries in daily existence.”Von Rad (1975), meanwhile, views wisdom as “one of the most elementary activities of the human mind, with the practical aim of averting harm and impairment of life from man,” and suggests an even more economical notion of wisdom as entailing “the essentials for coping with reality.”

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There are several widely noted aspects of wisdom’s search for the essentials of coping with reality (Crenshaw, 1981; Goldsworthy, 1987; Honeck, 1997; Murphy, 1997; Sternberg, 1990; von Rad, 1975). Firstly, it entails a world view or attitude toward reality that affirms it has order, and that this order is discernible to human exegetes. The biblical wisdom tradition, for example, affirms “by wisdom the Lord founded the earth,” and observes that acquiring wisdom starts with respect for the source of all order, repeating the refrain, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Secondly, it reflects the conviction that understanding this order is not a matter of indifference to human well-being and flourishing, but a prerequisite to it. Proverbial personifications of dame wisdom maintain, “she is a tree of life to all who take hold of her.” Indeed, there is often the sense that reality is ordered in such a way as to confer well-being upon those who understand and live in accord with its principles. Thus, notions of grace or pleas for special consideration are typically absent from wisdom’s emphasis on the reasonable consequences of one’s decisions. And when such consequences seem unreasonable or unjust, this presents an anguish of which wisdom must endeavor to make sense. Thirdly, the claims of wisdom are generally descriptive and not prescriptive (see Chapter 1), and the wise—even in biblical wisdom literature—typically do not invoke moral commandments or specially revealed doctrines of creation, but convey insights about how the world works, which appeal to enlightened self-interest and which are confirmable by experience and common sense. The wisdom that thus emerges may involve simple, pragmatic observations about living in accord with human needs and desires, counsel about dealing with personal relationships or life in the wider community, insights on the interior life and its attendant virtues and weaknesses, or profound reflections on making choices in accord with the ultimate purpose or deepest values of human existence (Crenshaw, 1981). For the purposes of this paper, I will coalesce these aspects of wisdom into a notion derived from von Rad (1975) and Crenshaw (1981) and proposed by Wilson (in personal correspondence): Wisdom is living in a way that corresponds to how things are. It is not mere knowledge, nor is it mere moral admonition, but it involves deep insight into the functioning, meaning, and purposes of existence along with

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the ability to discern how to live correspondingly, that is, in accord with the way things are.

Evolution However difficult wisdom is to define, it would seem that the scientific concept of evolution should be amenable to precise definition. Indeed, since the neo-Darwinian synthesis of Mendelian genetics with Darwinian selection theory, the standard and reasonably adequate definition of evolution has been change in the genetic constitution of a population over time. The driving force or mechanism of such evolutionary change is widely accepted to be natural selection, popularly understood as survival of the fittest and more precisely represented as “differential reproduction of genotypes.” In recent years, however, there have been a number of fascinating and occasionally virulent debates within evolutionary biology over both how selection operates and how important it is in generating largescale evolutionary change. While the fundamental idea of descent with modification is not in dispute, the disagreement over how such descent occurs is not cosmetic but substantial, and the differences in interpretation have significant implications for understanding human cognition. Moreover, the attempt to explain human behavior and meta-cognition has itself exacerbated the existing controversies, and generated some new ones as well. As Sober and Wilson (1998) observe, The evolutionary study of social behavior during the last thirty years has reflected a massive confusion between alternate theories that invoke different processes on the one hand and alternative perspectives that view the same processes in different ways on the other.

Thus it is important to survey briefly the landscape of alternative evolutionary accounts. A useful conceptual tool for mapping the varied explanatory terrain is a relationship commonly (but imprecisely) referred to as Fisher’s Fundamental Theorem, which holds that E=s*g, where E is the rate of evolutionary change, s is the intensity of natural

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selection operating on a trait, and g is the additive genetic variance of genes associated with that trait in a population. In other words, for (Darwinian) evolution to be effective, a) traits must have adaptive value in a given environment, with adaptive differentials between variations, and b) observable (phenotypic) variations in traits must be associated with variation in underlying genotypes. If the first condition is not true, there would be no selective filtering; if the second condition is not true, filtering would not produce any genetic change.

adaptive axis Values for the two independent variables can each be thought of as representing a continuum, and the two variables together comprise axes that map a landscape of evolutionary and explanatory possibility. For example, the long-standing neutralist-selectionist controversy has entailed considerable debate about how adaptive value relates to evolutionary diversity, with some arguing that a substantial amount of polymorphism (variation) is adaptively neutral and established by non-Darwinian agents of evolutionary change. This debate has important implications for how vigilantly we seek to understand human behavioral patterns as reproductive adaptations. Furthermore, and perhaps therefore, the debate has intensified in the arena of evolutionary accounts of human behavior. On the adaptationist end of the axis are traditional sociobiological accounts of human behavior, which posit that human social behaviors can best be understood as adaptations to enhance, even maximize, reproductive success (Barash, 1982; Ghiselin, 1974;Wilson, 1975). Some recent evolutionary psychological treatments maintain this emphasis (Buss, 1999; Wright, 1994). More nuanced analyses point out that because of changes in the physical and cultural environment since the Pleistocene era, and mediation by psychological processes, human behaviors do not maximize fitness, but their origin and nature are nevertheless best understood in the context of adaptationism. In particular, human cognition is comprised of particular adaptive modules with intrinsic cognitive biases toward concepts or behaviors that help solve reproductive challenges in the environments that gave rise to them (Cosmides, and Tooby, 1992; Fodor, 1983; Pinker, 1999).

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A number of recent accounts (de Waal, 1996; Frank, 1988; Plotkin, 1993, 1997) do not primarily emphasize the adaptive value of specific cognitive content, but posit the adaptive and less deterministic role of emotions. For example, evolutionary psychologist Henry Plotkin (1993) describes emotions as “postcards from our genes,” one function of which is to “inform our intelligence what to learn and think about.” However, the content of what we actually end up learning may be “somewhat uncoupled” from the process of natural selection. Further along the axis still would be Gould’s well-known criticisms of the strong adaptationist program as it is applied to both macro- and human social evolution (Gould and Lewtontin, 1979; Gould, 1997a, b). However, even in Gould’s view, the range of potentiality for (though not specific variations in) human sociality is still made sense of by natural selection (Gould, 1977). Presenting an entirely non-adaptationist account, Ayala (1995) argues that human morality, religion, and sense of purpose have absolutely no adaptive value. This does not mean that these capacities are transcendent or abiological, but rather that they are due to pleiotropic or epigenetic processes. That is to say, they are incidental byproducts of other cognitive traits, which were selected for their biologically adaptive value. Ayala argues that we distort the nature of meaning-conferring and valuational enterprises if we insist on fitting them into adaptive explanations.

genetic axis The second axis of explanatory variability concerns the extent to which human cognitive abilities and behavioral phenotypes are understood to be determined or influenced by genetic variability. Of course all phenotypes in biological organisms involve interaction between genotype and environment, and the fractional contribution of each is in principle an empirical question. However, the question of cognition and social behavior in human beings is methodologically challenging, theoretically complex, and also ideologically charged. To be fair, almost (but not quite) all proposals for human cultural evolution begin with the acknowledgment that the cognitive and behavioral variations that have developed over the last ten thousand years are not due to changes in the gene pool. What controversy exists

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reflects opposing understandings of the extent to which a) the range of variation is constrained by a “genetic leash” operating on culture (Wilson, 1978), b) commonalties or central tendencies in human behavior are reflective of shared genetic adaptations, and c) some inter-individual variation in cognition and social behavior may be related to underlying differences in genotype. The strong sociobiological program proposes that each of the above relationships is viable (Wilson, 1975). A bit more modestly, some approaches from ecological anthropology (Harris, 1977) and, more recently, from memetics (Blackmore, 1999) suggest that the leash may break, but there are still biological affinities that influence central tendency. That is, there are genetic biases but not absolute constraints on what we learn or do. At the abiological extreme, the standard social science model (SSSM) asserts coefficients of zero for all three of the above functions. Human social behavior is virtually biologically autonomous. These highly contrasting positions not only appear to be incommensurable, but clearly have vastly different implications for understanding human meta-cognition.

hierarchical axis The above alternatives may not be as irreconcilable as they appear, however, and at least some perspectives have been suggested to converge along a third axis involving hierarchical levels of organization. In order to describe this I must first clarify the nature of evolution as a twostage process. The first stage entails the generation of genetic diversity, or variation in heritable units of information, which Dawkins (1976) calls replicators.The second stage is the differential reproduction of this information through selective environmental filtering, not of the replicators directly, but of the organismal phenotypes for which they code, which Dawkins calls vehicles. Genes are the replicators; organisms are the vehicles. How genes generate organisms involves fascinating mysteries of developmental biology, but the evolutionary relationship between them is not hierarchical. As Plotkin (1993) maintains: NeoDarwinism has never been built on a foundation of hierarchy theory. It is a two-stage formulation with genetics as the principal engine of variation and selection acting mainly upon

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the phenotype. But a stage is not a level, and sequence does not constitute a hierarchical formulation. No scaling relationship between genes and phenotypes is implied, and the whole way that these levels have been presented has never been in the spirit of hierarchy theory.

There are currently two different though not mutually exclusive proposals for how evolution may be hierarchical, which correspond to two differing kinds of hierarchy. Structural hierarchy involves an expanding series of numeric or spatial boundaries (e.g., soldier - unit - platoon). Functional hierarchy involves a nested sequence of control (e.g., private - sergeant - major). These may overlap (city - state - nation), and biological systems evidence both kinds of hierarchy. Structural hierarchy is involved in recent formulations of multilevel selection theory (MLS) (Sober and Wilson, 1998; Wilson and Kniffin, 1999). Possible units of selection can be envisioned as ranging along a hierarchical gradient from individual genes, which theoretical models in population genetics have traditionally employed; to groups of genes, which influence actual behaviors and most other empirically observable traits studied by quantitative genetics; to the whole genome, the minimally functional unit of genetic association; to gene pools or groups of genomes, constituting competing reproductive populations. While this has often been portrayed in the context of debates over group selection, there has been explanatory tension along the entire gradient. For example, Frank (1998) comments on “an uneasy relation between theory, often formulated in the population genetics tradition, and practical studies that depend on quantitative genetics.” However, much discussion of selectional units, including the above structural hierarchy, reflects a lack of distinction between a structural hierarchy of replicators (gene - genome - gene pool) and vehicles (trait - organism - population). Some current formulations of MLS propose that the unit of selection (i.e., differential reproduction) is the gene, but the vehicles that are environmentally filtered range hierarchically from individual to group level traits.This is significant not only because it suggests that some aspects of the group selectionist controversy involve different perspectives on the same process rather than ascriptions of

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different processes, but also because it expands the possibility for selfrelinquishing cognitive dispositions—important, as we shall see, in consideration of wisdom. In contrast to the structural hierarchy of vehicles involved in MLS, there are several proposals involving a functional hierarchy of replicators (e.g., Blackmore, 1999; Durham, 1991; Plotkin, 1993, 1997). Two things about these proposals are especially important to note. Firstly, they involve not progressively larger structural assemblages of the same replicator (e.g., gene, genome, gene pool), but functionally different replicators altogether (e.g., genes and ideas or memes). Thus they may be considered dual inheritance models of human behavioral evolution (Durham, 1991), involving biological and cultural modes of replication and selective transmission. Secondly, since the selective regimes operating on altogether different replicators are not the same, and because a dual inheritance system is posited to entail not just a structural but a control hierarchy, the properties of higher levels are not reducible to properties of lower levels. If they were, there would be no differential control.Thus the origin, content, and behavioral influence of culturally transmitted ideas or memes cannot be wholly explained by, and may even run counter to, behavioral influences via natural selection on and environmental mediation of genes. Why this is posited to be the case will be described below, but its implications are considerable for notions of wisdom.

adaptive heuristics Plotkin (1993, 1997) has proposed a hierarchical model that has particular relevance for consideration of wisdom. Plotkin begins by appropriately noting that a characteristic of biological as opposed to physico-chemical systems is that living organisms manifest adaptation. Although the study of adaptation is central to, even determinative of, biological science, we actually do not have a very good definition of it. Indeed, it is frequently regarded as a characteristic of an organism that helps it reproduce, but this notion has little explanatory power. Moreover, it does not adequately reflect the relational quality of adaptations, that is, they are innovations to solve specific environmental challenges. Plotkin suggests adaptations should be understood in terms of the fact

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that organismal traits appear to have biological “purposes”—for example, the cryptic function of coloration, the oxygen carrying function of hemoglobin. Adaptation involves devising traits to “fit” with or correlate to particular features of the environment in order to achieve functional efficacy—for example, light fur in boreal mammals, high affinity hemoglobin in mountain goats.The important thing about adaptations is that they come to embody information about the organism’s environmental reality and enable the organism to live in accord with that reality—not unlike our notion of wisdom. Environment is not constant, however, and organisms require not only successful adaptations, but also means of generating new adaptations. A means of devising and testing novel adaptations, of “discovering” new ways of fitting to the environment, Plotkin calls a heuristic. Of course a heuristic device is any learning tool, and Plotkin observes that there are natural biological heuristics at work in living things. The most obvious heuristic is natural selection, which involves the generating of novel variations and the selective winnowing and retention of those that fit, culminating in genetic adaptations. Evolution by natural selection is the primary biological heuristic. Recall that the value of a heuristic is its ability to generate new adaptations in response to changing environment.The problem with genetic adaptations achieved by the primary selectional heuristic is that their response time is so slow. Moreover, when it comes to genetically determined cognitive and behavioral inclinations (e.g., reflexes or instincts), the phenotypic range is rather rigid and narrow. This leaves the organism in need of a solution to the “uncertain futures problem”, that is, the demand to devise more quickly adaptive responses to rapidly changing—and often unpredictable—surroundings.The capacity for learning is widely recognized as a solution to this problem. Learning can thus be considered an example of a secondary biological heuristic capable of devising new adaptations. (This is also true of immunological innovation, and these may be the only known examples of secondary heuristic devices.) Although enabled by genetic factors, their ability to generate novelty does not require genetic change, that is, their replicators (synaptic and immunological configurations) are altogether different from the nucleotide sequences of the primary

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heuristic. Moreover, neither the vehicles nor the respective filtering processes entail natural selection. And finally, each process entails influence or control over organismal characteristics that is not reducible to genetic control.Thus learning and immunological innovation represent secondary biological heuristics, each reflecting a nested control hierarchy. Of course the extent or rapidity of environmental change may exceed the capacity even of the secondary heuristic of learning to devise appropriate adaptations. Plotkin suggests that human culture (with its extrasomatic storage of information and synergistic communicative interactions) constitutes a tertiary heuristic.The selectional processes of differential cultural transmission are distinct from the neurological filtering in learning, and both the amplitude and frequency of adaptive response may be greater in cultural innovation than that of the second degree (or first degree) heuristics. One final and quite important observation about the tertiary heuristic of culture needs to be made clear. Because culture constitutes the tertiary adaptive heuristic in a control hierarchy, it is not reducible to lower (e.g., genetic) levels. Not atypically, however, one envisions a nested hierarchy as entailing the nonreductive emergence of (or containment within) higher and lower levels, but the higher levels—while not wholly determined by are still ultimately constrained by—processes governing the lower levels. However, even though culture is clearly influenced by biological inclinations, it is not constrained by the primary heuristic. This controversial conclusion is arrived at not because of the internal logic of hierarchy theory, but because of commonly observed behaviors, unique to human culture, which clearly and systematically reduce fitness. Speaking of celibacy, and other widespread religious and cultural practices that entail reproductive relinquishment, Plotkin (1997) observes: How is this to be understood? The only explanation is that culture entails causal mechanisms that are somehow decoupled, not necessarily completely, but some partial decoupling is necessary, from the causal mechanisms of our biological evolution. It certainly cannot be that culture is tightly held on some biological “leash.”

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Thus, a common and very significant feature of many though not all dual inheritance models is that they view culturally derived innovations as being able to “oppose” (Durham, 1991), “resist” (Dawkins, 1976), or “thwart the self-serving thrust” (Lopreato, 1984) of the primary heuristic. How this can be is a difficult and as yet unsolved problem, not unlike the ancient theological reflections on the mystery of creaturely embodiment or Alexander Pope’s “location of human nature on an ‘isthmus of a middle state’—that is, between bestiality and mental transcendence” (Gould, 1999).

evolution and the function of wisdom At this point, it might seem appropriate simply to locate human wisdom traditions within the operation of the partially uncoupled tertiary level of the control hierarchy. However, there is reason to view the situation as more complicated and more elegant than that. The operation of the cultural heuristic entails both good news and potential bad news for human flourishing. The good news is, because it responds more quickly than either primary or secondary heuristics, human beings can devise more varied innovations more rapidly than any other organism. The bad news is, because it is at least partially uncoupled from the biological heuristic, there is no guarantee that cultural innovations will be adaptive or even hospitable to our biological functioning. Thus, because the cultural heuristic is both partially uncoupled and rapidly changing, it can generate consequences that are damaging to our physical and mental health, and to which our genetic and cognitive heuristics cannot quickly adapt. Is it thus possible we will, in Plotkin’s (1993) words,“blithely destroy the world that we evolved upon and then take happily to living science fiction lives as some kind of semi-robotic creatures?” His own answer is that “the tertiary heuristic of science” has already detected damaging effects such as ozone depletion. And since the tertiary heuristic is not totally detached from our biology, he is optimistic that we will employ it “to maintain the earth in a state fit for the primary and secondary heuristic.” Whether or not environmental history and observations of how

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humans employ technology justify such confidence is an interesting but separate discussion. For the purposes of considering wisdom, Plotkin’s observations raise two important issues. Firstly, there is the question of how connections between science (along with other aspects of the tertiary heuristic) and lower levels can result in adaptive—I would say wise—choices. We already know— through everything from smoking to kuru (Durham, 1991)—that influence from the “bottom up” is not sufficient to constrain the development or implementation of cultural innovations to those which promote flourishing. Naked and innate desires do not limit the development or utilization of cultural innovations to the biologically beneficial. One possibility, which I will develop further a bit later, is that wisdom represents a “top down” evaluative filtering of tertiary innovations in the context of the needs of primary and secondary levels. Indeed, it entails living in accord with the way things are. Millennia before science discovered the destructive effects of perturbing biogeochemical cycles, many wisdom traditions recognized the damaging effects of over consumption to human well-being: next to the exhortation “know thyself ” at the Delphic Oracle was the maxim “in all things moderation.” Secondly, while emphasis on and concern over maintaining the earth in a suitable condition to support life is legitimate and highly important, if considered alone it overlooks culture itself as a crucial life-sustaining aspect of the human environment. Even if the earth were pristine, we could subvert human well-being by pollution of the cultural environment. However, because culture changes so rapidly and is not biologically constrained, we, unlike any other creature, face the question of what will maintain the social environment itself from becoming, in words Plotkin uses to describe concern for the physical environment, “unnatural and deeply damaging.” Yet a control device for cultural inputs would seem to require a human capacity to transcend it evaluatively. One possibility is that this is precisely the nature of wisdom: it is a quaternary heuristic that is both contained within and partly free to transcend—even oppose—the cultural heuristic. This capability is perhaps reflected in the Pauline exhortation to “be not conformed to this world, but be transformed from within by the renewing of your minds.” The notion of a highly integrative, at least partially culturally

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autonomous function of meta-cognition does not comport with some of the prevailing modular perspectives in evolutionary psychology or the cultural determinism of SSSM. However, it is not inconsistent with several emerging accounts of how cognitive fluidity and capacity for metarepresentation were developed. Common to nearly all present accounts of cognitive evolution is the view that intelligence began not as a general purpose, problem solving rationality, but as an assemblage of differing modules or intelligences, cognitively biased toward solutions for particular environmental challenges (Cosmides and Tooby, 1992; Fodor, 1983; Gardner, 1983, 1993). Consciousness is widely viewed as emerging from social intelligence, enabling inferences about the mental states and predictions about the behavior of others (Alexander, 1987, 1993; Humphrey, 1976, 1992; Mithen, 1996; Trivers, 1985; Wright, 1994). Some accounts suggest that this is not the end of the story, positing important and rather recent developments in evolution of mind. With the arising of both consciousness and linguistic communication, knowledge about the world is no longer contained strictly within the specialized cognitive modules adapted to acquiring it. Various forms of knowledge invade social intelligence, triggering a “cultural explosion” (Sperber, 1994). Multiple representations of knowledge within the mind entail development of “leakiness” between modules, or cognitive fluidity, and while the mind may not have been built on one general purpose rationality, some notions posit the emergence of a general or superintending intelligence for relating and integrating differing representations to one another. Sperber (1994) refers to this as the module of meta-representation (MMR). According to Mithen (1996), consciousness, which had emerged as an adaptation for social exchange, adopts “the role of an integrating mechanism for knowledge that had previously been ‘trapped’ in separate specialized intelligences.” In a provocative image, Mithen refers to the modern mind as a “cathedral” built around and connectively orchestrating the activities of previously disparate “chapels” or cognitive modules, themselves (perhaps) built around a nave of general intelligence. This view is criticized by some evolutionary psychologists and others who are skeptical about the notion of general intelligence. Taking issue with both generalized intelligence and the image of a progressively

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developing cathedral of mind, Gardner (1997) says “Mithen would presumably want to show that real cathedrals grew up in the same progressive way.” Unlike inferences of evolutionary history, we have clear records of chapels that “were conceived and created by purposeful human beings as unified projects.” However, this is not a serious criticism either of Mithen’s proposal or even of the metaphor he uses to convey it, since we know that accretion of levels over history is common to both European cathedrals and Mesoamerican temples. Thus hierarchical integration can ambiguously reflect either accretion of historically contingent innovations, or unified design by purposeful agents. In conclusion, wisdom may function as a meta-cognitive adaptation to both the rapidly changing and biologically uncoupled cultural heuristic, and the need to integrate multiple representations of the world by different but cognitive modules.

evolution and the content of wisdom If one of the functions of wisdom is the “top down” evaluative integration of cultural innovation with lower level physiological and cognitive needs, and if, as a quaternary heuristic, it is not completely free floating but nested within the biological level of scale, then its content ought to reflect processes of the primary heuristic. The truth is, however, that a tremendous amount of human behavior and meta-cognition, and a fair amount of animal behavior as well, does not appear to make any direct contribution to fitness (reproductive success). Of course the key word here is “direct,” and over the last generation our understanding of evolution has been transformed by recognizing the importance of alternative routes to fitness. Firstly, cooperation with kin contributes to inclusive fitness (Hamilton, 1964). Secondly, social cooperation or reciprocal altruism may mutually enhance fitness (Trivers, 1971). Moreover, the ability to benefit from reciprocal exchange may be indirectly but critically mediated by such things as reputation, social status, and signals of group membership (Alexander, 1987, 1993; Irons, 1991, 1996; Trivers, 1985). How do these notions comport with the content of human wisdom traditions?

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Kin and Kindred I will make several observations about the content of the biblical wisdom tradition, with which I am most familiar. Firstly, it is apparent and utterly unsurprising that having children and cooperating with kin are underlying values of the general cultural milieu. Barrenness is a woman’s greatest shame; children are a gift from the Lord, “happy is he whose quiver is full of them”; and sons (whose reproductive potential exceeds that of daughters) are a sign of special blessing. Even the famous story of Solomon’s wise resolution of a maternity dispute entails an insight consistent with principles of genetic investment. However, what is really noteworthy is not how much but how little proverbial reflection is actually dedicated to explicit consideration of family or care for kin. Since this is not true of all wisdom traditions there are undoubtedly several factors at work, but the paucity of biblical sapiental reflections on kin may relate at least in part to the fact that care for kin is already deeply embedded in the primary heuristic, representing what Wilson (1978) calls “hard core” altruism. Indeed, the New Testament as well speaks little of kinship care, appearing to assume it as a given (“if any one deserts his family he is worse than an infidel and has forsaken the faith”). Secondly, there is no similar deficiency of material on reciprocity. There is a notable emphasis on friendship and mutual cooperation, and still more—voluminous—material on detecting duplicity, condemning flattery, and cultivating good reputation. All these enterprises are crucial to the indirect reciprocity characteristic of later stages in human cultural development. Indeed, when Proverbs asserts that “a good name is more to be desired than gold,” this may quite literally be true, both because integration into the cooperative social matrix is essential for physical survival, and because positive regard from others may be an affective need of the secondary heuristic. Frank (1988) has an extended discussion of the adaptive role of emotions in reputation management. Thirdly, and most interestingly, so many of the reflections on reciprocity, which are prevalent in both Old and New Testaments as well as manifold folk traditions (Templeton, 1997) are actually not exhortations to strict reciprocity at all. For example, Proverbs muses, “he who waters will himself be watered,” and does not say “water those who water you.”

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Of course the golden rule would be the leaden rule if it said “do to others as they have done to you,” instead of “as you would have them do to you.” Elsewhere Jesus simply says, “give, and it shall be given to you.” Even the Beatles assert, “and in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.” There are two significant upshots of phrasing things this way. Firstly, there is an important insight conveyed about “how things are.” In fact, all but the golden rule lack any direct exhortation to act a certain way at all, entailing only an observation about how the world works. And the golden rule really accomplishes the same thing, by leading us to consider that our neighbor “works” like we work. Secondly, and quite interestingly with respect to current game theoretic models of social evolution, each of the above aphorisms is actually a solution to the classic prisoner’s dilemma (Axelrod, 1980) and to what Frank (1988) describes as the “commitment barrier” to cooperative investment. In cooperative standoffs it is likely to be true that if one gives, one will receive back (Axelrod, 1980). Thus not only do the wise aphorisms embody a statement about how the world works that is consistent with what we know regarding the evolution of sociality (Axelrod and Hamilton, 1981), but acting on the basis of these insights stands to influence positively and synergistically the cooperative social environment itself.

Self-Relinquishment All of the above observations are highly consistent with the picture of human nature given by evolutionary theory, although an evolutionary perspective is obviously not central to these millennia-old insights. However, at face value some other central features of wisdom seem incongruent with this picture, by virtue of their affirmation of radical, ostensibly maladaptive self-relinquishment.1

wisdom’s paradoxes Wisdom’s emphasis on self-relinquishment is embodied in two complimentary paradoxes. First, while wisdom makes frequent appeals to self-interest and commends itself as a means to well-being, it is also represented as an end in itself, perhaps the most important end of human

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existence. Socrates claimed that “the unexamined life is not worth living.”There are frequent assertions in the biblical proverbial literature that “wisdom is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire compares with her.” Thus wisdom is paradoxically presented as a way toward resources and success—“riches and honor are in my right hand.” Yet we cannot attain wisdom, if it is riches we are seeking—those only will find her, who “seek her above silver.” This emphasis on the preeminent importance of seeking understanding for its own sake is not an idiosyncratic distinction of just one arcane and parochial tradition from the ancient Middle East. It is reflected in numerous wisdom traditions and in the wider history of human commitment to the pursuit of knowledge in general. Indeed, the notion of self-relinquishment for the sake of understanding is noteworthy not because it is part of wisdom, but because it appears to be emphasized by wisdom because it is part of the human condition. The mystery is not just that some wisdom traditions assert, but that human beings actually do widely pursue scientific, artistic, and religious meaning at the expense of physical deprivation, social isolation, and even death. Herein is the ostensible problem, for as Fodor (1985) wryly observes, “it is, no doubt, important to attend to the eternally beautiful and true. But it is more important not to be eaten.” This would seem to be unavoidably true from the perspective of natural selection. However, as the above examples attest, it is not necessarily true from the perspective of human conscious valuation. Moreover, even those who do not actually relinquish life for truth-seeking admire this posture over the converse. If people yield life for something of ultimate truth or beauty, they are typically admired as exemplars. If they live lives of disregard for what is beautiful, and seek safety or comfort at the cost of truth, they are regarded as reprobates or curmedgeons.2 Kagan (1998) observes, “The biological imperative for all animals is to avoid hunger and harm and to reproduce. . . .What is biologically special about our species is a constant attention to what is good and beautiful and a dislike of all that is bad and ugly.” Thus the fascinating twofold puzzle is, firstly, why do humans pursue such ethereal meta-cognitive concerns as beauty or ultimate purpose —at the cost of potentially counter-reproductive self-relinquishment—

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and do so with the conviction that it reflects an ultimately wise and not a perversely imprudent approach to life? Secondly, why is the hallmark of many wisdom traditions the perception that pursuing understanding is not contrary to but necessary for life success, but that neither success nor understanding are attainable if pursued for that reason? This paradox is wonderfully conveyed by Whately’s insightful quip, “It is true that honesty is the best policy; but he who is governed by that maxim is not an honest man” (Blackstone, 1996). In addition to the above perspective on pursuing wisdom and understanding, wisdom also presents relationships with others in a way that appears to reverse evolutionary means and ends. For example, wisdom says “better is a little where love is, than a house full of feasting with strife.” While the evolutionary understanding of cooperative relationships is that they serve to facilitate acquisition of life-sustaining resources, the picture here is that love is the ultimate life-sustaining resource, worthy of enduring deprivation to maintain. Moreover, this paradoxical perspective on relational means and ends is distilled to the quintessential in Jesus’ observation about seeking to sustain one’s life as an end, “he who clings to his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will gain it.” Again, only when the end ceases to be an end can it be attained. Given the landscape of evolutionary understandings presented earlier, there are varied possibilities for explaining the above observations. However, views tend to coalesce into two main perspectives.

adaptationist approaches: costly signaling and self-deception The first view is that the above characteristics of human cognition make sense in light of the primary heuristic of natural selection and all reflect a subtle but genuinely adaptive cognitive strategy to meeting the challenges of reciprocity in social groups. There is a wealth of provocative and nuanced theory emerging in this area, which begins with the observation that, because of the problem of non-reciprocating cheaters, effective indication that one will be a reliable reciprocator is a requirement for successful inclusion in a cooperative social matrix (reviewed in Trivers, 1985; Cosmides and Tooby, 1992). Accomplishing this entails a

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combination of costly, hard to fake displays of commitment and/or the attempt to manipulate cooperation from others by deceitfully signaling a greater willingness to reciprocate than actually exists (Cronk, 1994; Trivers, 1991). Both of these strategies for playing the game of motivational hide and seek can be applied to interpreting the above self-relinquishing aspects of wisdom. On the one hand, pursuing wisdom (or art, or friendship, or religion) at great personal cost can be viewed—as can ritualistic rites of physical self-mortification—simply as displays of group membership or cooperative commitment.This notion helps to make sense of the wisdom paradox. It is a means toward wealth, but is inefficacious if sought for this reason. The very effectiveness of a signal entails the conveying of the person’s genuine commitment to paying the full cost, and not to paying as little as necessary to get the desired end (Frank, 1988). Indeed, if students understood this principle, they would recognize the potentially counterproductive reputational impact of the question, “how much do I need to do for an A?” To the extent the costly display perspective is true, it entails good news and bad news regarding the pursuit of wisdom.The good news is that the notion that we should pursue something larger than our own ease or survival, and that the very pursuit of this is ironically necessary for our survival, may be deeply rooted in the nature of humans as social organisms. The bad news is that there is, in this context at least, nothing particularly commendable about wisdom as that which should be pursued with abandon. Such pursuit could take the form of political involvement, mountaineering, or drug experimentation. In fact, these commitments, like “the wise” in some social contexts, might not only signal group membership but also confer status and sexual attractiveness as well (Wright, 1994; Konner, 1991; Diamond, 1992). The other way of interpreting the call to self-relinquished pursuit of wisdom is that it entails not so much a costly display as an attempt to deceive others into believing we are of loftier motive and greater willingness to relinquish than we really are. While one way of accomplishing this would be to profess hypocritically an allegiance we know is untrue, a number of theoretical and empirical studies have illuminated the effectiveness of self-deception in deceiving others (see Cronk, 1994;

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Lockard and Paulius, 1988; Trivers, 1991). The point here is to really believe (or think we believe) the call of wisdom, thereby eliciting a host of hard to fake (but not costly) autonomic cues that indicate sincerity. Such self-deception entails emotional sincerity without existential authenticity, and the individual can be expected to feel genuine delight in the lofty vision of heroically sacrificial pursuit of truth or love. But such affirmation is a matter of sentiment and conscious rhetorical ascent, disengaged from action and unconscious proclivity. Thus, individuals might feel genuine admiration for someone in whose actions are embodied these values, though they would be unlikely to emulate them. Processes of both costly signaling and self-deception can occur simultaneously and in dynamic equilibrium within a community. In fact, the prophetic tradition may be seen as challenging the latter and calling toward the former (exposing the gulf between rhetorically reified values and actual behaviors, which “draw near with lips, but keep heart far off”). Both processes may have been at work in the origin of human cognition, and provide interpretive perspectives that help us locate wisdom within the primary heuristic. However, for rather straight-forward empirical reasons, neither seems to be a wholly adequate explanation for the self-relinquishing bias of wisdom. The self-deception perspective does not explain why humans so commonly go beyond merely claiming ascent to actually acting in accord with the call to relinquishment. Moreover, the biblical wisdom tradition, along with so many others, is highly attuned to the dynamics of self-deception and systematically seems to confront rather than facilitate it. While relinquishment is very consistent with notions of costly display, this theoretical perspective does not make adequate sense of culturally widespread instances where the quest for understanding entails solitude, celibacy, destitution, or even martyrdom—conditions that would either subvert the accrual of or negate the value of any reputational benefit. Speaking of conscience, but equally applicable to wisdom’s reflections on what is of ultimate value (which is isomorphic with a larger notion of conscience), Kagan (1998) concludes, Many writers follow Darwin and place the origins of human conscience in social exchange, insisting that no individual acts

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unless he stands to gain some external prize. . . . It is not always true for humans.The symbolic private assurance that one is virtuous—given by the self to the self—is an attractive prize humans seek.

non-adaptationist approaches: hierarchy Recognizing the above difficulties, hierarchy theory has attempted to free our understanding of human cognitive and behavioral propensities from the strict need to have a direct (or even indirect or previous) reproductive payoff. In multi-level selection theory, group selection may enable the development of genuine self-relinquishment within groups (Sober and Wilson, 1998; Wilson and Kniffin, 1999). Although this notion is no doubt correct and offers an important resource for understanding these issues, its adaptationist approach merely expands the context of reproductive payoff and does not make sense of nonpayoff orientations, for example, intergroup sacrifice or the attempt—common in wisdom traditions, especially with the more cosmopolitan sages—to eradicate group boundaries altogether (e.g., Christ’s highly revisionist concepts of brother, neighbor, enemy). In contrast to the structural hierarchy of MLS, as already mentioned, some functional hierarchical approaches introduce a different process of selection, involving different replicators, the action of which may oppose the reproductively enhancing influence of natural selection.This avoids a theoretical framework that denies the existence or importance of widely observed behaviors involving counter-reproductive sacrificial behaviors in humans. Surely some form of “uncoupling” must be true. However, there are two problems with our present understanding, neither of which makes the notion false but both of which make it incomplete. Firstly, we do not understand how or in what way the human cognitive processes that are related to dual mode transmission (or the tertiary level heuristic) are “uncoupled” from the primary biological heuristic. This involves fascinating evolutionary and neuroscientific questions, but perhaps involves ultimately metaphysical questions as well. For example, how such uncoupling occurs in the context of a reductively materialistic notion of mental agency, organized as are all phenotypes, “by the genes and for the genes,” is not altogether clear.

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Even the idea of emergence, or nonreductive physicalism (Clayton, 1998; Ellis and Murphy, 1996), does not solve the question of how the broad contours of human cognitive capacity have become, at least in some respects, free from the constraints of the genetic reproductive agenda. To say that higher levels are not wholly predictable from or reducible to the attributes of lower levels is one thing; to say that they transcend or “violate” the normal constraints of lower levels is another thing. Thus, this question of “how” uncoupling occurs is intellectually compelling. However, answering it is not a prerequisite to scientific theorizing any more than proposing a mechanism for gravitational attraction at a distance was essential for Newtonian physics. Secondly, the mirror image of the above issue, and much more crucial to conducting a scientific research program, is the problem of avoiding radical dualism, that is, maintaining some kind of scientifically investigable connection between biological and ideational or cultural levels of scale. Critics (de Waal, 1996; Midgley, 1982) of dual inheritance memetic models that propose the greatest autonomy for the nongenetic selectional process (e.g., Dawkins, 1976) argue that they entail an anthropological dualism that is, though nonteleological, no less dualistic than the most radical historical articulations. We are not dealing with a mere biological theory, but with a convergence between religious, psychoanalytic, and evolutionary thought according to which human life is fundamentally dualistic. We soar someplace between heaven and earth on a “good” wing—an acquired sense of ethics and justice—and a “bad” wing—a deeply rooted egoism. It is the age old half-brute, half-angel view of humanity (de Waal, 1996).

Strictly speaking, the above is not really true of either traditional Christian or the more nuanced of the emerging scientific dualisms. While Gnostic dualism located goodness wholly in nonmaterial reality, it was judged a heresy in the context of a theology of creation (and incarnation), which affirmed good and evil to be incommensurate with material and nonmaterial orders (Willard, 1991). And while Wallace (1891) located human goodness outside of biological nature (and even

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Huxley, 1894, argued that morality lay in “resisting,” not “conforming” to the evolutionary or “cosmic” process), present dual inheritance models suggest that both biological and cultural heuristics can generate either genuine other regard or ruthless and overtly self-seeking dispositions. However, it remains the case that only the “uncoupled” cultural heuristic can give rise to biologically nonadaptive self-relinquishment. Thus, de Waal (1996) is probably appropriate in his lament that It must be rather unsatisfactory, to say the least . . . to be obliged to exclude one domain from their theory of Everything. And not a trivial domain, but precisely the one many of us consider to be at the core of being human.

This criticism does not demonstrate or even logically imply that the “uncoupling” perspective is false, but it does affirm the need of any hierarchical approach to examine the biological embeddedness of higher levels (see Durham, 1991). The real problem, though, lies not just in inadequately understanding how levels interact, but in locating distinctively human cognitive features in one level only. It is not so much that we are “half brute, half angel” (and what makes us human is the angel part we don’t share with brutes). Rather, as Pascal observes, “man is neither angel nor brute.” And he goes on to say, pointing out the dangers of both Gnostic and evolutionary neodualism,“the unfortunate thing is, he who would act the angel, acts the brute.” To unhinge the seemingly transcendent from the native propensity for it misconstrues its very nature.This is the mistake Voorzanger (1987) makes in his suggestion— referred to at the beginning of the chapter—that we can paint a picture of human nature apart from biology. Speaking of the human quest for goodness, Kagan (1998) similarly observes, “These biologically prepared biases render the human experience incommensurable with that of any other species.” Although humans are not brutes, their unbrutishness is a brute organic proclivity.

integrationist approaches The above perspectives entail very different (though in a dual inheritance context not mutually exclusive) interpretations of wisdom’s call to

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relinquished pursuit of understanding and love. The first views this aspect of wisdom as an adaptive cognitive strategy. It may entail a selfdeceived sense of commitment to wisdom’s importance, as a device for asymmetric exploitation of others. Or it may entail a genuine willingness to make costly investments for its pursuit, although such investments should not exceed the mean likelihood of reputational return, and wisdom itself would be but one of many socially-mediated currencies of commitment signaling. In neither case is wisdom itself an end or even a deep need of human existence. As Dr. Johnson remarks, in what is often quoted by Hunter Thompson, “he who makes a beast of himself escapes the pain of being a man” (Blackstone, 1996). The second perspective views the self-relinquishing pursuit of wisdom as a cultural meme that developed through a process that is not constrained by selectional forces. It is free to influence cognition and behavior in a way that is contrary to the fitness-enhancing thrust of our biology. In this case, the sacrificial pursuit of wisdom may be genuine— involving neither self-deception nor reciprocal signaling—but it has no clear connection to our natures as biological organisms. Therefore, it misses the fundamental question of how these human distinctions represent, to use Kagan’s phrase, “biologically prepared biases.” It would not be likely to provide deep human reward, and its pursuit is viewed, in Midgley’s (1980) critical words, as a “colonial imposition upon human nature, not a fulfillment of it.” Thus emerges a third approach, which entails not contradistinction to but integration of the above approaches, by viewing wisdom and the pursuit of meaning as a human homeostatic need, both biologically and culturally rooted.To sketch this view it is necessary first to make the distinction between ultimate and proximal “function” in biological systems. Ultimate biological function entails evolutionary ends: the “function” of all traits is contributing to reproduction of genes. Proximal function, however, entails physiological ends: the function of many characteristics is the homeostatic integration of organisms. It may (or may not) be that organisms are best viewed as genes’ way of reproducing themselves, but organisms don’t “know” this. They know the state of affairs relative to a set-point, and regulate behavior to achieve or

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maintain that end. The ultimate purpose of the heart may be reproductive enhancement, but the proximal function is maintenance of an internal milieu, and all of the marvelous means by which it is regulated are directed toward attainment of that end. Thus, while it is no doubt true that ecophysiological strategies are pitched toward the ultimate end of fitness optimization (Sibly and Calow, 1986), individual living organisms don’t measure their long-term reproductive output and adjust physiology accordingly. This is done “outside” the organism by random variation and natural selection, a nonteleological process that sifts from among variations in regulatory strategy. Once that strategy has been thus settled upon, what goes on inside the organism is an expressly teleological (or teleonomic) process that is rather blind to reproductive output. Thus, what is an evolutionary means (toward the ultimate end of reproduction) becomes a physiological end. Indeed, what not only governs, but perturbs and potentially kills individual organisms is not failure to reproduce but deviation from these internalized physiological “goals” or set-points. There are manifold examples of fitness enhancing means being internalized as obligate organismal ends in the above way. Parental care, for example, while clearly a means for promoting viability of offspring, is sufficiently internalized in mammalian females that, where it cannot be adequately discharged, extreme distress and even death may result. Conversely, while maternal care may be a means for the infant to acquire nutrients, warmth, and protection, deprivation of maternal contact causes death or disabling cognitive disjunction, even when physical needs are met. Social status and reciprocal alliances may be means to acquiring both mates and life-sustaining resources. However, in a variety of primate and human studies, both these states have been shown to represent sufficiently internalized needs that they directly influence morbidity and even mortality. Culture itself is a classic example of this phenomenon of means being internalized as biological ends.While the capacity for culture is clearly of instrumental value to reproduction, culture itself—not just the resources it provides—is a need of the primary and secondary heuristics. Humans deprived of social contact evidence significant physiological and cognitive pathologies. Indeed,

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while in his dual inheritance model Durham (1991) describes the biological as what you would get without the cultural level, the more complicated truth of that matter is, in the absence of the cultural, the biological is pathologically or inadequately manifest. Is it possible that wisdom is an adaptive strategy that has been similarly internalized as an integrative need? Human reflections on the necessity of wisdom or understanding reveal the felt sense that this is the case. The proverbial introduction to the pursuit of wisdom declares “it will be healing to your body and refreshment to your bones.” Jesus, of course, observes that man shall not live by bread alone, and in his autobiographical reflections Einstein (1949) considers a conviction that gripped him at a young age: By the mere existence of his stomach everyone was condemned to participate in a [vain] chase. It is possible to satisfy the stomach by participating in the chase, but not man in so far as he is a thinking and feeling being. . . .The mental grasp of the extrapersonal world . . . swam as [man’s] highest aim half consciously and half unconsciously before my minds’ eye.

But how could acquisition of such understanding really be the aim or end of human desire, within the context of an evolved cognition? This is precisely where Voorzanger’s admonition is appropriate, for the relationship between human well-being and the quest for wisdom cannot be compressed a priori to fit a prefabricated evolutionary scenario, but entails a question that is both multidisciplinary and empirical in nature. Theoretical analysis requires observational data on the relationship, if any, between measures of wisdom or meta-cognitive integration and measures of physiological and psychological well-being (Staudinger, Lopez, and Baltes, 1997; Baltes and Smith, 1990).There are at least three different but related evolutionary scenarios that could give rise to this. Firstly, the sensed need for wisdom may reflect a genuine functional need for meta-cognitive integration brought about by the development of cognitive fluidity or “leakage” between cognitive modules entailing different representations of the world. As long as modules perform rather discrete cognitive tasks in an effort to solve distinct kinds of adaptive

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challenges there is perhaps little need for such integration. But with communication between modules there arises the possibility, perhaps the likelihood, of “what often appear to us to be contradictory views held by living hunter-gatherers, and indeed any modern human, about their world” (Mithen, 1996). Consciously resolving or integrating apparent conflict is one function of meta-cognition. Indeed, many aphorisms reflect this desire to see things whole.The Pauline epistles lament “ever learning, never coming to knowledge of truth” and proverbial exhortations include “with all your acquiring, get understanding.” Einstein captures this with his charming aphorism,“Any fool can know, the point is to understand.” Secondly, wisdom may be a cognitive need that originates as an adaptive response to the distinctively human quandary of self-deception. Recall that self-deception is itself posited to be a fitness-enhancing strategy for concealing self-serving motives from others by concealing them from self. As such, it has its roots in the unique human capacity for selfconsciousness, which allows others to make inferences about our internal motivational states based on empathetic assessment of behavioral and autonomic cues. This may be especially important in large group sizes, where there is a need to make cooperative decisions involving individuals with whom one has not acquired a relational history. Thus, as both consciousness and culturally-mediated group size expanded, there may have been increased utilization of self-deception as an exploitive strategy. However, akin to a “tragedy of the cognitive commons,” this motivational espionage could conceivably impose two ultimately counteradaptive burdens on the organism. Firstly, to the extent that self-deception involves not so much conscious lying to oneself, but nonconscious filtration or biasing of motivational recognition by (or other inputs into) the conscious mind, the ability of consciousness itself to accurately gauge others’ motives by empathetic extension would be compromised. Secondly, maintaining self-deceptively inaccurate or contradictory information in our informationprocessing systems exacts a heavy price, however, and probably lies at the heart of our species-specific disease of “neurosis,” that

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That is to say, the unrecognized gap between perceived motivational states and actual behaviors (or other biased perceptions of reality) may subvert the capacity to assess and adjust behavior to adaptive ends.Thus, the relentless call of wisdom to “know thyself ” or to “keep watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flows the springs of life,” may serve two functions. Firstly, in knowing ourselves rightly, we may be less likely to be deceived by others. And secondly, we may be more capable of accurate self-evaluation and effectual self-correction. Recall that we envisioned wisdom as “living in a way that corresponds to how things are.” Lastly, as mentioned early on, wisdom may represent a human metacognitive adaptation to the rapidity of cultural innovation (or transmission, Richerson and Boyd, 1999) and the inability of the primary biological heuristic to either keep up with or constrain it. To be sure, some ancient cultural adaptations with urgent and unambiguous biological import may have entailed a response by the primary heuristic. For example, the acquisition of fire early in human social development may have prompted the development of a module for ready acquisition of safety-related cognitions in human young. But this would not be true of the explosive proliferation of more ambiguous innovations in later cultural stages. In more recent human history the tertiary heuristics of science and politics rapidly spin off technological innovations and novel organizational frameworks for human communities. But it is “wisdom” that is necessary to adjudicate their suitability for human flourishing. This involves not so much evaluating particular technologies, community structures, or other aspects of cultural innovation in themselves. Rather it entails assessing the relationship between human desire and the chief ends of human existence.The tertiary heuristic of culture has facilitated the development of novel appetites and desires (e.g., media consumption), the stimulation and/or satisfaction of other desires to novel levels (e.g., sweet or fatty foods, physical comfort, and longevity), and

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perhaps the thwarting or obscuring of still other desires (e.g., biophilic intimacy with natural history, continuity of interpersonal or geographic landscape). Evaluations of these culturally-mediated desires only makes sense in light of some notion of what human life is “for.” Can evolutionary biology conduct such an evaluation? While biology must surely play a part, it cannot be responsible for the whole task. Firstly, the “for” of evolutionary biology entails the extrinsic ends of organisms that are “used” by genes, that is, reproduction. But that is neither what organismal functional well-being nor what human conscious experience regards as the end or purpose of living. Secondly, science and the emotively evaluative domains of understanding “have their origins in the domain-specificity of all human knowledge. It is not that they are best kept apart, but they are apart: they are different forms of knowledge,” (Plotkin, 1993). Wisdom, therefore, represents the attempt—the need—to bring together domains of human understanding. In recognizing the importance of such an effort, as Gould observes,“Science can then forge true partnerships with philosophy, religion, and the arts and humanities, for each must supply a patch in that ultimate coat of many colors, the garment called wisdom.”

notes 1 I am referring to wisdom’s conscious and explicit reflections on self-relinquishment, and not various widespread and ostensibly native behavioral dispositions, such as preferences for sweets and fats, that are associated with maladaptive, pathology-inducing behaviors in many current cultural contexts. Such traits can be considered vestiges of originally adaptive characteristics or examples of genetic lag, that is, the inability of the primary heuristic to keep pace with the tertiary. For instance, the particular cognitive bias toward sweets is common in non-cellulose digesting fructivores, and would be of clear adaptive benefit in earlier stages of human social evolution (Kenrick, Sadall, and Keefe, 1998). Indeed, with the development of cultural innovations such as beekeeping and agriculture, it may have been necessary for wisdom to reflect on the moderation of appetites that earlier

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did not require moderating. Consider, for example, the proverbial exhortation “have you found honey, eat only what you need” or Friar Lawrence’s sagely double entendre to Romeo, “. . . the sweetest honey is loathsome in its own deliciousness.” Out of wisdom, or meta-cognition in general, is “desire for right desire.” 2 Except in the United States, where they are elected to office.

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tion of wisdom-related performance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 11, 1200–1214. Sternberg, R.J. (Ed.). (1990). Wisdom: Its nature, origins, and development. Cambridge University Press. Templeton, J. (1997). Worldwide laws of life. Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press. Trivers, R. (1991). Deceit and self-deception: The relationship between communication and consciousness. In M.H. Robinson, and L. Tiger (Eds.), Man and beast revisited (pp. 175–191.) Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Trivers, R.L. (1985). Social evolution. Menlo Park, CA: Benjamin/Cummings. Trivers, R.L. (1971). The evolution of reciprocal altruism. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 46, 35–39. von Rad, G. (1975). Wisdom in Israel. London: SCM Press Ltd. Voorzanger, B. (1987). “No norms and no nature: The moral relevance of evolutionary biology.” Biology and Philosophy, 2, 253–270. Wallace, A.R. (1891). Natural selection and tropical nature: Essays on descriptive and theoretical biology. London: Macmillan. White, E. (1992). The end of the empty organism: Neurobiology and the sciences of human action. London: Praeger. Willard, D. (1991). The spirit of the disciplines. San Francisco: Harper and Row. Wilson, D.S., and Kniffin, K. (1999). Multilevel selection and the social transmission of behavior. Human Nature, 10:3, 291–310. Wilson, E.O. (1975). Sociobiology: The new synthesis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wilson, E.O. (1978). On human nature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wilson, J. (1998). Personal communication.

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Wright, R. (1994). The moral animal: The new science of evolutionary psychology. New York: Pantheon Books.

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chapter 8

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Wisdom and Human Neurocognitive Systems: Perceiving and Practicing the Laws of Life Warren S. Brown

introduction he essays of this book view wisdom either as a particular form of cultural and literary expression or as a human trait.This chapter takes the latter view by considering wisdom to be a human ability that (to the degree that it is present within a specific individual) is embodied within the neurocognitive systems of the brain/mind. In this sense, wisdom is related to the cognitive and intellectual capacities of an individual that are assessed in a neuropsychological battery of tests. However, wisdom is more than raw mental capacity; wisdom is manifest in a certain quality of behavior and situational outcome. The Oxford English Dictionary (1933) defines wisdom in a way that emphasizes the importance of behavioral and situational outcome.Wisdom is “the capacity of judging rightly in matters relating to life and conduct.”To be wise is to be “capable of judging truly concerning what is right or fitting and disposed to acting accordingly.”Thus, a core property of wisdom is the ability to see the essence of a complex situation or problem and to behave appropriately. This essay will consider the neurocognitive substrates of wisdom by examining the apparent absence of wisdom in certain cases of brain damage or developmental brain abnormality.

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Differentiating Wisdom and Intelligence In order to consider the relationship of wisdom to neurocognitive systems, the word wisdom must be differentiated from several commonly used terms and concepts with which it may be easily confused: IQ, intelligence, and expertise. ✦

IQ (or Intelligence Quotient) is simply that which is measured by a particular test, usually the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (or Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children). This is by-and-large a test of one’s learning of the basic information one should know and skills one should have mastered at a particular age. IQ is an index of a circumscribed realm of abilities and is most useful for predicting school performance (Anderson, 1995).

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Intelligence relates to underlying capacities for doing higher cognitive tasks. Howard Gardner (1983) has speculated that there are six basic realms of intelligence: linguistic, musical, mathematical, spatial, body kinesthetic, and personal.Whatever the taxonomy, it is clear that intelligence is a multifactorial set of human higher mental abilities.

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Expertise is accumulated domain-specific knowledge, including understanding of the applicability of such knowledge. For example, one can be an expert in realms such as playing chess, plasma physics, or computer programming.While it no doubt helps to be intelligent, expertise can be developed without superior intelligence by sufficiently long absorption in a field (Anderson, 1995).

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Wisdom is a term used to denote markedly successful problem solving ability, particularly in personal and social domains, in the face of complexity, subtlety, novelty, and/or uncertainty.

John Horn, writing in this volume, considers wisdom to be a realm of expertise. Certainly, it is reasonable to think of wise persons as social and cultural experts. However, wisdom is typically thought of as more broadly encompassing than expertise. Thus, one might seek the advice

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of a person one considers wise even within a domain in which this person has no previous direct experience. Such a person might help in framing broader perspectives or find important metaphoric relationships with other realms of experience, which may enlighten the problem solving process. The wise person is able to see the essence of the problem and suggest meta-strategies for what one should do. Alternatively, in seeking the advice of an expert, one would be looking for direct domain-related and more technical consultation. Such consultation may be considered wise within the domain of the person’s expertise, but the person may or may not be considered wise in other contexts. The differences here are essentially semantic. Nevertheless, in this essay I wish to focus on wisdom as that aspect of intelligent activity that allows for successful problem solving in widely different domains, but is particularly evident in negotiating successfully the psychosocial exigencies of everyday life.

Neuropsychological Aspects of Wisdom Most discussions of wisdom presume that the persons being referred to have normal neuropsychological capacity. A discussion of wisdom with respect to the mentally retarded, demented, or severely psychotic either would make little sense or would require a rather radical redefinition of the meaning of the term. However, what if the brain is not normal? Are there individuals for whom the absence of wisdom is the specific outcome of brain disorder (even when IQ is normal)? Can you have a neuropsychological deficit in wisdom? If so, what neural systems are critical to wisdom? Most importantly, what does the behavioral outcome of neuropsychological disorders tell us about the nature of wisdom? Birren and Fisher (1990) have presented a model of wisdom that suggests something about the neurocognitive contributions to this trait (see Fig. 8.1). These authors suggest that wisdom is located within a threefactor space, representing a combination of knowledge, evaluative affect, and volition. In such a model, knowledge (solid vertical line) can be conscious, or the kind of preconscious knowledge one experiences as “intuitions.” Wisdom also has an emotional or affective dimension (long-dashed horizontal line). Finally, the proof of wisdom is not what

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is said, but what is done (short-dashed line suggesting the third dimension of volition). Thus, wisdom is manifest in a quality of action in the real world, which stems from adequate knowledge and appropriately responsive emotions.

Cognition

Knowledge

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Action tion Voli

Affect

Emotional, Responsive

Inaction

Uncertainty, Ignorance

Fig. 8.1: Model of the dimensions of wisdom (from Birren and Fisher, 1990, p. 321).

Chapter Overview In this chapter I discuss two forms of brain disorder which, I believe, help us understand wisdom. First, I describe individuals with a congenital brain disorder called agenesis of the corpus callosum (or ACC). ACC is an absence of the major connective pathway between the cerebral hemispheres. Here I will rely primarily on research from my own laboratory at the Travis Research Institute, Center for Biopsychosocial Research, Graduate School of Psychology, Fuller Theological Seminary (Brown, in press; Brown et al., 1999; Brown and Paul, in press; Schieffer et al., 1998). From the behavioral syndrome of ACC we can see the important contribution to wisdom made by adequate perception and

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understanding of the complex aspects of a problem—in other words, wisdom as perception and understanding. Second, I will review what is known about individuals with frontal lobe brain damage, specifically damage to the orbital frontal area of the brain. Here I will rely largely on the work of Antonio and Hana Damasio and their colleagues at the University of Iowa (Damasio, 1994; Bechara et al., 1994, 1996, 1997; Damasio et al., 1994). In studies of patients with frontal lobe damage, Damasio and colleagues demonstrate how evaluative affects manifest themselves in feelings about courses of action that cannot be consciously rationalized but are nevertheless important in guiding behavior. With respect to wisdom, the emphasis here will not be on knowledge and understanding, but on the contribution of emotional responses to the ability to regulate one’s behavior— wisdom as performance.

agenesis of the corpus callosum: a deficit in wisdom as perception and understanding Definition of Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum No doubt you have heard of the famous “split-brain” patients. These individuals have had all of the direct pathways between the cerebral hemispheres surgically severed in order to prevent the spread of seizures from one hemisphere to the other (Sperry, 1968; Sperry et al., 1969; Bogen, 1985). Besides relieving the seizure problem, the surgery resulted in what has been referred to as the “split-brain syndrome.” This syndrome is characterized by a failure of interhemispheric transfer of information. Information that has been originally perceived by only one hemisphere cannot be transmitted to, and experienced by, the other hemisphere.Thus, for example, if an item is placed in the left hand (out of the individual’s field of view) it is experienced exclusively by the opposite (right) cerebral hemisphere. Since the information cannot be transmitted to the left hemisphere (because all of the direct pathways between the hemispheres have been severed), the patient cannot pick out a matching item with the right hand. What is more, the patient cannot tell you verbally what was in the left hand, since the right hemisphere

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received the perceptual experience from the left hand, but it is the left hemisphere that must do the talking (in the majority of individuals). Agenesis of the corpus callosum (or ACC) is, to some degree, a congenital split-brain. The largest pathway between the cerebral hemisphere, the corpus callosum, has failed to develop. The corpus callosum is either completely or partially absent.The corpus callosum (missing in the ACC patient and severed in the surgical patient) is a collection of somewhere between 200 and 800 million axons which transmit information between the two cerebral hemispheres. A patient with ACC is only somewhat similar to a “split-brain” patient in that the surgical treatment for epilepsy that results in the classic “split-brain syndrome” involves cutting all direct pathways between the hemispheres (including the anterior commissure). In contrast, most individuals with ACC have an intact anterior commissure. The anterior commissure is a very much smaller pathway between the anterior temporal regions of each hemisphere. Thus, in ACC a smaller amount of select information can be passed between the hemispheres, but the major pathway is absent. ACC occurs typically in individuals who have other developmental brain abnormalities that result in moderate to severe mental retardation. However, ACC can also occur without other substantial developmental brain abnormalities. In these cases, the individual’s IQ may be normal. Cases of ACC with normal IQ may go undetected for many years, often being recognized only fortuitously on the basis of a CT or MRI scan done for other medical reasons. (See Lassonde and Jeeves, 1994, for a complete description of ACC.) In individuals for whom ACC is the primary brain abnormality and IQ is within the normal range, issues of diminished or absent wisdom are important to consider.

Characteristics of ACC The general cognitive, personality, and psychosocial characteristics of individuals with ACC and IQ within the normal range have not been systematically researched and described, although some research exists (Sauerwein et al., 1994; Rourke, 1989). However, from the existing literature, discussions with parents, and our observations in the laboratory,

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a preliminary description of these individuals would include the following characteristics. ✦

Learning difficulties (particularly in math)

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Difficulty grasping complex concepts

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Poor attention and memory (trouble remembering complex information)

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Socially immature, naïve, and gullible (clearly not “street wise”)

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Problems with peer relationships (but get along well with adults and younger children)

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Poor social judgement (often miss the point of social nuance)

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Deficient sense of humor (cannot understand more subtle humor)

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Behavioral problems (i.e., “innocent delinquency”)

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Difficulty expressing their thoughts

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Alexithymia (diminished emotional content in their speech)

My students and I have been attempting to account for these character istics of ACC in the context of the absence of the corpus callosum.We believe that some of these characteristics (i.e., alexithymia and difficulty expressing thoughts) can be reasonably accounted for by diminished access of the left talking hemisphere to information processed in the right hemisphere. Other characteristics of ACC may occur from diminished connectivity between the many brain processing systems in the two hemispheres, reducing the degree to which widely disparate cortical regions can be recruited in the cause of complex mental processing. In studying ACC individuals, we have been particularly impressed with their lack of ability to recognize the nuances of complex information and to solve problems successfully in novel and complex situations.

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In both cases, the diminished hemispheric connectivity could result in either diminished general processing power (since each hemisphere must work somewhat autonomously), or in a lack of access to specialized lateralized information processors in the opposite hemisphere. I believe that this diminished information processing and problem solving capacity would be most obvious when an ACC individual attempts to deal with the complexities of social situations.While the gross dimensions of situations may be recognized based on experience gained from many years of repeated exposure to similar situations, the more subtle nuances of the situation at hand may escape the ACC individual.

Laboratory Studies of ACC Given the above general impressions of ACC and the research literature that exists on ACC, my laboratory is working with the following specific hypotheses: 1. Individuals with ACC will show increasing deficit in interhemispheric transfer as the complexity of information to be transferred increases. While the anterior commissure allows some communication between the hemispheres, there is a capacity (or complexity) limitation on what can transfer without the corpus callosum. 2. Cognitive deficits resulting from reduced interhemispheric integration will therefore be most apparent in complex problem-solving tasks. 3. The boundary between complex and simple (i.e., deficit and nodeficit) will change with age. As a child gets older, areas that previously demanded novel problem solving eventually become over-learned, routinized behaviors and thus will demand less wholebrain connectivity for successful performance. 4. Psychosocial deficits will parallel deficits in complex cognitive operations. 5. Psychosocial deficits will be particularly acute for adolescents.

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My students and I have been researching these issues in three domains. First, we have been studying the transferability of different types of information between the hemispheres in ACC.These studies are directed toward hypothesis number one, above. We have used tasks in this research that require the individual to transfer visual and tactile perceptual information, or learned behavioral patterns from one hemisphere to the other. Generally, we have found that the greater the informational complexity, the less likely it is that the information will be transferable (Brown, in press; Brown et al., 1999). For example, we have studied ACC individuals attempting three versions of a tactile puzzle that is done blindfolded, first with the dominant hand and then with the nondominant hand. Of interest is whether the individual shows any savings in time solving the puzzle when asked to do the same tactile puzzle with the nondominant hand. Remember that each hand is controlled by a different (i.e., the opposite) hemisphere. In studying ACC individuals, we found that there was no evidence of a failure to transfer the puzzle information if the puzzle involves only six blocks, a mild deficit if the puzzle involves eight blocks, and a more substantial deficit if the puzzle involves ten blocks. The second realm of testing of ACC individuals involves the ability to solve problems successfully in complex and novel domains. Here the hypothesis is that a new and complex problem will be more demanding of the integration of processing modes and capacities of both hemispheres, while performance of a more routine and familiar (though nevertheless complex) task may be more readily accomplished by one hemisphere working more independently. Thus, ACC individuals will have the ability to accomplish familiar tasks normally (i.e., to perform at a level predictable based on IQ), whereas their ability to do novel tasks will be markedly deficient (i.e., below what would be predicted by IQ). One such complex novel task is the Categories Test, which assesses the ability to detect and learn (from trial and error) the abstract category or rule that allows for correct responding. It is a test of abstract hypothesis formation and confirmation in a novel problemsolving setting. Individuals with ACC performed substantially more poorly than one would expect given their IQ levels (Schieffer et al., 1998; Brown and Paul, 2000).

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Wisdom is often encapsulated in proverbs. To benefit from proverbs (that is, to allow them to make us wise) we must understand them and apply them to the current context. We have tested the understanding of proverbs in ACC patients using two forms of the Proverbs Test (Gorham, 1956): a free answer form and a multiple choice form. On the multiple choice form of the test, where the individual is given several interpretations from which to choose, ACC individuals perform only slightly worse than IQ-based expectations. However, on the free answer version, where the individual is read the proverb and asked to say in his or her own words what it means, ACC individuals do exceedingly poorly. In fact, they typically cannot begin to offer an interpretation (Brown and Paul, 2000). Apparently they are not capable of independently imaging and constructing an interpretation of the meaning of the proverb. Alternatively they may be able to imagine such a meaning using the processes of the nondominant hemisphere and yet not be able to convey that meaning to the dominant, talking hemisphere. Either way, although proverbial meanings can be recognized to some degree when presented to the ACC individual, this sort of understanding is not accessible to verbal expressions, and perhaps also not to social behavior. The third domain of testing in our research on ACC has been psychosocial perception and competence. Hypotheses 4 and 5 above relate to this domain. Here we have been attempting to determine the consequences of the cognitive processing deficits evident in novel problem solving for social perception and social behavior. Parents of the ACC adolescents and young adults we have tested have told us that the most remarkable problems their sons or daughters experience have been mild but obvious forms of social disability. We have been able to tap this area of dysfunction in ACC with several psychological tests. Most interesting has been the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT).The TAT is a test of the ability to read into a picture the most likely social scenario being depicted and, thus, to be able to tell an appropriate story about the picture.The various pictures depict people in different telltale situations. Since the stories have to be judged subjectively for appropriate content, we obtained transcripts of stories from eight normal individuals of similar age and sex, and mixed these

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with transcripts from ACC individuals in such a way that the identity of the individuals was unknown. These transcripts were ranked by experts in the areas of story logic, social understanding, and content. ACC individuals were consistently ranked at the very lowest level in all three categories of transcript rating.Thus, it appeared that persons with ACC have a very difficult time understanding the complex social relationships and likely events implied by these pictures. It was not that their interpretations were slightly odd, rather that they could not generate a coherent and reasonable story from the persons and context shown in the pictures. They were not able to supply a narrative of any kind, much less one that would fit the picture.This deficit is particularly unusual in individuals with normal IQs (Brown and Paul, 2000). This research is ongoing.What is described above represents preliminary conclusions supported by the approximately eight adolescent and young adult ACC subjects we have studied thus far. However, in most of what is reported above, the deficits are not subtle and, thus, not apt to disappear with further study. Questions remain as to the specificity of these deficits to ACC and the appropriate explanation of the deficits.We are also in the process of studying younger children with ACC, although questions of wisdom are not necessarily relevant to younger children.

Summary: ACC and Wisdom Nevertheless, at least some preliminary conclusion regarding wisdom might be ventured. I believe that there is a progression of dysfunction in ACC that leads eventually to diminished wisdom, at least wisdom of perception and understanding. First, there is a lack of (or diminished quantity of) interhemispheric transfer of more complex information. Second, as a result of diminished interhemisphere information sharing, there are deficits in complex novel problem solving and insight into complex material. Third, since social situations present the most subtle and complex problems generally encountered in everyday living, ACC individuals manifest a lack of social insight and understanding. Finally, failure to adequately understand complex social dynamics leads to poor social judgment, which can be understood as diminished or absent wisdom.

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frontal lobe damage: deficit in wisdom of performance Introduction: The Famous Case of Phineas Gage It has long been recognized that damage to the frontal lobes of the brain from stroke or brain trauma can have a significant impact on social behavior. Damage to the medial and inferior frontal areas (called the orbital frontal cortex) typically results in a syndrome characterized by poor planning of behavior and a failure to recognize the social significance of one’s own behavior (Blumer and Benson, 1975; Stuss and Benson, 1984). These problems result in behavior that is capricious, irresponsible, and insensitive to social context, that is, behavior that is lacking in wisdom. Noteworthy is the fact that these problems are seldom apparent in the patient’s rational, verbal discourse about situations and plans for activity. However, wisdom as it expresses itself in behavior in real life situations has been lost. Discussions of the behavioral symptoms of damage to orbital frontal cortex typically begin with the account of the famous case of Phineas Gage. Gage was a worker on the Rutland and Burlington Railroad in 1848. He was “the most efficient and capable man” in the employ of the railroad. Outside of his work on the railroad, he was a responsible family man and upstanding citizen. Gage was involved in setting explosives to clear a path for the railroad. He had drilled a hole and poured the explosive powder into the hole. Thinking that sand had already been poured over the powder, Gage began tamping the powder with a heavy iron rod. A spark ignited the powder, blowing the tamping rod up through his cheek and out the top of his head. Recently, Hana Damasio and her colleagues (Damasio, et al., 1994) reconstructed the path of the iron rod based on the skull of Phineas Gage. It was clear in the reconstruction that the primary damage occurred in the orbital frontal cortex, mostly on the left side. Gage was stunned by the event, but nevertheless did not lose consciousness. He was fairly well recovered within a week or two. He maintained his general intelligence and had no obvious neurocognitive deficits. However, Gage’s personality and character had changed. Subsequent to the accident he was unreliable and capricious, and often

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socially inappropriate in his behavior. He soon lost his job at the railroad, left his family, and lost whatever fortune he had accumulated. He spent most of the rest of his life as a transient and circus sideshow attraction. The nature of Gage’s post-injury personality is perhaps best summarized by a physician who examined Gage not too many months after the accident: The equilibrium or balance . . . between his intellectual faculties and animal propensities seems to have been destroyed. He is fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity, manifesting but little deference to his fellows, impatient of restraint or advice when it conflicts with his desires, at times pertinaciously obstinate, yet capricious and vacillating, devising many plans of operation, which are no sooner arranged than they are abandoned in turn for others appearing more feasible. (Blumer and Benson, 1975, p. 153)

So profound was the effect of the accident on the personality of Gage that it was said that “Phineas Gage is no longer Phineas Gage.”

Elliot: A Modern Phineas Gage “Elliot” is the pseudonym used by Antonio Damasio for one of his patients, whom he describes in his book Descartes’s Error (Damasio, 1994). We will follow Damasio’s narrative of Elliot as a clear case study of individuals with a syndrome like that of Phineas Gage, although the same basic description can be found throughout the neurological literature (e.g., Blumer and Benson, 1975; Stuss and Benson, 1984). Prior to his neurological difficulties Elliot was a good husband and father who held a high level job at a business firm. He had attained what Damasio describes as an “enviable personal, professional, and social status.”While still in his thirties, Elliot developed headaches and his work began to deteriorate. He was subsequently found to have a brain tumor. He had a meningioma the size of a small orange surgically removed from the midline inferior frontal area, just above the eye sockets.

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After recovery from the surgery Elliot’s behavior was not unlike that of Phineas Gage. He became unreliable and irresponsible. He was unable to manage his time properly. He would at times get excessively absorbed in unnecessary detail. He manifested flawed decision making in most situations. He ended up divorced, then entered into another obviously unwise marriage, which also quickly ended in divorce. Elliot lost his job and eventually lost all of his financial resources in what were obviously unwise investments (after failing to heed the specific advice of friends to do otherwise). Like Gage, Elliot was unable to manage his behavior in wise and prudent ways. Consequently, his life was a series of social and financial disasters. However, like the majority of patients with this sort of neurological damage, Elliot seemed to maintain his level of intellect, his basic engaging personality, and his articulate conversational skills. What specifically was wrong with Elliot? Why was he unable to act wisely when he seemed so intelligent in conversation? What is it about damage to the orbital frontal area of the brain that causes a person to be so obviously unwise?

Laboratory Testing of Neuropsychological and Social Abilities Damasio and colleagues set out to determine the nature of the deficit in the behavior of Elliot and a group of other patients like him. First, they tested basic neurocognitive abilities. As indicated above, Elliot was found to have maintained his superior level of performance on IQ tests. His memory was without detectable change (immediate, short-term, and long-term memory). His language ability remained superior, as did his arithmetic skills.This outcome is consistent with a large body of literature on the effects of frontal lobe brain damage (Blumer and Benson, 1975; Stuss and Benson, 1984). Elliot was also found to be normal on laboratory tests of abstraction and set shifting (i.e., the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task), an ability that is often deficient in patients with frontal brain damage. Since the primary domain of behavioral problem in these patients is social, further laboratory tests of social reasoning were done. Again, no deficits were found. Elliot performed normally on laboratory tests of financial and ethical decision making. He was normal on tests of the

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ability to generate solutions to social problems. He was superior on a test of awareness of consequences, and his performance was impeccable on a means-ends test of social problem solving and the ability to predict social consequences. His responses were normal and appropriately mature on a test of moral judgment. In summary, Elliot’s overall performance on laboratory tests of hypothetical social judgment was clearly normal. However, Elliot’s ability to function in real life situations—to make wise and responsible decisions with respect to everyday alternatives—was seriously defective. Why? Damasio and colleagues decided to try a different sort of test. They devised a test of action decisions with consequences—a gambling game (Bechara et al., 1994). This test was an attempt to force decisions about actions that had real consequences, rather than to rely on tests of hypothetical verbal reasoning. The gambling game involved four decks of cards from which the participant was to draw. Each card drawn resulted in either a reward or a penalty. Unknown to the person being tested, at least at the beginning of the game, two of the decks were “good” decks and two “bad” decks. Good decks had a lower average payoff from reward cards, but fewer and lesser losses from penalty cards.Thus, selection from the good decks had a higher expected gain.The bad decks had higher payoffs from reward cards, but much larger losses from penalty cards. The expected gain from the bad decks was negative, that is, one eventually lost all one’s money when selecting from these decks. One is successful at this game by learning to draw consistently from the two good decks, and to avoid drawing from the two bad decks. Whereas normal individuals soon learn this strategy, patients like Elliot with orbital frontal brain damage fail to learn to be successful at this task. They are unable to avoid the tendency to go for the large rewards available in the bad decks.With this task, Damasio and colleagues had found a laboratory test that reveals the problems that Elliot and others like him have in real-life decision making. What was most interesting about this test was the autonomic responses elicited by the gambling game. Bechara and others of Damasio’s colleagues (Bechara et al., 1996, 1997) recorded Skin Conductance Responses (SCRs) during the playing of the gambling game.The SCR is a measure of sweat gland activity indicative of negative emotional

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responses. Normal individuals develop anticipatory negative autonomic responses (SCRs) first to the results of penalties from choosing from the bad decks, then to the initiation of reaching for a card in the bad decks, and eventually to the very thought of so choosing. Elliot and patients like him do not develop these anticipatory SCRs. While in a normal individual the seconds just prior to slipping up and choosing from a bad deck are filled with a large SCR, when Elliot made such a wrong choice the decision was not accompanied by these anticipatory negative emotional responses. Elliott did not show anticipatory autonomic responses during the gambling game, but his SCRs were normal in response to the immediate feedback of the outcome of drawing a penalty card. Thus, it was not the case that he was unable to produce normal SCRs; apparently he only lacked the anticipatory SCRs. As a result, in the gambling game, Elliot would persist in making unwise decisions with respect to the very obvious reward contingencies of the game. What is particularly important is that, in people with normal orbital frontal cortices, differential autonomic responses develop prior to conscious awareness of the game’s contingencies. Individuals without brain damage showed evidence of these discriminatory SCRs prior to being able to verbally describe the nature of the reward contingencies of the game.Thus, these anticipatory SCRs were being triggered in early stages of learning by mental calculations that were not yet available to conscious awareness. Of course, normal individuals eventually become conscious of the properties of the decks and are able to give a verbal account of this awareness. A remarkable feature of frontal lobe-damaged patients like Elliot was that even after they could tell you that they should not choose from the bad decks, they continued to do so. Their conscious awareness of the contingencies of the game seemed to be little different from that of people without brain damage, but they were unable to act accordingly. Thus, autonomic recordings revealed that normal individuals manifest anticipatory negative autonomic responses as they consider, or begin to execute, wrong decisions. However, Elliot’s autonomic system never responded negatively to the anticipation of what were predictably inappropriate plays in the gambling game. Thus, as the game progressed, Elliot never consistently made the correct (most rewarding) decisions,

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perhaps because his system could not generate anticipatory negative emotional responses to alternatives being considered, which would serve as pre-response warning signals—“Don’t do that!”

The Theory of Somatic Markers and Wise Decisions The gambling game and the concomitant recording of SCRs suggested to Damasio a theory of somatic markers (Damasio, 1994). According to this theory, experience with the contingencies of life cause us to develop anticipatory evaluative (negative or positive) autonomic responses, which are coupled to our knowledge of the world. Many times the knowledge that is relevant to the decision at hand is not entirely available to consciousness. However, these emotional responses might be manifest to consciousness only in the form of subtle feelings and intuitions, such as an ineffable feeling of suspiciousness about a person or situation. These autonomic responses nevertheless serve to help guide behavior, particularly when our personal knowledge that is relevant to the situation and decision is not available to our consciousness. The laboratory research on SCRs during the gambling game suggests that individuals with orbital frontal brain damage have knowledge decoupled from their autonomic response system. Considering actions that are contrary to conscious or unconscious memories of previous experiences and other situational knowledge does not evoke negative autonomic responses in these patients. Without these evaluative emotional responses, behavior loses its anchor in previous experiences and becomes capricious. This theory has important implications for considering the relationship between frontal lobe brain disorder and the resultant absence of wisdom in the management of daily behavior. First, it becomes clear that wisdom is more than what a person says; it must also involve the ability to regulate behavioral choices in everyday situations.There is a clear disconnection in these patients between what they say with respect to conscious, hypothetical decision making and what they do in real-time behavior. Second, this research indicates that unconscious (preconscious) emotional responses are important in translating knowledge and experience into appropriate (and “wise”) daily behavior in social and per-

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sonal situations. According to Damasio, Descartes’s error was to consider the emotions to be irrational. Certain aspects of the very complex and rational processes of our brain may only be available to our consciousness and to our on-line decision making through our emotions.

summary and conclusion What we have learned about the neurocognitive processes that contribute to wisdom can perhaps best be summarized by returning to the model of wisdom suggested by Birren and Fisher (see Fig. 8.1).We have seen that individuals with agenesis of the corpus callosum have a deficit in wisdom that is due to a deficit in real-time perception and understanding of new and complex information.Within the Birren and Fisher model, ACC individuals would function toward the lower range on the “cognition” dimension due to their inability to simultaneously process large amounts of complex, novel information.They often miss the point of complex material or the subtle nuances of social situations. Patients with damage to the orbital frontal area of the brain have a deficit in wisdom as reflected in an absence of appropriate modulation of affective (autonomic) systems by their conscious and unconscious knowledge. These patients lack evaluative emotional responses to the action scenarios they consider.Thus, though they get the point and can often verbally articulate the complex relationships implied by a situation and the potential consequences of various actions, they cannot act appropriately in real-life situations. Though they may be high on the “cognition” scale in the model, they tend toward the “detached” side of the “affect” scale. In addition, the absence of evaluative affect in orbital frontal brain damage means that these individuals manifest a dissociation between words and actions. What they know (that is, what they can express verbally) does not get reliably translated into action. Appropriate volitions do not get reliably elicited by their understanding of the contingencies of the current situation. Wisdom is a concerted function of the entire brain (and body). It involves judging truly what is right or fitting and being disposed to act accordingly.The impact of specific forms of brain damage or abnormal

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brain development on judging and acting helps to enlighten us as to the various neural systems and cognitive abilities that contribute to the wisdom of persons.

references Anderson, J.R. (1995). Cognitive psychology and its implications, 4th ed. New York: W.H. Freeman. Bechara, A., Damasio, A.R., Damasio, H., and Anderson, S.W. (1994). Insensitivity to future consequences following damage to human prefrontal cortex. Cognition, 50, 7–15. Bechara, A., Damasio, H.,Tranel, D., and Damasio, A.R. (1997). Deciding advantageously before knowing the advantageous strategy. Science, 275, 1293–1295. Bechara, A., Tranel, D., Damasio, H., and Damasio, A.R. (1996). Failure to respond autonomically to anticipated future outcomes following damage to prefrontal cortex. Cerebral Cortex, 6, 215–25. Birren, J.E. and Fisher, L.M. (1990). The elements of wisdom: Overview and integration. In R.J. Sternberg (Ed.), Wisdom: Its nature, origins, and development, (pp. 317–332). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Blumer, D. and Benson, D.F. (1975). Personality changes with frontal and temporal lobe lesions. In Benson, D.F. and Blumer, D. (Eds.), Psychiatric aspects of neurologic disease, (pp.151–169). New York: Grune & Stratton. Bogen, J.E. (1985). The callosal syndromes. In K.M. Heilman and E.Valenstein (Eds.), Clinical neuropsychology, 2nd ed. (pp. 295–338). New York: Oxford University Press. Brown, W.S. (in press). Clinical neuropsychological assessment of callosal dysfunction: Multiple sclerosis and dyslexia. In E. Zaidel, M. Iacoboni, and A. Pascual-Leon (Eds.), The corpus callosum in sensory motor integration: Individual differences and clinical applications. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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Brown, W.S., Jeeves, M.A., Dietrich, R., and Burnison, D.S. (1999). Bilateral field advantage and evoked potential interhemispheric transmission in commissurotomy and callosal agenesis. Neuropsychologia, 37, 1165–1180. Brown,W.S. and Paul, L.K. (2000). Psychosocial deficits in agenesis of the corpus callosum with normal intelligence. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, 5, 135–157. Damasio, A.R. (1994). Descartes’s error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain. New York: G.P. Putman’s Sons. Damasio, H., Grabowski, T., Frank, R., Galaburda, A.M., and Damasio, A.R. (1994).The return of Phineas Gage: Clues about the brain from the skull of a famous patient. Science, 264, 1102–1105. Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligence. New York: Basic Books. Gorham, D.R. (1956). A proverbs test for clinical and experimental use. Psychological Reports, 2, 1–12. Lassonde, M. and Jeeves, M.A., Eds. (1994). Callosal agenesis: A natural split brain? New York: Plenum Press. Oxford English dictionary, vol. 13. (1933). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Rourke, B.P. (1989). Nonverbal learning disabilities. New York: Guilford Press. Sauerwein, H.C., Nolin, P., and Lassonde, M. (1994). Cognitive functioning in callosal agenesis. In M. Lassonde and M.A. Jeeves (Eds.), Callosal agenesis: A natural split brain? New York: Plenum Press. Schieffer, B., Paul, L., and Brown,W. (1998). Deficits in complex problem solving in agenesis of the corpus callosum. Journal of the International Neuropsychology Society, 4, 20. Sperry, R.W. (1968). Hemisphere deconnection and unity in conscious awareness. American Psychologist, 23, 723–733. Sperry, R.W., Gazzaniga, M.S., and Bogen, J.D. (1969). Interhemispheric relationships:The neocortical commissures; syndromes of hemispheric discon-

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nection. In P.J.Vinken and G.W. Bruyn (Eds.), Handbook of clinical neurology, (pp. 273-290) Amsterdam: Elsevier. Stuss, D.T. and Benson, D.F. (1984). Neurological studies of the frontal lobes. Psychological Bulletin, 95, 3–28.

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chapter 9

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A Neurolinguistic Perspective on Proverbs and the Laws of Life Diana Van Lancker

n the spirit of the eclectic quality of this section on the science of wisdom, this chapter will contribute another different dimension to our body of information and ideas, a view from linguistics, the science of language. Linguistics is interested in how people communicate. Mainly, linguists study how people communicate information, because one of the main goals of communication is to transfer information. Linguists are interested in how this occurs, and so to be able to draw a tree diagram of the sentence, “The cat is on the mat” and to describe how grammatical structures, with their ability to generate so many different sentences, are learned and stored in the native speaker’s mind, is an important goal of linguistics.

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familiar nonliteral expressions (fnes) Linguists study many examples of novel sentences, newly created to fit a communicative need of the moment, and used to describe something that’s going on in the real world. Linguists are fond of pointing out that each such sentence is new and unique, and is said in just that way probably for the first time ever. For the vast majority of utterance types from the infinite set of sentences, this is demonstrably true. But early in my studies, I became very interested in a group of types of utterances we can call “familiar phrases,” which have very different properties. These

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expressions are distinguished from novel utterances in a number of important ways. “Familiar” in the sense used here means that these expressions are known to have a certain shape and meaning; the words hang together in a certain way; they have a certain coherence not present in novel utterances. They are “familiar” in the sense that a native speaker will “recognize” them when said “properly,” and will notice if there is some deviation. This is because these familiar expressions must be said in a certain way, and often in certain social contexts. For example, the sentence “The cat has green spots” or “He stacked the pillow cases” or “The waxed orange tasted sour” are probably sentences any one of our readers has never heard before, and these sentences have none of the properties of familiarity and predictability discussed above. On the other hand, the expressions “See you later!” or “Let’s call it a day” or “You don’t say!” are familiar in a special way to native speakers of English.The latter three are classified as “speech formulas,” expressions used in conversational interaction to help move the talk forward. There are many examples, and they are used as greetings, leave taking, commenting on the conversation, and directing the talk. No one has counted them, but those collecting speech formulas have not sensed that they’ve exhausted the list; there are probably tens of thousands of these types of utterances, and they’re very important for what’s called “native competence” in the language (Fillmore, 1979). That is, to sound like a native speaker, “proper” knowledge and use of speech formulas is very important to be able to interact properly (Pawley and Syder, 1980; Bolinger, 1976).There are many other kinds of familiar expressions. Idioms and proverbs are other well-known categories.The reader will recognize “He spilled the beans” and “She has him eating out of her hand” as idioms, and “A watched pot never boils” and “A stitch in time saves nine” as proverbs. Because proverbs figure importantly in this repertoire of familiar expressions, I have studied them over the years along with speech formulas and idioms. Besides the properties of cohesion and unitary form, another interesting property of familiar expressions is that their meanings are, for the most part, nonliteral.This means that the words appearing in the expressions do not function according to their usual linguistic meanings. In speech formulas, for example, “Have a nice day” is a way to terminate the interaction, and the literal meaning of the expression,

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while, in this case, not irrelevant, is not the main message. In speech formulas, the meaning of the expression cannot be predicted easily from the words in any straightforward way: for example, it takes specialized knowledge to know how to use expressions such as “I’ll take a raincheck on that,” “I couldn’t care less,” and “Cross my heart and hope to die.” In idioms, the nonliteral quality is even more general and more obvious: “She has him eating out her hand” does not refer to the usual semantic meaning of “eating” or “hand”; “I’d like to give you a piece of my mind” enjoys the full force of hyperbole; for “That’s water under the bridge” or “Keep a stiff upper lip” it’s known that the literal meanings are, pragmatically speaking, not the intended ones. In similar manner, proverbs, of course, point to an even more general message, beyond the “local” meanings of the words themselves: “Every cloud has a silver lining”; “A penny saved is a penny earned”; “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” all transmit complex messages of cultural lore. Many years ago, I became interested in how these familiar, nonliteral expressions are processed in the brain. Linguistic studies revealed that novel sentences, which are newly created using the usual linguistic meanings of words, are very different from these familiar expressions, and therefore, the respective underlying brain processes might be organized differently. Some of the evidence for this assumption came from observing people with aphasia, who were seen to retain familiar nonliteral expressions while losing the ability to produce or understand novel expressions. Other evidence has come from psycholinguistic studies of normal language users. Some people studying communication appear to believe that familiar nonliteral expressions (FNEs) are not very important in human communication. In particular, for some time, many workers in linguistics viewed FNEs as peripheral to the important processes of human communicative function. FNEs were seen as not characteristic or representative of human language, in comparison to the newly created, novel utterances describable by generative grammar. Early efforts to describe FNEs in the generative model were largely unsuccessful (Chafe, 1968; Weinreich, 1969). However, more recently, many more people have appreciated the importance of proverbs, idioms, and speech formulas, so that there now is much more information to review.

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description of familiar nonliteral expressions (fnes) We begin with a description and characterization. What makes FNEs different from novel expressions? First, they have stereotyped form, which includes the actual words and word order, both of which are relatively fixed. In addition, the prosody—the melody of speech, or intonation—has to be right, or the expression will seem wrong. Generally, one or a few intonation contours are associated with normal use of the FNE. Secondly, in addition to stereotyped form, FNEs have fixed, conventionalized meanings. Some people have talked about “frame semantics,” a type of semantic description that permits rich, pictorial-type representation, to describe these kinds of meanings, because the meanings of FNEs can be very complex and dense, with interactive internal context. It is this aspect that has been resonating for me with what others have written in this book about the meanings of proverbs; it is becoming clear that proverbs are especially designed to convey packets of meaning that can be utilized as wisdom (e.g.,Templeton, 1997).There is a complexity and depth in the meaning structure of FNEs that differs from the meaning of a novel expression. And as a third characteristic, for the most part, FNEs have affective, emotive, or attitudinal content. On the one hand, the novel expression “The cat is on the mat” doesn’t have any affective valence one way or the other. One must say “The darned cat is on the mat again” to communicate something negative, or “the beautiful cat” to communicate something positive. (Of course, intonation can be manipulated to communicate emotional or attitudinal states for any utterance.) On the other hand, as we look at FNEs, we see that almost all of them intrinsically contain some affective or attitudinal content.This quality further contributes to the power of aphorisms and proverbs to convey general truths, beliefs, warnings, and other varieties of cultural wisdom. Many useful observations about familiar nonliteral language come in the form of jokes and cartoons.The many examples from the media are useful and illustrative, not only because they do so well in rendering a particular point about FNEs, but also because these examples imply the popular awareness of the characteristics of FNEs. For example, Fig. 9.1

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illustrates the point that both words and intonation contour have to be in order to have a familiar phrase come across “correctly.”

Fig. 9.1. This cartoon illustrates knowledge of the saying “No man is an island” and of its usual form. (Copyright The New Yorker Collection 1989 Warren Miller from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.)

Ordinarily, the expression “No man is an island” carries the sentence accent toward the front, on the noun phrase “no man”. But here, in a humorous manner, the accent is placed on “is” (by using special punctuation); this highlights or “forces” a different meaning. Changing the word from “no” to “this” has the same effect.Thus, in this cartoon, there are two changes—lexical and prosodic—in the stereotyped form of a known FNE; these changes signal that this it is not the ordinary familiar phrase that is being presented. However, the “joke” is successful only by playing on the well-known form and meaning of the familiar expression, and making the changes in the lexical item and prosody to depict a different (nearly opposite) meaning. There are countless other examples showing that the FNE must have the right words in the right way. For example, use of a different set of words to communicate the same expression is also odd or ludicrous, as in the rendering “Male cadavers

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are incapable of yielding any testimony.” This awkward and pedantic saying, lacking in euphony or terseness, is an analog to the familiar expression “Dead men don’t lie.” Another, for the reader to decode, is “Neophyte’s serendipity.”These linguistic tricks indicate that the meanings exist in a separate sense from the words, but also that the configuration, or form, of the words and their order is part of what the speaker knows about the utterance.

fnes and second language speakers Doubtless, second language speakers will confirm that using idioms, speech formulas, and proverbs in their second language is an area of difficulty. The form and the meaning of the utterances are often variously misspoken or misunderstood, and the social context of producing and understanding the utterances, which is also very important, is sometimes misjudged by second language speakers. The social context involves notions of “register,” or a range of formality, such that some expressions are inappropriate in some contexts but not in others. An example of the importance of register comes from admonishments that physicians not speak on the elevator using the casual expressions they would use with one another to discuss a patient, in case the patient or the patient’s relatives happen to be present. Likewise, roommates will use speech formulas with one other that are very different from the speech formulas used with their professors.

production and comprehension of fnes Another topic of controversy in idiom and proverb studies involves the tension between the literal and the nonliteral meaning. Idioms are generally defined by the property that the literal meanings of the words don’t predict the meaning of the expression. As mentioned above, “she has him eating out of her hand” has nothing to do with eating or hands. And yet, when linguistics and psycholinguistics became interested in talking about how FNEs are processed, the hypothesis was put forth for

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a long time that first the literal meaning is processed, or computed, and then the mental processors say, “no, this couldn’t possibly be about eating and hands, because of linguistic and other context, so the utterance must have the nonliteral meaning.” But if we look at various information that has come forth since these early assumptions, we’ll see that the nonliteral meaning is the salient one, and the literal meaning is generally absurd, because it is impossible, or at least highly unlikely. An informal study of New Yorker magazines over a period of a year revealed that for a majority of the cartoons, the point is to utilize a well-known idiom or proverb, but depict a literal meaning. This is also the “trope” for a many newspaper cartoons. It is easy to accumulate a huge collection of these specific examples. One such example that utilizes proverbs is shown in Fig. 9.2.

Fig. 9.2. This cartoon illustrates the absurdity of attributing a strict literal meaning to a familiar nonliteral expression. (Copyright The New Yorker Collection 1977 Leo Cullum from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.)

These data suggest that the nonliteral meaning is the assumed and important meaning and the literal meaning is impossible or unlikely,

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generating the humor. Subsequent psycholinguistic studies of listeners’ processing of idioms and proverbs and related FNEs tended to support this position (Swinney and Cutler, 1979; Horowitz and Manelis, 1973). However, some very interesting later findings show that literal word meanings do play a role in some ways (Gibbs and O’Brien, 1990; Gibbs and Nayak, 1989; Glucksberg, 1991; Cutting and Bock, 1997; Hoffman and Kemper, 1987; Titone and Connine, 1994). Thus the processing of FNEs is very complicated, and the reader is referred to the referenced articles for further study.

classification of fnes There are several other classes of utterances, besides speech formulas, idioms, and proverbs, that also differ significantly from the propositional utterances that can be described by generative grammar, and that, in fact, cannot be analyzed usefully in terms of regular grammatical and lexical rules (Van Lancker, 1972). However, sometimes it is difficult to classify the exemplars exclusively in one or the other category. Slang is very important.There is a large repertory of slang expressions that have to be said in a certain way. Slang is used to establish social solidarity; it changes rapidly; it reflects themes, topics, and concerns of socioeconomic and professional groups. However, in doing a typology, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish slang from speech formulas; similarly, the line between clichés and idioms is often difficult to draw. There is a large class of “conventional expressions” that must be included here: “It’s so nice to see you again”; “It has come to my attention that. . . .” Speech formulas are extremely important to daily communication, and one of the insights that emerged from listening to the talks at the Symposium on the Science of Wisdom and the Laws of Life is that speech formulas convey a type of subtle, in-the-moment wisdom. They serve to implicitly indicate how a person feels about something, how the speaker wants the content of the conversation to be evaluated, where the talk is to be directed. These roles of speech formulas have not been talked about or researched, but would be a very useful area of study. Indirect requests, as a form of nonliteral expression, such as “Could you

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pass the salt?” are an area that people have studied in philosophy and sociolinguistics (Searle, 1975). Like other kinds of FNEs, they present a challenge to linguistic analysis, because their intended meaning is different from what would be predicted from the utterance itself. That is, even though “Could you pass the salt?” is grammatically a question, its intended meaning is a request for an action to be performed. Another category, expletives, is extremely interesting as a type of familiar nonliteral expression. Swearing and the use of expletives figure importantly as a type of “automatic speech,” which refers to speech that remains intact in aphasia (acquired language disorder following neurological damage) (Hughlings Jackson, 1874, 1915). It has long been noted that people with severe nonfluent aphasia are still able, fluently and with good articulation and prosody, to use expletives, speech formulas, and conventional expressions; to count; to recite memorized expressions, prayers, song lyrics, poems; and to use pause fillers such as “well” and “ya know” (Van Lancker, 1988). In this regard, an interesting corpus of speech data comes from a patient who after developing normally, as an adult, had his left hemisphere removed (Bogen, 1973). Three months after surgery, using the remaining, intact right hemisphere, the patient was profoundly aphasic for propositional speech, but he was able to use pause fillers and to swear fluently. The range of nonpropositional types of utterances can be represented on a continuum (Fig. 9.3).This continuum represents idioms, proverbs, song lyrics and titles, formulas, semi-productive expressions, and other types of utterances that cannot be described by grammatical rules using the general methods of linguistics. They are all different from propositional speech, and how different these are from one another, from the point of view of their structural properties as well as the underlying brain processing, still remains to be understood. But we will notice that they have properties that novel utterances do not have. “The dog is on the piano,” a novel expression, does not have the property of being conventional or habitual, and it can be changed, theoretically, in an infinite number of ways. And to recall a previous point, the literal (novel, or propositional) utterance does not have emotive content (unless so given by lexical items), or the property of having been learned or memorized with stereotyped form and conventionalized meaning. So these types of

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language have properties that are different than propositional speech, which leads to the possibility that the brain may have different ways of processing them. PROPERTIES COMMON

HABITUAL

EMOTIVE

CONVENTIONAL

NOVELr

MEMORIZED

OVERLEARNED

FREQUENT/FAMILIARr



REFLEXIVE

CONVENTIONAL SPEECH LISTS INDIRECT REQUESTS

SCHEMATA

COLLOCATIONS SENTENCE STEMS

FROZEN METAPHORS (CLICHES)

SEMI-PROD. EXPRESSIONS

IDIOMS EXPLETIVES PROVERBS

(EXCLAMATIONS)

SONG LYRICS & TITLES FORMULAS

CRIES

PAUSE FILLERS

VOCAL GESTURES

(GREETINGS)

Fig. 9.3 A continuum of familiar nonliteral expressions, with their properties.

frequency of use of fnes How often do people actually use proverbs? As important and familiar as FNEs are, there is very little information on their incidence or frequency in everyday language use. One researcher in Germany (Hain, 1951) has gone to a village to find out how many proverbs were actually spoken. This type of research is extremely interesting and is much needed. On a much smaller scale (and something that’s much less ecologically valid) my undergraduate class at Carleton College watched the movie Some Like it Hot, and we all wrote down the familiar nonliteral expressions we heard as the movie was playing. In this two-hour movie, we listed almost three hundred FNEs.Then we obtained a copy of the screenplay, and we discovered that we’d missed about half of them. Overall, depending on some issues of classification and incidents of repetition, formulas, idioms, and proverbs probably occurred at a rate of about six or seven per minute. The number of FNEs was surprising to the class members, given that the general impression while watching the movie was of fast moving action with natural sounding dialogue. An

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analysis of the perceived expressions resulted in a ratio of 70 percent speech formulas (e.g.,“Let’s get outta here”,“No guy is worth it,”“What’ll it be,” “It’s not my fault,” “Are you crazy or something”), and about 30 percent idioms (e.g., “I think you’re on the right track,” “It’s gone to his head,” “Somebody to fill my shoes,” “The natives are getting restless”). Proverbs came up at 2 percent (e.g.,“To err is human, to forgive divine” and “You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs”).

180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0

unsure

collocations

formulas

idioms

proverbs

Fig. 9.4. This bar graph illustrates the relative frequencies of speech formulas, idioms, and proverbs in the movie Some Like It Hot.

As is often observed in any proportional analyses of actual speech corpora done so far, the order of frequency was speech formulas, idioms, and then proverbs.

proverbs: popularity and use in testing Proverbs have many of the same special properties of other FNEs. In addition, their role in transmitting cultural lore may contribute to their

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special popularity. In addition to scholarly treatments (e.g., Honeck, 1997;Taylor, 1931; Mieder, 1984), there is a great plethora of books compiling proverbs from different languages. One database of books currently available lists more 350 books on proverbs with language and ethnic associations as seen in Fig. 9.5.

African American English Spanish Literary Chinese Irish International Arabic Jewish French Yiddish Russian Afr-American Scottish European Asian Japanese Jamaican Egyptian Dutch

0

5

10

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number of books

Fig. 9.5. An overview of available books on proverb collections across countries and ethnic groups.

Familiar nonliteral expressions have played a role in psychology, neurology, and speech pathology. Since the topic of idioms, proverbs, and speech formulas has become more important in the last ten years or so, there is currently quite a bit of published material available in the form of therapy materials and tests that can be given to patients. Proverb interpretation, using verbal description as response, has long been used in mental status screening; ability to interpret proverbs (beyond the literal meanings of the utterance itself) is considered a mark of “abstract thinking.” Two well-known examples of popular tests using proverbs are the formal usage by the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) (Wechsler, 1981) and the informal usage in the Neurobehavioral Mental Status Examination (Strub and Black, 1993). In the WAIS, one of the

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requirements is to verbally interpret two proverbs (e.g., “Shallow brooks are noisy”). The client is awarded two points for an answer that recognizes the generalizing, abstract meaning, that is, the proverbial meaning; examples of “good” answers are “If there is no depth”;“Tendency to talk a lot”; “Shallow people talk a lot.” One point is awarded for an answer that is more “concrete” (e.g., “Water running over the rocks with no depth makes noise)” and no points are given in the case of “No recognition that the statement is proverb,” or “A specific description of a personal nature.” Neurologists have used proverb testing in mental status for the neurological exam for some time. A common method utilizes unfamiliar as well as familiar proverbs, with the expectation that persons with unimpaired neurological function will give “abstract” responses. A range of proverbs are given, intended as a hierarchy of difficulty (relating to abstractness), but in fact the proverbs differ primarily in familiarity, with “The hot coal burns, the cold one blackens” as the more “difficult” item. “Correct” responses to the expression are determined by those administering the test. Strub and Black (1993) provide a table of normal individuals’ responses by age group. However, the method of deriving these data are not provided (such as how many normal persons were tested), and there is a large standard deviation in the normal data.There are several other difficulties with this approach. One is the requirement of a verbal response, which itself may be impaired in a patient with neurological damage. Secondly, research has indicated that people respond very differently to unfamiliar proverbs versus familiar proverbs (Haynes et al., 1993; Nippold and Haq, 1996). A familiar proverb has a “packet of meaning” that has been transmitted and is known. Responding with this kind of “abstract knowledge” is therefore very different from being challenged to decode an unfamiliar proverb, a different sort of problemsolving. Studies show that normal persons vary widely on their responses to unfamiliar proverbs. Other tests have tried to manage these problems: the Gorham Proverbs Test (Gorham, 1956a), which was popular in the sixties, established norms on large populations, and utilized both verbal response and multiple choice (Gorham, 1956b). A revision, updating and expanding the Gorham test, was achieved by Delis, Kramer, and Kaplan, who created the California Proverbs Test (Delis et al., 1984).

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In summary, adequate normative data have been lacking in proverb tests, and the role of familiarity must be better understood for valid testing. For mental status testing, familiar proverb testing probably does provide a nonspecific, nonlocalizing but sensitive probe, but results from unfamiliar proverbs are probably uninterpretable (Van Lancker, 1990). Neurolinguistic studies, as well as a fair amount of the discussion presented in other chapters of this volume, suggest that the demands of understanding and working with a proverb would necessarily involve many different brain structures.

psycholinguistic studies of fnes It is possible to evaluate and measure the formal qualities of nonliteral expressions, such as their acoustic properties, as did Lieberman (1963). In one study, we compared acoustic cues differentiating literal and familiar nonliteral expressions. We made spectrograms, or voice-prints, of “ditropically” ambiguous expressions, such as “he was at the end of his rope”—expressions that can be said with a literal or an idiomatic meaning (Van Lancker, Canter, and Terbeek, 1981). Utterances said with literal-intended meanings had significantly more pauses and pitch contours than the comparison utterances (having the same words and word order) spoken with nonliteral meanings.Tracings made from these spectrograms to display the pertinent information are shown in Fig. 9.6. We then played the sentences without any context to native speakers of American English, very fluent non-native speakers, and students of English as a second language, whose task was to indicate whether each sentence they heard was said with a literal or nonliteral-intended meaning (Van Lancker, 1998). Native speakers performed quite well on this task, indicating that they could tell from the intonation contour alone (prosody) whether the utterance was literal or nonliteral, but fluent non-natives performed significantly worse than natives. The students of English as second language performed at chance. This finding indicated that accurately recognizing FNEs utilizing prosodic cues alone required native competence.

neurolinguistic pe r spec t ive on p rove r b s

He was

at

the

end of

He was

at

the

end

his

of

rope

(idiomatic)

his

rope (literal)

I

I

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hit

hit

the

the

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(idiomatic)

sack

(literal)

Fig. 9.6. Tracings from spectrograms of “ditropic” sentences, those with a possible literal or idiomatic meaning.

Second language speakers make interesting errors in both the form and the meaning of FNEs. For example, a fluent and practiced speaker of English, whose native language was German, said “I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes like that.” There are two things wrong with this version: the accent placement and the additional two words at the end. Errors are also seen in the second language speakers’ notion of FNE meanings. Examples come from definitions given by native and non-native speakers of FNEs such as “He wears his heart on his sleeve.”Typical of second

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language speakers’ responses was “He’s a generous good person,” which is not a central meaning of that expression. Second language speakers more often reported a peripheral feature of the meaning.We also noted that second language speakers are unable to identify the FNE reference to a comedic expression such as “That is fit for me” spoken (in a cartoon) by a king, but when the allusion is explained to them, they then report recognizing the FNE. It is likely that second language speakers have better recognition than recall of the large repertory of FNEs in their non-native languages, while native speakers have more efficient recall ability.

studies using brain-damaged people Recognizing a need for a test of FNEs, a colleague, Dr. Daniel Kempler, and I developed a test, the Familiar and Novel Language Comprehension Test, or FANL-C, to ask questions about the differences between idiomatic language and literal language (1996).To avoid the problems of requiring a verbal response, this test presents pictures as response. Secondly, the test allows for “direct” comparison of a larger number (twenty each) of idiomatic and literal expressions, matched for grammatical structure, length, and lexical frequency. An example item is given in Fig. 9.7. With this test, it is possible to compare abilities to process literal versus nonliteral language in a large range of populations. The test is designed so that normal adults perform close to a hundred percent on both protocols. To evaluate the respective roles of the left and right cerebral hemispheres in literal and nonliteral language, we tested people with left-brain damage or rightbrain damage. First, the left-brain damaged people, including those with aphasia, were relatively worse on the literal items than the right-brain damaged people, which was expected. But the interesting findings were these two: 1) left-brain damaged persons performed better on the nonliteral expressions (than on the matched literal items), and 2) right-brain damaged people, who were formerly thought to have no language deficits, in fact had problems recognizing the meanings of the nonliteral (but not the literal) expressions (Van Lancker and Kempler, 1987).

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Fig. 9.7. An example item and response sheet from the Familiar and Novel Language Comprehension Test (FANL-C). Top panel: “While the cat’s away, the mice will play”(familiar nonliteral); bottom panel: “Whenever the sun sets, the dog barks” (novel, literal).

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Other studies pointed to similar findings. Winner and Gardener (1977) reported a similar result for frozen metaphors such as “heavy heart.” This was surprising when first observed because of the model of the left hemisphere specialization for language, which says that all of speech and language is processed in the left hemisphere. At that time, few people believed that the right hemisphere functioned in any way with respect to language or communication. That view has changed very much in the past decade. In fact for proverbs and idioms, it seems to be the case that the right hemisphere is crucially necessary to process both meaning and form of these nonliteral expressions. For production data, there is a report on a patient with transcortical sensory aphasia who was unable to produce or comprehend names of objects, or to give information or answer questions, yet he spoke fluently, using an array of familiar expressions, speech formulas, and overlearned utterances (Van Lancker, 1998). He used these so well that people missed that he had a language problem. He also could complete idioms and proverbs accurately. A similar observation was made on a woman with dementia following neurological impairment of unknown cause, who was able to complete idioms, even though she had absolutely no expressive speech or ability to understand commands or task instructions. When presented with the spoken idiom “She had him eating out of her ,” she’d say “hand” (Whitaker, 1976). Interestingly, both of these patients made simple grammatical corrections when repeating sentences spoken with minor grammatical errors, but did not generate or understand novel (grammatical) sentences. These various observations on neurological patients suggest that competence for FNEs differs from competence for production and comprehension of propositional language. As mentioned previously, interest in nonpropositional speech started with observations in aphasia, noticing how even severely aphasic individuals can count, produce speech formulas, say their prayers, recite the Pledge of Allegiance, and produce and understand a large array of overlearned expressions (Van Lancker, 1994). Despite the frequent mention of “automatic speech” in the aphasiological literature, little data on incidence and frequency of particular utterances had appeared until Code (1982) surveyed aphasic individuals with recurrent utterances. He

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obtained information on seventy-five people with little speech due to severe aphasia; all were able to produce some utterances. Expletives, proper names, and numbers appeared frequently. More research of this kind would help us further understand differences between propositional and nonpropositional speech. A few studies have attempted to answer the question about the source of aphasic speech. One particularly creative study measured size of mouth opening in association with automatic versus propositional speech in persons with aphasia (Graves and Landis, 1985). There was a greater right-sided opening in the mouth for propositional utterances, including repetition, word list generation, and spontaneous speech, in contrast to a greater left-sided opening for counting and singing. This suggested that the automatic speech was generated from the nonlanguage hemisphere—the right hemisphere. This was a very significant effect and this was observed in all of the patients. Other studies involving anesthetization of the right hemisphere of left-brain damaged aphasic patients suggested that the right hemispheres of these patients were responsible for the residual speech (Czopf, 1981; Kinsbourne, 1971).

developmental studies Using the FANL-C test described above, 250 normal children ages thirteen through nineteen were tested. Up to age seven, children performed at chance on the idiomatic expressions, although they performed adequately on matched literal expressions. As can be seen in Fig. 9.8, they begin to approach adult competence on FNEs at about age twelve, but do not perform at adult levels until approximately age sixteen (Kempler, Van Lancker, Marchman, and Bates, 1999). One possible explanation for poor performance on FNEs by children might lie in lack of exposure to the expressions. However, it is likely that FNEs engage a different mode of understanding and learning, so that frequency of occurrence probably does not explain the observation here. Instead, other data suggest a requirement of neurological maturation, such that only older children are readily able to process FNEs. Production data from younger children also indicate an inability to complete well-known idioms.Thus

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Mean Percent Correct

80 70 60 50 40

Literal

30 20

Idiomatic

10 0 n=(12)

3

(21) (15) (23) (18 ) (16) (23) (14 ) (11) (14) (29) (10 ) (7)

4

5

6

7

8

(8)

(11)

(5)

(13)

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Age Fig. 9.8. This graph shows comprehension scores of children by age for familiar and novel utterances in the Familiar and Novel Language Comprehension Test (FANL-C). (Reprinted with permission from “Idiom Comprehension in Children and Adults with Unilateral Brain Damage” by Kempler, Van Lancker, Marchman, and Bates, in Developmental Neuropsychology, 15.3 (1999), pp. 336. Published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.)

in both comprehension and production, it seems that preadolescent children do not easily process the form or meaning of common FNEs. A unique opportunity arose to utilize the FANL-C to perform a study on twenty-nine children who had suffered unilateral stroke, and to compare their performance on FNEs versus literal expressions with performance by adults who had similarly suffered stroke to one or the other hemisphere. Eighteen children had damage to the left hemisphere and eight children had damage to the right hemisphere; the mean age of testing was eight years. The results were surprising. The brain-damaged children were more impaired on the literal than on the nonliteral utterances. Then, using an age adjusted z-score, it emerged that brain damage affected adults more than children. In contrast to the adults,

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children were not affected by which hemisphere of the brain was damaged with regard to the literal or the familiar expressions, but they did show an effect of phrase type, in performing worse on the literal items. These findings confirmed general notions that 1) language functions are not as severely affected by brain damage in children as in adults; and 2) lateralization of language function is fully established only later in life.

hemispheric specialization To more specifically discuss the brain structures that may be underlying use of nonliteral expressions including formulas, idioms, and proverbs, it is useful to review the current model of hemispheric specialization. It is generally agreed that the two cerebral hemispheres stand in a relation of complementary specialization (Bever, 1975; Bogen, 1969; Martin, 1979). One way that this is often depicted is to say that the left hemisphere is more important for the analysis of stimuli as discrete and finely timed events, and permutable sequences. This would include speech and syntax, and it also would involve phonology. On the other hand, the right hemisphere is believed to be more important for the synthesis of stimuli over space and time, in the form of configurational Gestalts of visuospatial and auditory patterns. Fig. 9.9 provides the table of attributes that may relate to hemispheric modes of processing (Bogen, 1969).There has been a considerable proliferation of these notions in the scholarly and popular literature. In the adult, the two cerebral hemispheres are believed to play different roles in processing the inner and outer worlds. This fact is pertinent to our understanding of communication, and it is a useful model for describing brain processing of nonliteral expressions. As stated above, FNEs differ in many ways from novel expressions. First, they have stereotyped form, and are not generated by permuting independent units. The meanings of FNEs are different, in being complex and intricate, and having affective content. As described above, for example, the proverb, “While the cat’s away, the mice will play” involves supervisory influences and desires to have a freedom without oversight, the affect accompanying “relief,” “subterfuge,” and many other details. These

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Source

Dichotomy

C.S. Smith

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Gross

Price

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Synthetic or concrete

Wilder

Numerical

Geometric

Head

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Perceptual or non-verbal

Goldstein

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Concrete

Reusch

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Analogic or eidetic

Bateson & Jackson

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Analogic

J. Z.Young

Abstract

Map-like

Pribram

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W. James

Differential

Existential

Spearman

Education or relations

Education of correlations

Hobbes

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Free or unordered

Freud

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Pavlov

Second signalling

First signalling

Sechenov (Luria)

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Levi-Strauss

Positive

Mythic

Bruner

Rational

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Akhilinanda

Buddhi

Manas

Radhakrishnan

Rational

Integral

Fig. 9.9. Table of possible hemispheric “modes” from Bogen (1969).

meanings appear to reach “beyond” the words in the utterance. Like poetic meanings but unlike propositional expressions, some of the meaning seems ineffable.This “incommunicable” property (Taylor, 1931) qualifies one type of FNE, proverbs, to be a purveyor of general ideals, and to represent packets of wisdom, the topic of this symposium. Research suggests that in the adult, the right hemisphere is specialized for contextualized patterns of information (Gardner, Brownell, Wapner, and Michelow, 1983; Brownell, Dee, Powelson, and Gardner, 1983). There is reason to believe that the right hemisphere is involved

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in processing probably both the form and meaning of these nonliteral familiar expressions. Our studies using the FANL-C, and other related studies reviewed above, have indicated a role of the right hemisphere in understanding FNEs (Van Lancker and Kempler, 1987). In 1968, Benton tested people with left or right frontal lobe damage or bilateral frontal lobe damage. Persons with bilateral damage performed poorly on a proverb test, implicating a role of the frontal lobes in proverb interpretation. At the time, Benton expressed perplexity at his finding that right frontal damage impaired performance more than left-sided damage. This was observed before people had an understanding of the role of the right hemisphere in processing these complex types of meanings. We also tested persons with Alzheimer’s Disease using FANL-C test, and found impairments in processing the FNEs (Kempler,Van Lancker, and Read, 1988).This was true even of the mild group, who were actually confirmed Alzheimer’s patients because they had all had biopsies for another study (biopsies are necessary to confirm the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease). In Alzheimer’s, the posterior parts of the brain are affected first. Finally, subcortical nuclei of the brain have become implicated in FNEs. Speedie, Wertman, Ta’ir, and Heilman (1993) reported on a seventy-five year old right-handed bilingual French and Hebrew speaking person who had a hemorrhage in his right subcortical area. Following this neurological insult, he was not able to count from one to twenty, and, importantly and interestingly for us, he could no longer recite his blessings, despite the fact that he had been very active in reciting his Hebrew blessings several times a day, all of his life. He could no longer sing familiar songs, and he had diminished swearing. And so it is very possible that the subcortical areas of the brain, which are known to store and process overlearned motor behaviors, are significant in producing the form of at least some types of nonliteral expressions.

summary I’ve talked about the formal aspects of nonpropositional language, describing classes of familiar nonliteral expressions, and their relationship

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to brain processing. I’ve tried to show from various studies, firstly, that FNEs differ in structure and usage from propositional language; and secondly, with respect to brain function, that nonpropositional language involves other than the classic language areas of the left cerebral hemisphere. In contrast, what we know about the processing of FNE form and meaning suggests that many brain areas are involved: parietal lobes, frontal lobes, and subcortical areas of both hemispheres in different ways and for different aspects of the process. There is much more that we need to know, but enough is known to be able to design experiments— experiments that would satisfy criteria for a scientific investigation—to continue moving toward answering some of these questions, although, of course, in a very limited way. As proverbs function to transmit cultural wisdom, a study designed to assess the loss of such processing following specific brain damage might lead to better understanding of how normal persons process proverbial wisdom. Nonliteral and overlearned expressions, including verbal ritual, chanting, and prayers, figure importantly in religious practice; therefore, carefully designed experiments could lead to better understanding of how nonpropositional speech interfaces with the spiritual-religious meanings in brain function. The properties of nonliteral language, especially proverbs, enable these expressions to function uniquely in transmission of special kinds of information. Nonliteral expressions are not compositional—that is, they are not produced or understood by assemblage of separate parts (words and grammatical rules). Somehow, the nonliteral expression is unitary, and maps onto a complex, highly integrated meaning, which may or may not have an obvious relationship to the words and grammatical shape of the expression. Proverbs take this property a step further, by “forcing” a generalization of the particular, holistic meaning to a greater, universal packet of vaguer, but richer semantic content. Under this circumstance, the meaning of the proverb can successfully encode abstract, philosophical, and universal implications. Proverbs are thus uniquely designed to transmit cultural norms, general knowledge, beliefs, moral values, lessons derived from a variety of experiences, and other qualities well captured in the term “wisdom.” Although the processes by which proverbs develop and disperse in human language are incompletely understood, their value in human life is indisputable.

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references Benton, A. (1968). Differential behavioral effects in frontal lobe disease. Neuropsychologia, 6, 53–60. Bever, T.G. (1975). Cerebral asymmetries in humans are due to the differentiation of two incompatible processes: Holistic and analytic. Annals of the New York Academy of Science, 263, 251–262. Bogen, J.E. (1969). The other side of the brain II: An appositional mind. Bulletin of the Los Angeles Neurological Societies, 324, 191–219. Bogen, J.E. (1973). Movie of a hemispherectomy patient and what it all means. UCLA Conference on Cerebral Dominance, UCLA. Bolinger, D. (1976). Meaning and memory. Forum Linguisticum, 1, 1–14. Brownell, H., Dee, M., Powelson, J., and Gardner, H. (1983). Surprise but not coherence: Sensitivity to verbal humor in right hemisphere patients. Brain and Language, 18, 20–27. Chafe, W. (1968). Idiomaticity as an anomaly in the Chomskyan paradigm. Foundations of Language, 4, 109–127. Code, C. (1982). Neurolinguistic analysis of recurrent utterance in aphasia. Cortex, 18, 141–152. Cutting, J.C. and Bock, K. (1997). That’s the way the cookie bounces: Syntactic and semantic components of experimentally elicited idiom blends. Memory-Cognition, 25(1), 57–71. Czopf, J. (1981). Über die Rolle der nicht dominanten Hemisphäre in der Restitution der Sprache der Aphasischen. Archiven Psychiatrischen Nervenkrankheiten, 216, 162–171. Delis, D.C., Kramer, J., and Kaplan, E. (1984). The California Proverbs Test. Copyright. Fillmore, C. (1979). On fluency. In C.J. Fillmore, D. Kempler, and W. S-Y Wang (Eds.), Individual differences in language ability and language behavior (pp. 85–102). London: Academic Press.

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Gardner, H., Brownell, H.H.,Wapner,W., and Michelow, D. (1983). Missing the point: The role of the right hemisphere in the processing of complex linguistic materials. In E. Perecman (Ed.), Cognitive processing in the right hemisphere (pp. 169–192). New York: Academic Press. Gibbs, R.W., Jr. and Nayak, N.P. (1989). Psycholinguistic studies on the syntactic behavior of idioms. Cognitive Psychology, 21, 100–138. Gibbs, R.W., Jr. and O’Brien, J.E. (1990). Idioms and mental imagery: The metaphorical motivation for idiomatic meaning. Cognition, 36(1), 35–68. Glucksberg, S. 1991. Beyond literal meanings: The psychology of allusion. Psychological Science, 2(3), 146–152. Gorham, D.R. (1956a). A proverbs test for clinical and experimental use. Psychological Reports Monograph Supplement, No. 1. Gorham, D.R. (1956b). Proverbs Test. Clinical Forms I, II and III. Best Answer Form. Manual. Clinical Manual. Louisville, KY: Psychological Test Specialists. Graves, R. and Landis, T. 1985. Hemispheric control of speech expression in aphasia. Archives of Neurology, 42, 249–251. Hain, M. (1951). Sprichwort und Volkssprache. Giessen: Wihelm Schmitz Verlag. Haynes, R.M., Resnick, P.J., Dougherty, K.C., and Althof, S.E. (1993). Proverb familiarity and the mental status examination. Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, 57, 523–528. Hoffman, R.R. and Kemper, S. (1987). What could reaction-time studies be telling us about metaphor comprehension? Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 2(3), 149–186. Honeck, R.P. (1997). A proverb in mind: The cognitive science of proverbial wit and wisdom. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Horowitz, L.M. and Manelis, L. (1973). Recognition and cued recall of idioms and phrases. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 100, 291–296. Hughlings Jackson, J. (1874). On the nature of the duality of the brain.

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Reprinted in 1932, J.Taylor (Ed.), Selected Writings of John Hughlings Jackson. Vol. 2 (pp. 129–45). London: Hodder & Stoughton. Hughlings Jackson, J. (1915). On affections of speech from diseases of the brain. Brain, 38, 101–186. Kempler, D. and Van Lancker, D. (1996). Familiar and Novel Language Comprehension Test. Copyright. Kempler, D.,Van Lancker, D., Marchman,V., and Bates, E. (1999). Idiom comprehension in children and adults with unilateral brain damage. Developmental Neuropsychology, 15.3, 327–349. Kempler, D.,Van Lancker, D., and Read, S. (1988). Proverb and idiom comprehension in Alzheimer disease. Alzheimer Disease and Associated Disorders, 2(1), 38–49. Kinsbourne, M. (1971). The minor cerebral hemisphere as a source of aphasic speech. Transactions of the American Neurological Association, 96, 141–145. Lieberman, P. (1963). Some effects of semantic and grammatic context on the production and perception of speech. Language and Speech, 6, 172–187. Martin, M. (1979). Hemispheric specialization for local and global processing. Neuropsychologia, 17, 33–40. Mieder, W. (1984). Investigations of proverbs, proverbial expressions, quotations and clichés: A bibliography of explanatory essays which have appeared in notes and queries. Bern: P. Lang. Nippold, M. and Haq, F.S. (1996). Proverb comprehension in youth: The role of concreteness and familiarity. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 39, 166–176. Pawley, A. and Syder, F.H. (1980). Two puzzles for linguistic theory: Nativelike selection and nativelike fluency. In J.C. Richards and R. Schmidt (Eds.), Communicative competence. London: Longmans. Searle, J.R. (1975). Indirect speech acts. In P. Cole and J.L. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and semantics 3: Speech (pp. 59–82). New York: Academic Press.

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Speedie, L.J., Wertman, E., Ta’ir, J., and Heilman, K.M. (1993). Disruption of automatic speech following a right basal ganglia lesion. Neurology, 43(9), 1768–1774. Strub, R.L. and Black, F.W. (1993). The mental status examination in neurology, 3rd ed. Philadelphia: F.A. Davis Co. Swinney, D. and Cutler, A. (1979). The access and processing of idiomatic expressions. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 18, 523–534. Taylor, A. (1931). The proverb. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Templeton, J.M. (1997). Worldwide laws of life: 200 eternal spiritual principles. Radnor, PA: Templeton Foundation Press. Titone, D.A. and Connine, C.M. (1994). Comprehension of idiomatic expressions: Effects of predictability and literality. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 20(5), 1126–1138. Van Lancker, D. (1972). Language lateralisation and grammars. In J.P. Kimball (Ed.), Studies in syntax and semantics, vol. 2. (pp. 197–204). New York: Seminar Press. Van Lancker, D. (1988). Nonpropositional speech: Neurolinguistic studies. In A. Ellis (Ed.), Progress in the psychology of language, vol. 3. (pp. 49–118). London: L. Erlbaum. Van Lancker, D. (1990). The neurology of proverbs. Behavioral Neurology, 3, 169–187. Van Lancker, D. (1994). Nonpropositional speech in aphasia. In G. Blanken, J. Dittmann, H. Grimm, J.C. Marshall, and C.-W.Wallesch (Eds.), Linguistic disorders and pathologies. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Van Lancker, D. (1998a). Auditory recognition of idioms by native and nonnative speakers of English: It takes one to know one. Submitted. Van Lancker, D. (1998b). Case report on a patient with transcortical sensory aphasia. Submitted. Van Lancker, D., Canter, J., and Terbeek, D. (1981). Disambiguation of ditropic

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sentences: Acoustic and phonetic cues. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 24, 330–335. Van Lancker, D. and Kempler, D. (1987). Comprehension of familiar phrases by left- but not by right-hemisphere damaged patients. Brain and Language, 32, 265–277. Wechsler, R. (1981). Wechsler adult intelligence scale-revised. New York: Psychological Corporation. Weinreich,V. (1969). Problems in the analysis of idioms. In J. Puhvel (Ed.), Substance and structure of language. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Whitaker, H.A. (1976). A case of isolation of the speech functions. In H. Whitaker and H.A. Whitaker (Eds.), Studies in neurolinguistics, vol. 2. (pp. 1–58). London: Academic Press. Winner, E. and Gardner, H. (1977). The comprehension of metaphor in braindamaged patients. Brain, 100, 717–729.

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chapter 10

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On the Emergence of Wisdom: Expertise Development John L. Horn and Hiromi Masunaga

isdom is many faceted. This is made clear in the symposium of which this essay is a part. But to recognize that wisdom has many facets is merely to start to understand it. Just what are the facets; how do they emerge in culture and in individuals; what are their functions? The book makes it clear that wisdom involves deep insight into the meaning and purpose of life.Yet wisdom is not merely knowledge and comprehension of moral imperatives even as such insight and comprehension must be part of it.The moral authority of wisdom must extend beyond that needed to ensure the continuance of any particular group; it must deal adequately with the continuance of humankind, all life, the universe.Yet it must derive from acculturation within a family, within a kin group, within a particular society. Wisdom must derive from experience, but experience is not sufficient to produce it: great and diverse experience need not result in wisdom. Wisdom is distinct from any of what is referred to as human intelligence, as Warren Brown has pointed out, but it must involve and derive from much of that intelligence. So we begin with understanding that wisdom is too complex to fully understand. Nevertheless, here we will attempt to describe an important feature of wisdom that has not been described in this book or, as near as we can determine, has not been described anywhere before.We will attempt to show that, as seen in individual human beings, wisdom involves some aspects of mature human intelligence, even as it is more

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than such intelligence. To clarify the distinction between wisdom and intelligence, we will first describe what the term “human intelligence” has come to mean within the context of the science of psychology. We will then describe how this concept must be broadened to include the development of expertise, one form of which is an important feature of wisdom.

scientific description of human intelligence Two lines of research bring us to our current understanding of the nature of human intelligence. One results in what is referred to as extended Gf-Gc theory. The other, more recent and less extensive, results in a theory of expertise. Our current research is directed at merging these two theories. To show why the unification is necessary, we will first outline the basis for the two theories and then describe how the two can be united. Gf-Gc theory is a descriptive-interpretative account of evidence obtained primarily from five kinds of research: (1) structural studies of the organization among measures of individual differences in abilities regarded as indicative of human intelligence, (2) developmental studies of the ways in which cognitive capabilities develop over age from birth to death, (3) research on physiological and neurological correlates of expressions of abilities, (4) studies of correlations between abilities and school and occupational performances, and (5) research on relationships between abilities and indicators of genetic transmission of traits. The structural and developmental evidence provide the primary basis for merging Gf-Gc theory with the theory of expertise.

structural evidence: major capabilities of human intelligence The accumulated results from nearly one hundred years of research on covariations among tests, tasks, and paradigms designed to identify fundamental features of human intelligence indicate organization at what

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is referred to as primary mental abilities. At this level somewhat more than sixty kinds of concepts—dimensions indicated by common factors—are required to describe the individual difference variability that is said to indicate intelligence. The evidence from studies of structure also indicates that there is a broader, more general organization among the primary mental abilities and that this general organization can be represented largely (though not fully) by as few as nine major kinds of cognitive capacities.The common factors indicating these broad patterns of organization have been identified in samples that differ in respect to gender, level of education, ethnicity, nationality, language, and historical period in this century. The nine kinds of abilities that represent this organization account for nearly all the reliable individual differences variability measured in IQ tests and neuropsychological batteries. The abilities are positively correlated, but independent. Independence is indicated by structural evidence: a best-weighted linear combination of any set of eight factors (representing eight of the classes of abilities) does not account for the reliable covariance among the elements of the ninth factor (representing a remaining class of abilities). More fundamentally, independence is indicated by evidence of distinct construct validities: measures representing the different factors have different relationships with a variety of variables, including variables of neurology and age. The factors appear to represent distinct functions such as are realized through learning influences operating in conjunction with biological and genetic influences that directly determine brain structure and physiology. The nine classes of abilities are described briefly as follows: ✦

Fluid reasoning (Gf ), measured in tasks requiring inductive reasoning (conjunctive and disjunctive), indicates capacities for identifying relationships, comprehending implications, and drawing inferences within content that is either novel or equally familiar to all.

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Acculturation knowledge (Gc) is measured in tests indicating breadth and depth of knowledge of the language, concepts, and information of the dominant culture.

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Processing speed (Gs), although involved in almost all intellectual tasks,

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this factor is measured most purely in rapid scanning and comparisons of intellectually simple tasks in which almost all people would get the right answer if the task were not highly speeded. ✦

Short-term apprehension and retrieval (SAR), also referred to as shortterm memory (Gsm) and working memory, is measured in a variety of tasks that mainly require one to maintain awareness of elements in the immediate situation, that is, events of the last minute or so.

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Fluency of retrieval from long-term storage (TSR), also labeled long-term memory (Glm), is measured in tasks indicating consolidation for storage and retrieval through association of information stored minutes, hours, weeks, and years before.

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Visual processing (Gv) is measured in tasks involving visual closure, and fluency in recognizing the way objects appear in space as they are rotated and flip-flopped in various ways.

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Auditory processing (Ga) is measured in tasks that involve perception of sound patterns under distraction or distortion, maintaining awareness of order and rhythm among sounds, and comprehending elements of groups of sounds.

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Correct decision speed (CDS) is measured in quickness in providing answers in tasks that are not of trivial difficulty.

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Quantitative knowledge (Gq) is measured in tasks requiring understanding and application of the concepts and skills of mathematics.

More detailed and scholarly accounts of the structural evidence are provided in Carroll (1993); Cattell (1971); Horn (e.g., 1968, 1994, 1997), Horn and Hofer (1992), and Horn and Noll (1997).

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developmental evidence: age differences and changes in adulthood Most of the extant developmental research has been directed at describing age-related declines in cognitive capabilities—particularly the abilities of Gf, Gs, and SAR—but some of the prior work has adduced evidence of improvements and maintenance of abilities, in this case the abilities of Gc and TSR.Yet wisdom must improve and be maintained over adulthood. We suggest that this has not been well considered in prior research because it has not been recognized that adult human intelligence involves the development of expertise. To explore this idea and make comparisons needed to provide perspective, it is necessary to consider abilities that, according to the findings of extant research, do and do not decline with age in adulthood.

Declining Capacities The evidence of decline comes from both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. These two kinds of studies control for, and reveal, different kinds of influences, and have different strengths and weaknesses (Horn and Donaldson, 1980).Yet in major respects the findings from the two kinds of studies are largely congruent (Horn, 1991; Horn and Donaldson, 1980).The longitudinal findings suggest that the points in adulthood at which declines occur are later than is indicated by the cross-sectional findings, but the evidence of which abilities decline, and which decline more and less than others, is essentially the same for the two kinds of studies (Schaie, 1996).The principal declines are in Gf, Gs, and SAR, which together are referred to as vulnerable abilities.

gf: reasoning The research findings are consistent in demonstrating steady decline of Gf over most of the period of adulthood.The decline is seen with measures of syllogisms and concept formation (McGrew,Werder, and Woodcock, 1991), in reasoning with metaphors and analogies (Salthouse, 1987; Salthouse, Kausler, and Saults, 1990), with measures of comprehending series, as in letter series, figural series, and number series (Horn, 1975;

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1991; Noll and Horn, 1997; Salthouse, Kausler, and Saults, 1990), and with measures of mental rotation, figural relations, matrices, and topology (Cattell, 1979; Horn, 1977). In each case the Gf factor is most cleanly indicated—measures are most nearly uni-factorial—if the fundaments of the test are novel or equally familiar to all, that is, if they give no advantage to those with greater knowledge of the culture. Although many of the tests that have indicated the aging decline of Gf have a speeded component, the decline is indicated very well by unspeeded tests that require resolution of high-level (difficult) complexities (Horn, 1991; Horn, Donaldson, and Engstrom, 1981; Noll and Horn, 1997).

SAR: short-term apprehension and retrieval The findings of many studies indicate adulthood decline in the abilities of the short-term working memory (Craik, 1977; Craik and Byrd, 1982; Craik and Trehub, 1982; Schaie, 1996).The decline is smaller in tasks that involve very short periods of apprehension; there are virtually no age differences for the Sperling (1960) kind of task, in which the retrieval follows apprehension periods of only a few milliseconds. But for measures in which information is presented over periods of a few seconds and retrieval is required after short periods of up to a minute or two, age-related declines generally have been found.This is true of memory for information the subject could regard as meaningful, as well as for nonsense material, although age differences appear to be smaller for memory of the meaningful kind of information (Cavanaugh, 1997; Charness, 1991; Craik and Trehub, 1982; Ericsson and Delaney, 1998; Gathercole, 1994; Kaufman, 1990; Salthouse, 1991a; Schaie, 1996). The more complex the memory task, and the more it requires that material be held in awareness while doing other things—as in definitions of working memory—the larger the negative relationship to age. For example, the negative age relationship for backward-span memory, in which the subject must recall the to-be-remembered elements in the reverse of the order in which they were presented, is significantly larger (absolute value) than the negative age relationship for forward-span memory (Craik, 1977; Craik and Trehub, 1982; Horn, Donaldson, and Engstrom, 1981; Salthouse, 1991b; Schaie, 1996).

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Gs: cognitive speed Most cognitive tests are speeded. The results of many studies suggest aging decline in speed of performance and in speed of thinking (Birren, 1974; Kausler, 1990; Salthouse, 1992, 1993, 1994). Older adults are found to be slower than their younger counterparts for both simple and choice reaction time (RT), although the magnitude of the differences, assessed in standard score units, are larger for choice RT. In studies in which young and old subjects are provided opportunity to practice a choice-RT task, practice does not eliminate the age differences and no noteworthy age X practice interactions are indicated (Madden and Nebes, 1980; Salthouse and Somberg, 1982).

Capabilities That Do Not Decline In many studies in which age-related declines were documented no evidence of decline was found (in the same samples of subjects) for reliable measures of abilities indicating breadth and depth of knowledge of the dominant culture, Gc, and abilities of consolidation in learning and fluency of retrieval of information from the store of knowledge, TSR.

Gc: knowledge The abilities of this class are often referred to in efforts to specify what is most important about human intelligence. They are indicative of the intelligence of a culture, inculcated into individuals through systematic influences of acculturation. The domain of such knowledge is quite large and diverse. No measures are truly representative of it. Currently, the sum of achievement tests of the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery-Revised (WJ-R;Woodcock, 1996) is probably the best measure. (It takes three hours to obtain this measure.) The verbal subscale of the WAIS (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scales) is a commonly used estimate. Subscale and primary ability indicators are tests of vocabulary, listening comprehension, and knowledge in the sciences, social studies, and humanities. Such measures correlate substantially with social class, with amount and quality of education, and with other indicators of acculturation. On average, through most of adulthood, there is increase with age in

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Gc knowledge (e.g., Botwinick, 1977, 1978; Cattell, 1971; Harwood and Naylor, 1971; Horn, 1968, 1972, 1976, 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991; 1997; Horn and Cattell, 1967; Horn and Hofer, 1992; Kaufman, 1990; Rabbitt and Abson, 1991; Schaie, 1996; Stankov and Horn, 1980; Woodcock, 1995). There are suggestions that people improve to age eighty and beyond (e.g., Harwood and Naylor, 1971). Such declines as are indicated in averages show up late in adulthood—age seventy and beyond—and are small (Schaie, 1996). If differences in years of formal education are statistically controlled, the increment of Gc with advancing age is increased (Horn, 1968, 1972, 1989, Kaufman, 1990).

TSR: tertiary storage retrieval Two different kinds of measures indicate this class of abilities. In one kind of measure subjects are required to retrieve information that was associated with other information several minutes or hours or days prior to the time when retrieval is requested. “Memory for Names” in the WJ-R is a good example of this kind of measure. In the second kind of measure subjects are required to retrieve by association information from stored knowledge. In a word associations test, for example, subjects provide words similar in meaning to a given word; in an ideas test, subjects provide ideas similar to a given idea. Such tests may be given under time limits, but if they are to measure the TSR factor, these limits must be generous, such that subjects have time to provide nearly all the associations of which they are capable: otherwise, the test will measure Gs. The retrieval in both of the two kinds of measures of TSR relates to the encoding and consolidation of information in long-term storage. It is well established in the experimental literature that parameters that characterize encoding and consolidation also characterize the retrieval (Bower, 1972; 1975; Estes, 1974). In the case of the measures indicating TSR a common parameter appears to be association: both kinds of measures indicate facility in association, as in the Bower experiments. The first kind of measure assesses this over fairly short periods of time (but longer periods than in the measures of SAR) and also indicates consolidation. The second kind of measure indicates associations among pieces of information that would have entered cognition at different times over long periods of time, but were consolidated and stored in a

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system of categories (as described by Broadbent, 1966). Neither kind of measure is most directly indicative of the amount stored, indicated by Gc. While TSR must depend on the knowledge store of Gc, measures of it are independent of measures of Gc—independent (as previously descried) in the sense that the correlation between the two factors is well below their respective internal consistencies and in the sense that they have different patterns of correlations with other variables. This means that people with a very large store of knowledge may not as readily access their stores as people with smaller stores.Yet for the TSR class of abilities, as for Gc, the evidence indicates either improvement throughout most of adulthood or if there is decline, it occurs late and is small (Horn, 1968; Horn and Cattell, 1967; Horn and Noll, 1993; Schaie, 1996; Stankov and Horn, 1980; Woodcock, 1995).

analyses of interdependence among abilities The cognitive behavior displayed by a person is not, in itself, neatly partitioned into knowledge, reasoning, memory, speediness, etc. It is a whole in which all such aspects of capability are interwoven. Gc, TSR, Gf, Gs, and SAR are constructs isolated by analyses with tests, the requirements of which emphasize some aspects of capability relative to others. Such operational definitions never completely separate the different capabilities. This is seen in the positive intercorrelations among Gc, TSR, Gf, SAR, and Gs. These intercorrelations indicate interdependence among capabilities. Gf, for example, is dependent on SAR (and visa versa).To reason effectively, as measured in Gf, one must apprehend the fundaments of a problem and hold them within the span of immediate awareness, processes emphasized in SAR. Correlation between manifest indicators of Gf and SAR point to such latent interdependencies. To describe the dependencies among different capabilities more analytically, Horn (1987; 1989), Horn, Donaldson, and Engstrom (1981), Noll and Horn (1997), and Salthouse (1993) have used multiple-parting. This work has been particularly directed at describing age relationships of the complex abilities of fluid reasoning in terms of more elementary

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processes such as are indicated by indicators of SAR and Gs. For example, beginning with an observed age-related decline in Gf of approximately .25 standard deviation units (SDU) per ten years of age (over a period from the early twenties through the mid-sixties), Noll and Horn (1997) demonstrated that the decline of Gf is reduced to about .15 SDU by controlling for an indicator of the processes of SAR. Cognitive speed, Gs, also is positively related to Gf. Part of this relationship reflects an interdependence of Gs and SAR. When this was taken into account in multiple parting, it was found that Gs, independently of SAR, accounted for about .055 of the Gf decline with age.This finding was replicated with different indicators of the basic constructs (Gf, SAR, Gs) in Salthouse (1993). These indications that speed and memory processes are involved in Gf reasoning, though small (the Gf decline itself is small), were statistically significant in each study and reliably replicated across four studies. They appear to be important for understanding the nature of cognition. They do not, however, fully account for the observed, reliable Gf decline. Other processes must be involved. There are also questions about the nature of the basic process or processes involved in aging decline of cognitive capabilities. Despite the evidence that intelligence is not a unitary common factor and that there are several processes involved in the aging decline of one factor, Gf, there is much-discussed and influential theory (e.g., Eysenck, 1987; Jensen, 1987; Salthouse, 1991b; 1993; White, 1996) that cognitive speed is the sine qua non of general intelligence (although usually the empirical referent is an ability of Gf or SAR, rather than one of Gc or TSR). The form of this theory that has been considered most in research on adult development is referred to as the general slowing hypothesis (Birren, 1974), which stipulates that processing speed intrinsic to the system (e.g., neural transmission speed) is a fundamental component of all cognitive abilities and that this processing speed declines with age in adulthood (Salthouse, 1991b; 1993). There is considerable crosssectional and longitudinal evidence of age-related decline in many forms of speeded performance, which seems to support a general slowing hypothesis (Salthouse, 1993). But there is also considerable evidence indicating that the speed declines are along independent dimensions

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(Cerella and Fozard, 1984; Hertzog, 1989; Horn, Donaldson, and Engstrom, 1981; Lima, Hale, and Myerson, 1991; Schaie, 1990; Walsh, 1982). For example, Walsh (1982) found that age-related differences in highly reliable measures of speed of central processing (linked to the visual cortex) and speed of peripheral processing (linked to neural pathways to the cortex) were correlated near zero. And there is the evidence outlined above indicating that no speed process or combination of speed processes account for all the aging decline of the fluid reasoning form of intelligence.This work suggests that the basic process is not speed, but a capacity for maintaining attention. The research leading to this conclusion is based on measurements of Gf that have been designed to exclude speed of performance. Letter series and matrices tests have been constructed to provide measures of the average level of difficulty of problems solved (not the number of problems solved over a period of time). A person who solves a few problems of high difficulty will get a high score, while a person who solves many problems of low difficulty, but few of high difficulty, will get a low score. The measures obtained in this manner are referred to as power measures (Horn, 1987; Noll and Horn, 1997 for fuller descriptions). Power test operations tend to ensure that any variance Gf may share with Gs is not simply speed in producing answers. Such operations do not ensure that the Gf measurements are devoid of speed of thinking. In fact they are not. Measures of simple clerical speed relate to power measures of Gf and account for significant portions of Gf aging decline (although speed of producing correct answers to problems of moderate difficulty is only very lowly related to power measures of Gf, and accounts for virtually none of the aging decline of these measures).The simple measures of cognitive speed appear to involve little memory or depth of processing or reasoning. For example, the task may be simply one of quickly marking every letter “d” on a printed page, or determining whether sets of digits are the same or different. Measures of such simple speediness account for a substantial portion of the aging decline in unspeeded Gf reasoning (Horn, 1987; 1989; Horn, Donaldson, and Engstrom, 1981; Horn and Noll, 1997; Noll and Horn, 1997). But it appears that what is involved here is not speediness, per se, but a capacity for concentration. This is indicated by another very simple

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measure that relates to the aging decline of Gf, but involves no speediness. This measure is obtained from a slow tracing test (first developed by Botwinick and Storandt, 1975). High score on this measure is obtained by tracing very slowly—the slower the tracing, the higher the score. This measure correlates positively with measures of speediness and measures of Gf. It seems that what the test requires is focused attention—concentration—as seen in measures of vigilance. It has now been established in five studies (Botwinick and Storandt, 1975; Horn, Donaldson, and Engstrom, 1981; Noll and Horn, 1997) that this slowness/ concentration measure accounts for most of the age-related variance in measures of simple speediness, and the results from the studies by Horn, Donaldson, and Engstrom and Noll and Horn show that it accounts for all the reliable age-related variance the speed measures have in common with measures of Gf. Age-related declines have been found for sustained attention measured with tasks other than slow tracing—for example, vigilance tasks in which subjects must detect a stimulus change imbedded in an otherwise invariant sequence of the stimuli (for review, see Kausler, 1990; McDowd and Birren, 1990). Aging declines have also been found in divided attention and selective attention (Bors and Forrin, 1995; Horn, Donaldson, and Engstrom, 1981; Horn and Noll, 1997; Madden, 1983; McDowd and Birren, 1990; McDowd and Craik, 1988; Plude and Hoyer, 1985; Rabbitt, 1965; Salthouse, 1985; Wickens, Braune, and Stokes, 1987). Older adults also perform more poorly than their younger counterparts when they are compared on such tasks as the Stroop—in which one is asked to quickly pronounce color words such as red when they are printed in another color, for example green—indicating interference effects (Cohn, Dustman, and Bradford, 1984), and distracted visual search (Madden, 1983; Plude and Hoyer, 1985; Rabbitt, 1965). These kinds of results have been interpreted as indicating that aging is associated with distractibility and susceptibility to perceptual interference. Hasher and Zacks (1988) found that manifest retrieval problems witnessed among older adults were attributable to the inability to keep irrelevant information from obscuring relevant information. This finding is consistent with the findings of Horn, Donaldson, and

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Engstrom (1981) that measures of eschewing irrelevancies in concept formation relate to measures of short-term association memory and working memory and account for some of the age differences in these measures. Horn, Donaldson, and Engstrom (1981) found also that concentration and divided attention separately and together account for aging decline in measures of clang memory and working memory. Hasher and Zacks (1988) suggested that a basic process in working memory is one of maintaining attention. Baddeley (1993) suggested that working memory can be described as “working attention.” The measurement of deliberate (in contrast to automatic) processing is related to attention, skill development, and aging. With increasing practice in developing skills, processing that is at first deliberate and slow becomes automatic and fast, and the amount of effort needed for the execution of the task is reduced (see Smith, 1996 for recent comprehensive review). Deliberate processing requires exercise of attention; less attention is required in automatic processing. As indicated, age differences are found for various measures of attention. When attention requirements are low, age differences tend to disappear.The correlation with age for reliable measures of the elementary processes of spatial scanning measured with the Sperling (1960) paradigm was found to be nearly zero in Horn, Donaldson, and Engstrom (1981). Many of the tasks designed to measure speediness, and that show an aging effect, seem to depend on scanning skills that have become automated. In this case, however, although the skills are automated, application of the skills requires application of close attention. Thus, the distinction between deliberate and automatic processing, as such, does not appear to characterize the process in which there is aging decline. This process appears to be a capacity for focusing attention.

theory of expertise Basic Assumption There are problems with the operational definitions of Gc that are used in empirical research. This is particularly the case if Gc is assumed to indicate adult intelligence. Gc represents an extremely broad and diverse

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range of knowledge—the knowledge of a culture: a measure should represent a person’s acquisition of that knowledge. It is virtually impossible to representatively sample such a domain with objective tests.This is particularly true under the conditions of most research in which several variables must be measured within a limited amount of time. More fundamentally, if Gc is to be regarded as an indicator of adult intelligence, measures of Gc provide only a dilettante estimate of that concept. The items sample only surface knowledge in a number of fields, not the depth of knowledge in any field. But as people develop intelligence from childhood into adulthood they become able to comprehend in some areas much more than is sampled in survey tests: they acquire vast knowledge. They come to know and understand a great deal about some things, somewhat to the detriment of knowing and understanding other things.They become specialized.Their intelligence becomes a melange of deep knowledge in some areas and only shallow understanding in others. A measure of Gc samples several areas of knowledge, but the items deal only with the elementary—the surface— knowledge of any of the areas. A dilettante who flits over many such areas will measure higher in Gc than a person who develops truly profound intelligence in a smaller segment of the domain of the knowledge of a culture.Yet it may be the latter who is most likely to make significant contributions to the culture and be judged, therefore, to be most intelligent. More to the point, the latter may best exemplify the capabilities that best indicate the nature and limits of human intelligence. That this is true is a principal assumption of study of particular domains of expertise (Ericsson, 1996; Simon and Chase, 1973). Just as research on Gf-Gc theory has been partly structural and partly developmental, so research on expertise has been partly directed at identifying and measuring different aspects and levels of the phenomena and partly directed at describing how expertise develops. As in the previous section, we will review the structural evidence before considering research dealing primarily with how expertise develops.

Structural Evidence: Constructs and Basis for Measurement Much of the research on expertise has been driven by a method, devel-

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oped by de Groot (1946; 1978), of having high-level experts “thinkaloud” while generating solutions to problems. An analysis of a thinkaloud record of the mediating processes is compared against theoretical alternatives specified by a task analysis to eliminate alternative theoretical proposals for the mediating mechanisms (Ericsson and Simon, 1993). A major task is to translate statements describing the mediating processes inferred from think-aloud descriptions into operational definitions that yield reliable measurements of individual differences.These translations can derive from the following summary of findings.

deductive reasoning (dr) In several areas (particularly chess, financial planning, and medical diagnosis) expert performance has been found to be based largely on knowledge-based reasoning (Charness, 1981a, 1981b; 1991; de Groot, 1978; Ericsson, 1996; Hershey et al., 1990; Walsh and Hershey, 1993). In de Groot’s (1978) early study, for example, it was found that the highestlevel experts in chess chose the next move by evaluating the current situation in terms of principles derived from vast prior experience, rather than by calculation and evaluation of move possibilities. Other work (Charness, 1981a, 1991; Ericsson, 1996, 1997; Morrow et al., 1994; Hershey et al., 1990) demonstrated that the expert characteristically uses deductive reasoning under conditions where the novice uses inductive reasoning. The expert is able to construct a framework (e.g., possible diagnoses) with which to organize and effectively evaluate presented information, while novices, with no expertise basis for constructing a framework, search for patterns and do reasoning by trial-and-error evaluations.The expert apprehends large amounts of organized information, comprehends many relationships among elements of this information, infers possible continuations and extrapolations, and, as a result, is able to select the best from among many possibilities in deciding on the most likely outcome, consequence, or extension of relationships. The expert goes from the general (comprehension of relations, knowledge of principles) to most likely specifics.

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long-term working memory (ltwm) A feature often identified in studies of expert performance is a form of superior memory. This is described as a capacity for holding information in a storage that can be quickly accessed over periods of minutes (perhaps even hours) while performing in ways that indicate the expertise. In the earliest research, de Groot (1946, 1978) described how, with increasing expertise, subjects became better able to rapidly access alternative chess moves of increasingly higher quality, and then base their play on these complex patterns rather than engage in extensive search. Chase and Simon (1973) reasoned that such retrieval could fit within the limits of short-term working memory (of STWM). In their theory, the high level of memory in chess performance was thought to be mediated by a large number (ten thousand they estimated) of acquired patterns regarded as chunks, which could be hierarchically organized. The analyses of Richman et al. (1996) suggested that the number of such chunks would have to be in excess of one hundred thousand, rather than ten thousand. In any case, the mechanism suggested by Chase and Simon was one of direct retrieval of relevant moves cued by perceived patterns of chess positions that are stored in a form of STWM. They rejected a suggestion (Chase and Ericsson, 1982) that storage of generated patterns in long-term memory is possible within periods as brief as the five-second presentations that were observed. Cooke, Atlas, Lane, and Berger (1993) and Gobet and Simon (1996), however, showed that this assumption is plausible. They found that highly skilled chess players could recall information from up to nine chess positions that had been presented one after the other as rapidly as one every five seconds without pauses. Ericsson (1996) and Ericsson and Kintsch (1995) then reasoned that storage in which the “work” of working memory was done was long-term memory—hence the concept of long-term working memory (LTWM).They presented evidence that such a concept was needed to explain expert abilities in retaining chess positions in blindfold chess (Ericsson and Staszewski, 1989; Holding, 1985; Koltanowski, 1985), expert abilities in depth of search in evaluating sequences, and expert abilities in playing multiple games of chess simultaneously (Saariluoma, 1991). For instance, in playing blindfold chess, the expert is never able to see the board: all the outcomes of sequences of plays must be

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kept within a span of immediate apprehension.The number of elements the expert retains in such representations is much more than the seven plus or minus two that has been shown to limit STWM. Even the number of chunks would appear to be larger than seven, and if chunks are maintained in an hierarchy or other such template, the representation would be changed with successive moves, and the number of sequences of such changes is much larger than seven.Yet it was shown that experts were able to back through more than seven sequences to previous positions. Thus, it appears that STWM (the kind of memory that declines with age) is not the kind of memory that characterizes expert performance and that there is a memory, LTWM, that does. The amount of information recalled by experts in short periods of time in which cognitive work is being done is far in excess of the amounts available in STWM. Chunking, while surely part of the mechanism of the superior memory, does not allow the phenomena to be fully explained in terms of STWM because the amounts and complexities of the chunks exceed the capabilities of STWM. Also, it is operationally very difficult to provide evidence for a chunking hypothesis, because there is a myriad of possible kinds of chunks and it is virtually impossible to identify them, much less provide evidence that they are involved in the observed superior memory. Quick pattern recognition is involved in the coding of the large amounts of complex information that is retained and used in expert performance. There is some suggestion that in some forms, namely physical forms, of expert performance there are “automatic” (effortless) and “passive” (without thought) but coordinated movements, as in playing piano or figure skating. But studies of expert performance in chess suggest that display of high-level expertise often is not mediated solely by automated behaviors.When experts are unexpectedly asked to recall information about a complex task, their memories are not only more flexible, more accurate, and more complete than those of less-accomplished individuals in the domain of expertise, they are also not in a rigid pattern of order. The expert retraces previous behavior in a manner that suggests that that behavior was considered and thoughtful. Ericsson (1996) reasoned from such observations that as “. . . part of their

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normal cognitive processing, experts . . . generate a complex representation of the encountered situation, where information about the context is integrated with knowledge to allow selection of actions as well as evaluation, checking, and reasoning about alternative actions.” In sum, LTWM can be defined. It is a storage and retrieval process that is produced in development of expertise. It is a form of apprehension of patterns in accordance with principles of the expertise system. It involves retention of patterns in a manner such that they can be quickly and reliably retrieved in performing cognitive work such as that of planning, prediction, evaluation, and reasoning. Retrieval is triggered by a cue in LTWM that matches the retrieval structure in longterm storage. In other words, LTWM represents a holding framework within which distinct processes of reasoning, planning, prediction, and evaluation can be carried out. It thus stands in much the same relation to deductive reasoning (and possibly other mechanisms) as STWM stands in relation to fluid reasoning of Gf (and Gv). It represents capacity for holding information for the “work” of other processes. Yet this kind of ability is not well represented in the results of structural studies on the nature of human intelligence. This omission seems to have resulted because such intelligence has not been conceptualized as a form of expertise.

The Development of Expertise general principles High-level expertise is attained only by deliberate, well-structured practice over extended periods of time (Anderson, 1990; Ericsson and Charness, 1994; Ericsson and Lehmann, 1996; Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesch-Romer, 1993; Walsh and Hershey, 1993). What is described as “deliberate, well-structured practice” is essential for effective development of expertise. Such practice is not simply repetition and is not measured simply by the number of practice trials. The practice must be guided by analyses of level of expertise and identification of errors. Practice must be well designed to correct errors. There should be goals and appropriate feedback. Practice should be directed at advancing to successively more difficult levels of performance.

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Reports of teachers and coaches suggest that besides quality and quantity of practice, factors of personality, including already developed abilities, enter into the determination of the level of expertise reached. They suggest that to effectively engage in deliberate practice, a person should have the self-discipline and motivation needed to set goals and strive to attain them. Persons attaining the highest levels of expertise internalize goals and display high levels of effort, persistence, attention, and concentration in practice within the domain of expertise (but not necessarily outside that domain, Ericsson, 1996).

development in relation to aging Just how long it takes to reach the highest levels of expertise—one’s own asymptote—is not known with precision for any domain. A “tenyear rule” has been given as an approximation for domains characterized by complex problem solving, but this has been much debated (Anderson, 1990; Ericsson and Charness, 1994; Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesch-Romer, 1993). The upshot of the debate is that the time it takes to become expert varies with domain, the amount and quality of practice and coaching, the developmental level at which dedication to becoming an expert begins, health, stamina, and a host of other variables. Ten years is a rough estimate (Ericsson, 1996). Since it takes time (i.e., years) to reach high levels of expertise in complex problem solving, and expertise in such domains is developed, at least partially, through the period of adulthood, it follows that expertise can improve in adulthood. Indeed, the research literature is consistent in showing that across different domains of expertise, people beginning at different ages in adulthood advance from low to asymptotic high levels of expertise (Ericsson and Simon, 1993). The results of Bahrick (1984), Bahrick and Hall (1991), Conway, Cohen and Stanhope (1991), Krampe and Ericsson (1996), and Walsh and Hershey (1993) suggest that to the extent that practice is continued, expertise is maintained over periods of years and decades.The results of these studies indicate, too, that continued practice is required to maintain a high level of expert performance. If the abilities of expertise are not used, they decline. The Krampe and Ericsson (1996) results suggest that with continued practice, even highly speeded capabilities can be maintained. These

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investigators obtained seven operationally independent measures of speed in a sample of classical pianists who ranged from amateurs to concert performers with international reputations, and who ranged in age from the mid-twenties to the mid-sixties. Independently of age, experts performed better than amateurs on all music-related speeded tasks. Agerelated decline was found at the highest level of expertise, but reliably only for one of the seven measures and the decline was notably smaller than for persons at lower levels of expertise.The single best predictor of performance on all music-related tasks was the amount of practice participants had maintained during the last ten years. In samples of practicing typists of different ages, Salthouse (1991a) found that while abilities of finger-tapping speed, choice reaction time, and digit symbol substitution (assumed to be closely related to typing ability) declined systematically with age, typing ability, as such, did not: older typists attained the same typing speed as younger typists.The older typists had longer eye spans that enabled them to anticipate larger chunks of the material to be typed. Salthouse interpreted this as a compensatory mechanism. It can also be viewed as indicating a more advanced level of expertise, for, seemingly, it would improve the skill of a typist of any age. For any period over age, the correlation between time (e.g., number of years) in deliberate practice and level of expertise is positive. For people all of whom begin a course of deliberate practice at the same age, the older the person, the higher the level of expertise is expected to be. This would tend to be true even if there were individual differences in the rates of development from the lowest to the highest levels of expertise.

Wisdom as Expertise in the Context of Other Expertise As discussed in other parts of this volume, expressions of wisdom involve a complex integration of evaluations of information dealing with the complexities of what is right and wrong, what is prudent and rash, and what is correct and incorrect, each in respect to relationships between people, the institutions of people, and those aspects of life that are most important. Wisdom must be based on a representation of encountered

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situations in which information about the context is integrated with knowledge and evaluations derived from much previous experience. This integration allows selection of actions as well as evaluation, checking, and reasoning about consequences. Wisdom in this sense is very close to what is described as expertise (Ericsson, 1996). Wisdom thus is a form of expertise. But it is not the only expertise developed in adulthood. Therein lies a problem in identifying particularly wise individuals; therein lies a problem in determining where to look for particularly wise individuals; therein lies the difficulty of examining a hypothesis stipulating that, on average, older people will display more wisdom than younger people. It should be true within the context of any domain of expertise that older persons, with more opportunity and time to develop, will display more of the expertise in that domain than younger people. But a person developing expertise in one domain need not be, and generally is not, developing expertise in another domain. Thus, while the quintessence of human intelligence may be expertise, which blossoms in adulthood, and wisdom may well be the quintessential form of expertise that is found in older persons, still we can not confidently specify how to measure wisdom or to identify just which older persons possess highest levels of wisdom.

summary ✦

Research has established that what is referred to as human intelligence is characterized in part by fluid reasoning abilities, Gf, and process components of Gf such as Short-term Working Memory (STWM), Cognitive Speed (Gs), and Concentration-Attention capacity (CON), each identified outside a circumscribed domain of expertise. These abilities and components decline, on average, with age in adulthood. These capabilities are measured, by design, with materials that afford no advantage to persons with advanced, deep understanding in any particular domain of knowledge.

✦

Crystallized knowledge (Gc) and tertiary storage retrieval (TSR) abilities established in structural research are age-maintained and in this

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sense indicate intelligence of adulthood, but at least as measured they represent a shallow, dilettante feature of this intelligence. Both Gc and TSR indicate intelligence that characterizes adult behavior, but neither well-represents the feats of reasoning and memory that also characterize expressions of adult intelligence. ✦

Thus, the kind of reasoning that characterizes fluid intelligence, which is not maintained in adulthood, may not be the kind of reasoning on which adults primarily rely and which characterizes the highest levels of intelligence of which the human is capable. At least in research the measures developed to indicate Gf were designed to make sure that no benefit would accrue to one who was expert in any aspect of acquiring the expertise of a culture. Yet reasoning at the highest levels of which the human seems capable involves use of the most complex bodies of knowledge of which the human seems capable of acquiring. Gc does not adequately represent such a body of knowledge because it is only a dilettante sample of many bodies of knowledge and Gc does not indicate reasoning at the most advanced levels in any body of knowledge.

✦

The superior performance of experts, as identified in research on expertise, is exemplified by a form of deductive reasoning (DR) that utilizes a complex store of information to effectively anticipate, predict, evaluate, check, analyze, and monitor in problem-solving within a knowledge domain. Expertise is also characterized by a form of long-term working memory (LTWM) that provides the expert (in the immediate situation) with much information and a complex representation of problems within the circumscribed domain of knowledge. DR and LTWM appear to characterize the most advanced, the most complex expressions of intellectual capabilities.

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The development of the expertise that is exemplified in complex problem-solving extends over a period of years of intensive, wellstructured practice, and regular practice is needed to maintain a high level of expertise. To the extent that such developmental practice occurs through the years of adulthood, level of expertise is expected

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to increase with age in this period; to the extent that maintenance practice occurs, level of expertise should increase with age. ✦

Wisdom is, at least partly, an aspect of the kind of intelligence on which adults principally rely—the intelligence that is maintained and/or increased throughout a major portion of adulthood.This part of wisdom is a form of reasoning that relies on a large body of knowledge that is built up through a disciplined regimen of learning over an extended period of time; it is a kind of expertise.

✦

At the present juncture in psychological research we can offer no reliable methods for identifying and measuring this knowledge-reasoning feature of wisdom. Others in this volume provide descriptions of wisdom that can provide a basis for operational definitions that may, through research, lead to measures of this feature of wisdom.

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de Groot, A.D. (1946). Het denken vun den schaker [Thought and choice in chess]. Amsterdam: North-Holland. de Groot, A.D. (1978). Thought and choice in chess. The Hague: Mouton. Ericsson, K.A. (1996). The acquisition of expert performance. In K.A. Ericsson (Ed.), The road to excellence (pp. 1–50). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Ericsson, K.A. (1997). Deliberate practice and the acquisition of expert performance: An overview. In H. Jorgensen and A.C. Lehmann (Eds.), Does practice make perfect?: Current theory and research on instrumental music practice (pp. 9–51). NMH-publikasjoner. Ericsson, K.A. and Charness, N. (1994). Expert performance. American Psychologist, 49, 725–747. Ericsson, K.A. and Delaney, P.F. (1998). Working memory and expert performance. In R.H. Logie and K.J. Gilhooly (Eds.), Working memory and thinking: Current issues in thinking and reasoning (pp. 93–114). Hove, England: Psychology Press/Erlbaum (UK) Taylor & Francis. Ericsson, K.A. and Kintsch, W. (1995). Long-term working memory. Psychological Review, 105, 211–245. Ericsson, K.A., Krampe, R.T., and Tesch-Romer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100(3), 363–406. Ericsson, K.A., and Lehmann, A.C. (1996). Expert and exceptional performance: Evidence of maximal adaptation to task constraints. Annual Review of Psychology, 47, 273–305. Ericsson, K.A., and Simon, H.A. (1993). Protocol analysis: Verbal reports as data, rev. ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Ericsson, K.A., and Staszewski, J. (1989). Skilled memory and expertise: Mechanisms of exceptional performance. In D. Klahr and K. Kotovsky (Eds.), Complex information processing (p. 235–268). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

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Estes, W.K. (1974). Learning theory and intelligence. American Psychologist, 29, 740–749. Eysenck, H.J. (1987). Speed of information processing, reaction time, and the theory of intelligence. In P.A.Vernon (Ed.), Speed of information processing and intelligence. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Gathercole, S.E. (1994). The nature and uses of working memory. In P. Morris and M. Gruneberg (Eds.), Theoretical aspects of memory (pp. 50–78). London: Routledge. Gobet, F., and Simon, H.A. (1996). Templates in chess memory: A mechanism for recalling several boards. Cognitive Psychology, 31, 1–40. Harwood, E., and Naylor, G.F.K. (1971). Changes in the constitution of the WAIS intelligence pattern with advancing age. Australian Journal of Psychology, 23, 297–303. Hasher, L., and Zacks, R.T. (1988). Working memory, comprehension, and aging: A review and a new view. In G.H. Bower (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation, vol. 22 (pp. 193–225). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Hershey, D.A., Walsh, D.A., Read, S.J., and Chulef, A.S. (1990). The effects of expertise on financial problem solving: Evidence for goal-directed problem solving scripts. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Performance, 46, 77–101. Hertzog, C. (1989). Influences of cognitive slowing on age differences. Developmental Psychology, 25, 636–651. Holding, D.H. (1985). The psychology of chess skill. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Horn, J.L. (1968). Organization of abilities and the development of intelligence. Psychological Review, 75, 242–259. Horn, J.L. (1972). The structure of intellect: Primary abilities. In R.M. Dreger (Ed.), Multivariate personality research (pp. 451–511). Baton Rouge: Clator Publishing.

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Horn, J.L. (1975). Psychometric studies of aging and intelligence. In S. Gershon and A. Raskin (Eds.), Aging, Vol. 2, Genesis and treatment of psychologic disorders in the elderly (pp. 19–43). New York: Raven. Horn, J.L. (1976). Human abilities: A review of research and theory in the early 1970s. Annual Review of Psychology, 27, 437–485. Horn, J.L. (1982). The aging of human abilities. In B.B. Wolman (Ed.), Handbook of developmental psychology (pp. 847–870). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Horn, J.L. (1986). Intellectual ability concepts. In R.J. Sternberg (Ed.), Advances in the psychology of human intelligence, vol. 3 (pp. 35–77). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Horn, J.L. (1987). A context for understanding information processing studies of human abilities. In P.A. Vernon (Ed.), Speed of information processing and intelligence (pp. 201–238). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Horn, J.L. (1989). Cognitive diversity: A framework for learning. In P.L. Ackerman, R.J. Sternberg, and R. Glaser (Eds.), Learning and individual differences: Advances in theory and research (pp. 61–114). New York: Freeman. Horn, J.L. (1991). Measurement of intellectual capabilities: A review of theory. In K.S. McGrew, J.K.Werder, and R.W.Woodcock (Eds.), Woodcock-Johnson technical manual (pp. 197–246). Allen, TX: DLM. Horn, J.L. (1994).The theory of fluid and crystallized intelligence. In R.J. Sternberg (Ed.), The encyclopedia of intelligence (pp. 443-451). New York: Macmillan. Horn, J.L. (1997). A basis for research on age differences in cognitive capabilities. In J.J. McArdle, and R.Woodcock (Eds.), Human cognitive abilities in theory and practice. Chicago, IL: Riverside. Horn, J.L. and Cattell, R.B. (1967). Age differences in fluid and crystallized intelligence. Acta Psychologica, 26, 107–129. Horn, J.L. and Donaldson, G. (1980). Cognitive development in adulthood. In O.G. Brim and J. Kagan (Eds.), Constancy and change in human development (pp. 445–529). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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McDowd, J.M., and Craik, F.I.M. (1988). Effects of aging and task difficulty on divided attention performance. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 14(20), 267–280. McGrew, K.S.,Werder, J.K., and Woodcock, R.W. (1991). Woodcock-Johnson technical manual. Allen, TX: DLM. Morrow, D., Leirer, V., Altieri, P., and Fitzsimmons, C. (1994). When expertise reduces age differences in performance. Psychology and Aging, 9, 134–148. Noll, J., and Horn, J.L. (1998). Age differences in processes of fluid and crystallized intelligence. Chapter 4 in J.J. McArdle and R. Woodcock (Eds.), Human cognitive abilities in theory and practice (pp. 263-281). Chicago, IL: Riverside Press. Plude, D.J., and Hoyer,W.J. (1985). Attention and performance: Identifying and localizing age deficits. In N. Charness (Ed.), Aging and human performance (pp. 47–99). New York: John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. Rabbitt, P. (1965). An age-decrement in the ability to ignore irrelevant information. Journal of Gerontology, 20, 233–238. Rabbitt, P., and Abson, V. (1991). Do older people know how good they are? British Journal of Psychology, 82, 137–151. Richman, H.B., Gobet, F., Staszewski, J.J., and Simon, H.A. (1996). Perceptual and memory processes in the acquisition of expert performance: The WPAM model. In K.A. Ericsson (Ed), The road to excellence (pp. 167–187). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Saariluoma, P. (1991). Aspects of skilled imagery in blindfold chess. Acta Psychologica, 77, 65–89. Salthouse, T.A. (1985). Speed of behavior and its implications for cognition. In J.E. Birren and K.W. Schaie (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of aging, 2nd ed. New York:Van Nostrand Reinhold. Salthouse, T.A. (1987). The role of representations in age differences in analogical reasoning. Psychology and Aging, 2, 357–362. Salthouse, T.A. (1991a). Theoretical perspectives on cognitive aging. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

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c hap t e r 11

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The Science of Art: How the Brain Responds to Beauty V. S. Ramachandran

he psychoanalyst Ethel Person has said, “Half beast, half angel, Man has been described . . . as a paradoxical creature. We are each condemned not only to death and extinction, but—and this is what renders our condition tragic—to knowledge of our mortality. It is the dichotomy between the dross of our bodies and the immortal stuff of our souls that makes us crave transcendence.”The ultimate goal of art—whether Eastern or Western—is to help us achieve such transcendence. If a Martian ethologist were to land on earth and watch us humans, he would be puzzled by many aspects of human nature, but surely art— our propensity to create and enjoy paintings and sculpture—would be among the most puzzling. What biological function could this mysterious behavior possibly serve? Cultural factors undoubtedly influence what kind of art a person enjoys—be it a Rembrandt, a Monet, a Rodin, a Picasso, a Chola bronze, a Moghul miniature, or a Ming Dynasty vase. But even if beauty is largely in the eye of the beholder, might there be some sort of universal rule or “deep structure” underlying all artistic experience? The details may vary from culture to culture and may be influenced by the way one is raised, but it does not follow that there is no genetically specified mechanism—a common denominator underlying all types of art. Recently a colleague and I proposed such a mechanism (Ramachandran and Blakeslee, 1998), and I now present a more detailed version of this hypothesis and suggest

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some new experiments. These may be the very first experiments ever designed to empirically investigate the question of how the brain responds to art. Many consider art to be a celebration of human individuality and to that extent it may seem like a travesty to search for universals. The approach to art, in this chapter, will be to begin by simply making a list of those attributes of pictures that people generally find attractive. We can then ask, “Is there a common pattern underlying these apparently dissimilar attributes, and if so, why is this pattern pleasing to us? What is the survival value, if any, of art?” First let us clear up some common misconceptions about visual art. When the English colonizers first arrived in India they were offended by the erotic nudes in temples.The hips and breasts were grossly hypertrophied; the waists abnormally thin (Fig. 11.1). Similarly the Rajasthani and Moghul miniature paintings were considered primitive because they lacked perspective. In making this judgment they were, of course, unconsciously comparing Indian art with the ideals of Western representational art—Renaissance art in particular. What is odd about this criticism though, is that it misses the whole point of art. The purpose of art, surely, is not merely to depict or represent reality—for that can be accomplished very easily with a camera—but to enhance, transcend, or indeed even to distort reality. The word rasa appears repeatedly in Indian art manuals and has no literal translation, but roughly it means “the very essence of.” So a sculptor at Kajuraho, for example, might try to portray the rasa of conjugal bliss, or the rasa of romantic love, or sexual ecstasy, or feminine grace and perfection. The artist is striving, in these images, to strongly evoke a direct emotional response of a specific kind. In Western art, the “discovery” of nonrepresentational symbolic art had to await the arrival of Picasso. His nudes were also grotesquely distorted—both eyes on one side of the face, for example.Yet when Picasso did it, the Western art critics heralded his attempts to “transcend realism” as a profound new discovery—even though both Indian and African art had anticipated this style by several centuries! I suggest that artists either consciously or unconsciously deploy certain rules or principles (we call them laws) to titillate the visual areas of the brain. Some of these laws, I believe, are original to this article—at

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Fig. 11.1. A copper alloy statue of the Goddess Parvathi from the Chola period circa the eleventh century a.d. (Ramachandran collection). What is unique about this sculpture is that it is not only sensuous and alluring but is also the very epitome of feminine grace, poise, and dignity—combining the seemingly antithetical elements of sexuality and spirituality in a single exquisite masterpiece.

least in the context of art. Others (such as grouping) have been known for a long time and can be found in any art manual, but the question of why a given principle should be effective is rarely raised.The principle is usually just presented as a rule-of-thumb.This chapter tries to present all (or many) of these laws together and provide a coherent biological framework, for only when they are all considered simultaneously and viewed in a biological context do they begin to make sense.There are in fact three cornerstones to this argument: First, what might loosely be called the “internal logic” of the phenomenon— what are called “laws” in this essay. Second, the evolutionary rationale— the question of why the laws evolved and have their particular forms (e.g., grouping facilitates object perception). And third, the neurophysiology.(e.g., grouping occurs in extrastriate areas and is facilitated by synchronization of spikes and direct limbic activation). All three of these need to be in place—and must inform each other—before we can claim to have “understood” any complex manifestation, such as art. Many earlier discussions of art suffer from the shortcoming that they view the problem from just one or two of these perspectives. Many aspects of art will not be discussed in this chapter—especially

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matters concerning style. Indeed it may well be that much of art really has to do with aggressive marketing and hype, which inevitably introduces an element of arbitrariness that complicates the picture enormously. Furthermore, the artistic “universals” that we shall consider are not going to provide an instant formula for distinguishing “tacky” or “tourist” art that hangs in the lobbies of business executives, from the genuine thing, even though a really gifted artist could do so instantly. Until we can do that we can hardly claim to have “understood” art.Yet despite these reservations, there is at least a component to art—however small—that is lawful and can be analyzed in accordance with the principles or laws outlined here.

the essence of art and the peak shift principle Indian artists often speak of conveying the rasa or “essence” of something in order to evoke a specific mood in the observer. But what exactly does this mean? What does it mean to “capture the very essence” of something in order to “evoke a direct emotional response?” The answer to these questions provides the key to understanding what art really is. Indeed, as we shall see, what the artist tries to do (either consciously or unconsciously) is to not only capture the essence of something, but also to amplify it in order to more powerfully activate the same neural mechanisms that would be activated by the original object. As the physiologist S. Zeki has eloquently noted, it may not be a coincidence that the ability of the artist to abstract the “essential features” of an image and discard redundant information is essentially identical to what the visual areas themselves have evolved to do. Consider the peak shift effect—a well-known principle in animal discrimination learning. If a rat is taught to discriminate a square from a rectangle, (of say, 3-to-2 aspect ratio) and is rewarded for the rectangle, it will soon learn to respond more frequently to the rectangle. Paradoxically, however, the rat’s response to a rectangle that is even longer and skinnier (say, of aspect ratio 4-to-1) is even greater than it was to the original prototype on which it was trained. This curious result implies

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that what the rat is learning is not a prototype but a rule, that is, rectangularity. This principle holds the key to understanding the evocativeness of much of visual art. It is not the only principle, but it is likely to be one of a small subset of such principles underlying artistic experience. How does this principle—the peak shift effect—relate to human pattern recognition and aesthetic preference? Consider the way in which a skilled cartoonist produces a caricature of a famous face, say Richard Nixon’s.What he does (unconsciously) is to take the average of all faces, subtract the average from Nixon’s face to get the difference between Nixon’s face and all others, and then he amplifies the differences to produce a caricature. The final result, of course, is a drawing that is even more Nixon-like than the original. The artist has amplified the differences that characterize Nixon’s face in the same way that an even skinnier rectangle is an amplified version of the original prototype that the rat was exposed to. This leads us to our first aphorism: “All art is caricature.” (This is not literally true, of course, but as we shall see, it is true surprisingly often.) And the same principle that applies to recognizing faces applies to all aspects of form recognition. It might seem a bit strange to regard caricatures as art, but if you take a second look at the Chola bronze—the accentuated hips and bust of the Goddess Parvathi (Fig. 11.1)—and you will see at once that what you have here is essentially a caricature of the female form.There may be neurons in the brain that represent sensuous, rotund feminine form, as opposed to angular masculine form, and the artist has chosen to amplify the “very essence” (the rasa) of being feminine by moving the image even further along toward the feminine end of the female/male spectrum.The result of this amplification is a “super stimulus” in the domain of postural male/female differences. It is interesting, in this regard, that the earliest known forms of art are often caricatures of one sort or another; for example, prehistoric cave art depicting animals like bison and mammoths, or the famous Venus “fertility” figures. Until now we have considered caricatures in the form domain, but we know from the pioneering work of many physiologists (Zeki, 1980; see also Livingstone and Hubel, 1979; Allman and Kaas, 1971;Van Essen and Maunsell, 1980) that the primate brain has specialized modules con-

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cerned with other visual modalities such as color depth and motion. Perhaps the artist can generate caricatures by exploiting the peak shift effect along dimensions other than form space, for example, in “color space” or “motion space.” For instance, consider the striking examples of the plump, cherub-faced nudes that Boucher is so famous for. Apart from emphasizing feminine, neotonous baby-like features (a peak shift in the masculine/feminine facial features domain) notice how the skin tones are exaggerated to produce an unrealistic and absurd “healthy” pink flush. In doing this, one could argue he is producing a caricature in color space, particularly the colors pertaining to male/female differences in skin tone. In contrast, another artist, Robert, pays little attention to color or even to form, but tends to deliberately overemphasize the textural attributes of his objects, be they bricks, leaves, soil, or cloth. And other artists have deliberately exaggerated (“caricatured”) shading, highlights, illumination, and so on, to an extent that would never occur in real life. Even music may involve generating “peak shifts” in certain primitive but passionate primate vocalizations; the emotional response to such vocalizations may be “hard wired” in the brain. A potential objection to this scheme is that it is not always obvious in a given picture what the artist is trying to caricature, but this is not an insurmountable objection. Ethologists have long known that a seagull chick will beg for food by pecking at its mother’s beak. Remarkably, it will peck just as vigorously at a disembodied beak with no mother attached, or even a yellow stick with a red dot at the end (the gull’s beak has a vivid trigger feature) since, as far as the chick’s visual system is concerned this stimulus is as good as the entire mother bird. What is even more remarkable, though, is Tinbergen’s discovery (Tinbergen, 1954) that a very long, thin brown stick, with three red stripes at the end is even more effective in eliciting pecks than the original beak, even though it looks nothing like a beak to a human observer.The gull’s form recognition areas are obviously wired-up in such a way that Tinbergen had inadvertently produced a super stimulus, or a caricature, in “beak space.” (Perhaps the “rule” the neurons are responding to is, “The more red contour the better.”) Indeed, if there were an art gallery in the world of the seagull, this “super beak” would qualify as a great work of art—a Picasso. Likewise, it is possible that some types of modern and

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contemporary art such as cubism are activating brain mechanisms in such a way as to tap into or even caricature certain innate “form primitives” that we do not yet fully understand. At present we have no idea what the “form primitives” used by the human visual pathways are, but we suggest that many artists may be unconsciously producing heightened activity in the “form areas” in a manner that is not obvious to the conscious mind, just as it is not obvious why a long stick with three red stripes is a “super beak.” Our scheme, outlined above, can also help explain cubism and abstract art, for which no satisfactory explanation has ever been provided in the past. Many cells in area IT (inferotemporal cortex) of the temporal lobes respond mainly to faces; they are called “face cells.” Most of these face cells respond to one specific view of the face—for example, profile, semi-profile, or front view—but not to any other view. But a small number of these face cells in IT and many cells in the next area higher up in the brain will respond to any view of a given face (e.g., see Zeki, 2000).These “higher order” face cells are probably formed by the convergence of inputs from several “single view” cells funneling their signals on to the one high level cell. Since a Picasso face has two or more “views” in the same picture I suggest that it excites two or more “single view” cells simultaneously and therefore will activate the high level cells to which they project even more strongly than a natural face! So the Picasso face is, in a sense, the equivalent for human higher order face cells of what the “long stick with three stripes” is for the gull’s brain. This idea can be tested directly by showing the Picasso face to these higher order cells and comparing the elicited responses to those elicited by a real face. Paradoxically, one might actually find a greater response to a Picasso face.

reward value of perceptual grouping and binding One of the main functions of “early vision” (mediated by the thirty or so extrastriate visual areas in the primate brain) is to discover and delineate objects in the visual field. For doing this the visual areas rely, once

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again, on extracting correlations. For instance, if a set of randomly placed spots A is superimposed on another set of randomly placed dots B, they are seen to mingle to form just a single enormous cluster. But if you now move one of the clusters (say, A) then all the A dots are instantly glued or bound together perceptually to create an object that is clearly separate from the background cluster B. Similarly if cluster A is made of red dots and B is made of green dots, we have no difficulty in segregating them instantly. This brings us to the second “law.” The very process of discovering correlations and of “binding” correlated features to create unitary objects or events must be reinforcing for the organism—in order to provide incentive for discovering such correlations (Ramachandran and Blakeslee, 1998). Consider the famous image of the dalmatian dog (Fig. 11.2). This is seen initially as a random jumble of splotches. The number of potential groupings of these splotches is infinite. However, once you see the dog your visual system links only a subset of these splotches together, and it is impossible not to “hold on” to this group of linked splotches. Indeed the discovery of the dog and the linking of the dogrelevant splotches generates a pleasant “aha” sensation. In “color space” the equivalent of this would be wearing a blue scarf with red flowers if you are wearing a red skirt; the perceptual grouping of the red flowers and the red skirt is aesthetically pleasing—as any fashion designer will tell you. These examples suggest that there may be direct links in the brain between the processes that discover such correlations and the limbic areas that give rise to the pleasurable “rewarding” sensations associated with “feature binding.” So, when you choose a blue matte to frame a painting in order to “pick up” flecks of blue in the painting, you are indirectly tapping into these mechanisms. How is such grouping achieved? As noted above, the primate brain has over two dozen visual areas each of which is concerned with a different visual attribute such as motion, color, depth, and form. These areas are probably concerned with extracting correlations in “higher dimensional” spaces—such as “color space” or “motion space.” In a regular topographic map features that are close together in physical space are also close together in the brain (which is all that is meant by a

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Fig. 11.2. Initially seen as a jumble of splotches, once the dalmatian is seen, its spots are grouped together, a pleasing effect, caused perhaps by causal activity between the temporal lobe and the limbic system.

“map”). But now think of nontopographic maps—say a map of “color space”—in which points that are close together in wavelength are mapped close together within the color area of the brain even though they may be distant from each other physically (Barlow, 1986). Such proximity along different feature dimensions may be useful for perceptual grouping and “binding” of features that are similar within that dimension. This argument sounds plausible, but why should the outputs of separate vision modules—space, color, depth, motion, and so on—be sent

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directly to the limbic system before further processing has occurred? Why not delay the reinforcement produced by limbic activation until the object has actually been identified by neurons in inferotemporal cortex? After all, the various Gestalt grouping processes are thought to occur autonomously as a result of computations within each module itself (Marr, 1981) without benefit of either cross-module or “top down” influences. So, why bother hooking up the separate modules themselves to limbic regions? One resolution of this paradox might simply be that the serial, hierarchical, “bucket brigade” model of vision is seriously flawed, and that eliminating ambiguity, segmenting the scene, and discovering and identifying objects do indeed rely on top down processes—at least in some situations (Churchland, Ramachandran, and Sejnowski, 1994; Ramachandran et al., 1998).The visual system is often called upon to segment the scene, delineate figure from ground, and recognize objects in very noisy environments (i.e., to defeat camouflage) and this might be easier to accomplish if a limbic “reward” signal is not only fed back to early vision once an object has been completely identified, but is evoked at each and every stage in processing as soon as a partial “consistency” and binding is achieved. This would explain why we say “aha” when the dalmatian is finally seen in Fig. 11.2, and why it is difficult to revert back to seeing merely splotches once the dog is seen as a whole. The particular percept is powerfully reinforced (Ramachandran and Blakeslee, 1998). In other words, even though the grouping may be initially based on autonomous process in each module (Marr, 1981), once a cluster of features becomes perceptually salient as a “chunk” with boundaries (i.e., an object), it may send a signal to the limbic centers, which in turn causes you to “hold on” to that chunk to facilitate further computation. There is physiological evidence that grouping of features leads to synchronization of the spikes (action potentials) of neurons that extract those features (Singer and Gray, 1995; Crick and Koch, 1998). Perhaps it is this synchrony that allows the signal to be sent to the limbic pathways.This, by the way, may be one reason why musical consonance often involves harmonics (example, a C-major chord) which, for physical reasons would tend to emerge from a single object; whereas dissonant notes are likely to emerge from two or more separate objects.

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The key idea, then, is the following (and it applies to many of our laws, not just grouping): Given the limited attentional resources in the brain and limited neural space for competing representations, at every stage in processing a “Look, here is a clue to something potentially object-like” signal is generated that produces limbic activation and draws your attention to that region (or feature), thereby facilitating the processing of those regions or features at earlier stages. Furthermore, partial “solutions” or conjectures to perceptual problems are fed back from every level in the hierarchy to every earlier module to impose a small bias in processing (Ramachandran et al., 1998). The final percept emerges from such progressive “bootstrapping.” As noted above, consistencies between partial high-level “hypotheses” and earlier low-level neural ensembles generates a pleasant sensation. For example, the dalmatian dog “hypothesis” encourages the binding of corresponding splotches which, in turn, further consolidate the “dog-like” nature of the final percept, and we feel good when it all finally clicks in place. What the artist tries to do is to tease the system with as many of these “potential object” clues as possible.This would help explain why grouping and “perceptual problem solving” (see below) are both frequently exploited by artists and fashion designers. The notion that art exploits grouping principles is of course not new (Gombrich, 1973; Arnheim, 1956; Penrose, 1973), but what is novel here is our claim that the grouping doesn’t always occur “spontaneously”; that out of a temporary binding a signal is sent to the limbic system to reinforce the binding, and this is one source of the aesthetic experience. For example, in Fig. 11.3, there are two possible stable organizations, one with hourglasses, and one with closure and most people find the latter organization more pleasing than the former because the limbic activation is stronger with this closure-based, object-like percept. When artists speak of composition, or grouping, they are probably unconsciously tapping into these very same principles. One obvious prediction that emerges from this theory is that patients with KluverBucy syndrome—caused by bilateral amygdala destruction—should not only display problems in recognizing objects (visual agnosia) but also in segmenting them out from noisy backgrounds, an idea that would be relatively easy to test experimentally.

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)( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( Fig. 11.3. Gestalt grouping principles. The tokens can be grouped either on the basis of “proximity” (which produces hourglasses), or “closure.” The latter organization is more stable and pleasing to the eye.

isolating a single module and allocating attention The third important principle (in addition to peak shift and binding) is the need to isolate a single visual modality before amplifying the signal in that modality. For instance, this is why an outline drawing or sketch is more effective as “art” than a full color photograph. This seems initially counterintuitive since one would expect that the richer the cues available in the object the stronger the recognition signal and associated limbic activation. This apparent objection can be overcome, however, once one realizes that there are obvious constraints on the allocation of attentional resources to different visual modules. Isolating a single area (such as “form” or “depth” in the case of caricature or Indian art) allows one to direct attention more effectively to this one source of information, thereby allowing one to notice the “enhancements” introduced by the artist. And that, in turn, would amplify the limbic activation and reinforcement produced by those enhancements. The idea that outlines are effective in art is hardly new. It has been repeated by many researchers, ever since David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel originally pointed out that this principle may reflect the fact that cells in the visual pathways are adequately stimulated by edges and are indifferent to homogeneous regions. However, this idea would only explain why one can get away with using outlines—not why outlines are

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actually more effective than a full color half tone photo which, after all, has more information. I would argue that when color, skin texture, and the like are not critical for defining the identity of the object in question (e.g., Nixon’s face) then the extra, redundant information can actually distract limited attentional resources away from the defining attributes of that object, which are conveyed by the outline. Hence the aphorism “more is less” in art. Additional evidence for this view comes from the “savant syndrome”—autistic children who are “retarded” and yet produce beautiful drawings.The animal drawings of the eight-year old artist Nadia, for instance, are almost as aesthetically pleasing as those of Leonardo da Vinci (see Fig. 11.4). Perhaps this is because the fundamental disorder in autism is a distortion of the “salience landscape”; autistics shut out many important sensory channels thereby allowing them to deploy all their attentional resources on a single channel (e.g., the “visual form representation” channel in the case of Nadia).This idea is also consistent with the ingenious theory of Snyder (Snyder and Thomas, 1997) that savants are able to “directly access” the outputs of some of their early vision modules because they are less “concept driven.”The conceptual impoverishment that produces autism also, paradoxically, gives autistics better access to earlier processes in vision. The “isolation” principle also explains the efflorescence of artistic talent that is occasionally seen in fronto-temporal dementia in adults: a clinical phenomenon my colleagues and I are currently studying in our laboratory. These ideas allow us to make certain novel predictions: If we put luminous dots on a person’s joints and film him or her walking in complete darkness, the complex motion trajectories of the dots are usually sufficient to evoke a compelling impression of a walking person—the so-called Johansson effect. Indeed, it is often possible to tell the sex of the person by watching the gait. However, although these movies are often comical, they are not necessarily pleasing aesthetically. I would argue that this is because even though the viewer has isolated a cue along a single dimension, that is, motion, this isn’t really a caricature in motion space. To produce a work of art, we would need to subtract the female motion trajectories from the male and amplify the difference. Whether this would result in a pleasing work of kinetic art remains to be seen.

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Fig. 11.4. (a) A drawing of a horse by Nadia, the autistic savant, when she was five years old. (Reprinted from Nadia, by Lorna Selfe, with permission from Academic Press, New York.) (b) A horse drawn by Leonardo da Vinci.

contrast extraction is reinforcing Grouping, as we have already noted, is an important principle, but the extraction of features prior to grouping—which involves discarding redundant information and extracting contrast—is also “reinforcing.” Cells in the retina, the lateral geniculate body (a relay station in the brain), and the visual cortex respond mainly to edges (step changes in

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luminance) but not to homogeneous surface colors; so a line drawing or cartoon stimulates these cells as effectively as a “half tone” photograph.What is frequently overlooked is that such contrast extractions— as with grouping—may be intrinsically pleasing to the eye (hence the efficacy of line drawings). However, if contrast is extracted autonomously by cells in the very earliest stages of processing, why should the process be rewarding in itself? Perhaps the answer once again has to do with the allocation of attention. Information (in the Shannon sense) exists mainly in regions of change (e.g., edges).Therefore, it makes sense that such regions would be more attention grabbing—more “interesting”—than homogeneous areas. So it may not be coincidental that what the cells find interesting is also what the organism as a whole finds interesting and perhaps in some circumstances “interesting” translates into “pleasing.” For the same reason, contrast along many other stimulus dimensions besides luminance, such as color or motion, has been exploited by artists (for instance, color contrast is exploited by Matisse), and indeed there are cells in the different visual areas specialized for color contrast, or motion contrast (Allman and Kaas, 1971). Furthermore, just as one can speak of a peak shift principle along very abstract dimensions, contrast can also emerge in dimensions other than luminance or color. For instance, a nude wearing baroque (antique) gold jewelry (and nothing else) is aesthetically much more pleasing than a completely nude woman or one wearing both jewelry and clothes, presumably because the homogeneity and smoothness of the naked skin contrasts sharply with the ornateness and rich texture of the jewelry. Whether the analogy between luminance contrast extracted by cells in the brain and the contrast between jewels and naked skin is just a play of words or a deep unifying principle is a question that cannot be answered given what we know about the brain. But we do know that the attention grabbing effect of contrast must be a very important principle in nature, since it is often used as a camouflage device by both predators and their prey. For instance, in Fig. 11.5a, the texture border is very visible, but in Fig. 11.5b it is almost invisible, camouflaged by the color borders that grab the lion’s share of your attention.

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Fig. 11.5. Camouflage. Notice that the boundary between the two types of texture (vertical versus horizontal lines) is clearly visible in a, but is masked by the luminance boundaries in b. (Based on M.J. Morgan; personal communication).

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At first the two principles we have just considered seem antithetical; grouping on the basis of similarity is rewarding, but if so how can contrast (the very opposite of grouping) also be rewarding? One clue comes from the fact that the two mechanisms have different spatial constraints. Grouping can occur between similar features (e.g., color or motion) even if they are far apart in space (e.g., the spots on the nose and tail of a leopard). Contrast, however, usually occurs between dissimilar features that are physically close together. Thus even though the two processes seem to be inconsistent, they actually complement one another in that they are both concerned with the discovery of objects—which is the main goal of vision. Contrast extraction is concerned with the object’s boundaries, whereas grouping allows recovery of the object’s surfaces and, indirectly, of its boundaries as well. It is easy to see, then, why the two should be mutually reinforcing and rewarding to the organism.

symmetry Symmetry, of course, is also aesthetically pleasing as is well known to any Islamic artist (or, indeed, to any child looking through a kaleidoscope). Symmetry is thought to be extracted very early in visual processing ( Julesz, 1971). Since most biologically important objects (such as predator, prey, or mate) are symmetrical, it may serve as an early-warning system to grab our attention to facilitate further processing of the symmetrical entity until it is fully recognized. As such, this principle compliments the other laws described in this chapter. It is geared toward discovering “interesting” object-like entities in our world. Intriguingly, it has recently been shown experimentally that when choosing a mate, animals and humans prefer symmetrical over asymmetrical ones. Evolutionary biologists have argued that this is because parasitic infestation—detrimental to fertility—often produces lopsided, asymmetrical growth and development. If so, it is hardly surprising that we have a built-in aesthetic preference for symmetry.

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the generic viewpoint and the bayesian logic of perception Another less well-known principle relates to what researchers in artificial intelligence refer to as “the generic viewpoint” principle, which is illustrated in Fig. 11.6a and b and Fig. 11.7a and b. In Fig. 6a most people see a square occluding the corner of another square, even though it could theoretically be Fig. 11.6b seen from a unique viewpoint. The reason is that there is an infinite set of viewpoints that could produce the class of retinal images resembling a, but only a single, unique viewpoint that could produce retinal image a, given the objects in b. Consequently, the visual system rejects the latter interpretation as being highly improbable and prefers to see a as occlusion.The same principle applies to Fig. 11.7a and b; b could depict an outline of a cube seen from one specific vantage point, but people usually see it as a flat hexagon with spokes radiating from the middle.These examples illustrate the universal Bayesian logic of all perception:The visual system abhors interpretations that rely on a unique vantage point and favors generic interpretations or, more generally, it abhors suspicious coincidences (Barlow, 1986). For this reason, Fig. 11.8a is pleasing, whereas 11.8b is unattractive (palm tree and hills). So if an artist is trying to please the eye, he should avoid coincidences, such as that in 11.8b.Yet one must be cau-

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Fig. 11.6. One space is seen as occluding the other. It is hard to see a as b viewed from a single vantage point. The brain “prefers” the generic view.

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Fig. 11.7. The flat hexagon with radiating spokes could be a cube, but is never seen as one. The “generic” interpretation is again the brain’s preferred interpretation.

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Fig. 11.8. The brain abhors suspicious coincidences. Fig. a is pleasing, but b is distasteful to the eye.

tious in saying this since every now and then—given the perverse nature of art and artists—a pleasing effect can be produced by violating this principle rather than adhering to it. The principles discussed so far certainly do not exhaust all types of artistic experience. We have hardly touched on the purely symbolic or allegorical aspects of some types of paintings or sculpture, or on surrealism and modern abstract art (e.g., minimalists such as Kandinsky), not to mention “counter” art such as the Dada movement. Also very puzzling is the question of why a nude hidden by a diaphanous veil is more alluring than one seen directly in the flesh, as pointed out by Ernst Gombrich (1973). It is as though an object discovered after a struggle is more pleasing than one that is instantly obvious. The reason for this is obscure, but perhaps a mechanism of this kind ensures that the struggle itself is reinforcing—so that we don’t give up too easily—whether look-

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ing for a leopard behind foliage or a mate hidden in the mist. On the other hand, it is likely that surrealist art really doesn’t have much to do with visual representations per se but involves playing with links between vision and semantics, thereby taking it closer to the metaphorical ambiguities of poetry and language than to the purely visual appeal of a Picasso, a Rodin, or a Chola bronze. In his famous painting Young Virgin Auto-sodomized by Her Own Chastity, for example, Dali has used the male penis to represent the female buttocks and genitalia.The medium and message “resonate” since they both pertain to sex but are also in subtle conflict since they depict “opposite” sexes! The result is an image pleasing on many levels simultaneously. This playful, whimsical, aspect of art often involving the humorous juxtaposition of complementary— or sometimes even incongruous elements—is perhaps the most enigmatic aspect of our aesthetic experience, and one that has hardly been touched on in this essay. Another aspect of art that we have not dealt with is style, although one can see how once a style or trend is set in motion the peak shift principle can certainly help amplify it.

art as metaphor The use of visual metaphors in art is well known. For instance, in Fig.11.9, the languorous, sensuous pose of the woman mimics the tree branch above—the curves match her curves and perhaps the tree’s fertility is a metaphor for her youthfulness. There are countless examples of this sort in both Eastern and Western art and yet the question is rarely raised as to why visual “puns” or allegories should be aesthetically pleasing. A metaphor is a mental tunnel between two concepts or percepts that appear grossly dissimilar on the surface. When Shakespeare says “Juliet is the sun,” he is appealing to the fact that they are both warm and nurturing (not the fact that they both reside in our solar system!). But, again, why should grasping an analogy of this kind be so rewarding to us? Perhaps the use of a simple concrete example, or one that is easily visualized such as the sun, allows us to ignore irrelevant, potentially distracting aspects of an idea or percept (e.g., Juliet has nails, teeth,

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and legs) and enables us to “highlight” the crucial aspects (radiance and warmth) that she shares with the sun but not with other women. Whether this is purely a device for effective communication or a basic cognitive mechanism for encoding the world more economically remains to be seen. My hunch is that the latter hypothesis is correct. There are many paintings that instantly evoke an emotional response long before the metaphor is made explicit by an art critic. This suggests that the metaphor is effective even before one is conscious of it, implying that it might be a basic principle for achieving economy of coding rather than a rhetorical device. This is also true of poetic metaphors, as when Shakespeare says of Juliet “Death, that has sucked the honey of thy breath.” The phrase is incredibly powerful well before one becomes consciously aware of the hidden analogy between the “sting of death” and the bee’s sting, and the subtle sexual connotations of “sucking” and “breath.” Seeing a deep similarity—a common denominator as it were—between disparate entities is the basis of all concept formation, whether the concepts are perceptual ( Juliet) or more abstract (love). Philosophers often make a distinction between categories, or “types,” and “tokens,” the exemplars of a type (e.g.,“ducks” versus “that duck”). Being able to transcend tokens to create types is an essential step in setting up a new perceptual category. Being able to see the hidden simFig. 11.9. The exaggerated, unnatural languorous pose of a celestial nymph, her various curves creating effects such as “grouping” and “closure.” A visual metaphor is set up between her youthful fertility and the fertility symbolized by the curved bough above her. The effect is mesmerizing.

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ilarities between successive distinct episodes allows one to link or bind these episodes to create a single superordinate category; for example, several viewer-centered representations of a chair are linked to form a viewer-independent abstract representation of “chairness.” Consequently, the discovery of similarities and the linking of superficially dissimilar events would lead to a limbic activation—in order to ensure that the process is rewarding. It is this basic mechanism that one taps into, whether with puns, poetry, or visual art. Partial support for this view comes from the observation that these mechanisms can go awry in certain neurological disorders. In Capgras syndrome, for instance, connections from the visual “face region” in the inferotemporal cortex to the amygdala (a part of the limbic system where activation leads to emotions) are severed so that a familiar face no longer evokes a warm fuzzy emotional response (Hirstein and Ramachandran, 1997). Remarkably, some Capgras patients are no longer able to link successive views of a person’s face to create a more general perceptual category of that particular face. My colleagues and I have suggested that in the absence of limbic activation—the “glow” of recognition—there is no incentive for the brain to link successive views of a face, so that the patient treats a single person as several people.When we showed our Capgras patient D. S. different photos of the same person, he claimed that the photos were of different people, who merely resembled each other! One might predict, therefore, that patients like D. S. would also experience difficulty in appreciating the metaphorical nuances of visual art, but such a prediction is not easy to test.

an experimental test I conclude by taking up the final test of any theory: does it lead to counterintuitive predictions that can be tested experimentally? One approach—albeit a laborious one—would be to do “psychophysics” on artistic experience; show people different types of pictures to see what they find pretty. The principles outlined above are difficult to test individually, but we believe that the very first one—the peak shift princi-

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ple—can be tested directly.To do so one could measure the galvanic skin response (also known as skin conductance response, SCR) of naive experimental subjects to photos and caricatures. When we look at any evocative picture, the image is extracted by the “early” visual areas and sent to the inferotemporal cortex—an area specialized for detecting faces and other objects. Once the object has been recognized, its emotional significance is gauged by the amygdala at the pole of the temporal lobe and if it is important the message is relayed to the autonomic nervous system (via the hypothalamus) so that we prepare to fight, flee, or mate. This in turn causes skin to sweat, producing changes in its electrical resistance—a skin conductance response. So every time we look at our mothers, or even a famous face such as Einstein’s or Gandhi’s, we will get an SCR, but not if we look at an unfamiliar face, or a chair or a shoe (unless we happen to have a shoe fetish!). So the size of the SCR is a direct measure of the amount of limbic (emotional) activation produced by an image. It is a better measure, as it turns out, than simply asking someone how much emotion he feels about what he is looking at because the verbal response is filtered, edited, and sometimes censored by the conscious mind so that the answer is a contaminated signal. Indeed there are patients with damage to the inferotemporal cortex who cannot consciously recognize their mothers, yet will still register larger SCRs to their mothers’ faces than to those of unfamiliar people (Bauer, 1984; Tranel and Damasio, 1985, 1988). Conversely, another type of patient has the opposite problem: he consciously recognizes her, but gets no emotional/limbic response to her and hence creates the delusion that she is some sort of impostor (Hirstein and Ramachandran, 1997). These examples suggest that measuring SCR allows us to directly access those unconscious mental processes. Similarly, the responses we get to art objects may be only partly available to conscious experience. We may deny we are attracted to a person for all sorts of sociocultural reasons, but our hidden attraction may manifest itself as a large SCR to his or her photo (or sometimes, it may spill over when we dream during REM sleep). The experiment, then, is quite simple: compare a subject’s SCR to a caricature or just an outline of, say, Einstein or Nixon to the subject’s

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SCR to a photo of Einstein or Nixon. Intuitively, one would expect the photo to produce a large SCR because it is rich in cues and therefore excites more modules. One might find, paradoxically, that the caricature actually elicits a larger SCR, and if so, this would provide evidence for our ideas on the peak shift effect—the artist has unconsciously produced a super stimulus. As a control, one would show photos that have been morphed to look strange to ensure that it was not merely the strangeness of the caricature that was producing the larger SCR. Similarly, one could also compare the magnitude of an SCR to caricatures of women (or indeed, to a Chola bronze nude or a Picasso nude) with the SCR to a photo of a nude woman. It is conceivable that the subject might claim to find the photo more attractive at a conscious level, while registering a large unconscious aesthetic response—in the form of a larger SCR—to the artistic representation. That art taps into the “subconscious” is not a new idea, but our SCR measurements may be the first attempt to test such a notion experimentally. Another experiment on art could take advantage of the fact that many cells in the inferotemporal cortex of monkeys respond selectively to monkey (and human!) faces—sometimes selectively just to a single face (Tovee, Rolls, and Ramachandran, 1996). Again, one could try confronting the cell with a caricature of the particular monkey (or human) face it was responding to.Would the cell respond even more vigorously to a “superstimulus” of this kind?

conclusion In summary, I have identified a small subset of principles underlying all the diverse manifestations of human artistic experience. There are undoubtedly many others, but these eight principles are a good place to start. I shall call them “the eight laws of artistic experience,” based on a loose analogy with the Buddha’s “eight-fold path” to wisdom and enlightenment. First, the peak shift principle operates not only along the form dimension, but also along more abstract dimensions, such as feminine/masculine posture, color (e.g., skin tones), and more. And, just as the gull chick responds especially well to a super beak that doesn’t

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resemble a real beak, there may be classes of stimuli that optimally excite neurons that encode form primitives in the brain, even though it may not be immediately obvious to us what these primitives are. Second, isolating a single cue helps the organism allocate attention to the output of a single module thereby allowing it to more effectively “enjoy” the peak shift along the dimensions represented in that module.Third, perceptual grouping to delineate figure and ground may be enjoyable in its own right, since it allows the organism to discover objects in noisy environments. Principles such as figure-ground delineation, closure, and grouping by similarity may lead to a direct aesthetic response because the modules may send their output to the limbic system even before the relevant objects have been completely identified. Fourth, just as grouping or binding is directly reinforcing (even before the complete object is recognized), the extraction of contrast is also reinforcing, since regions of contrast are usually information-rich regions that deserve allocation of attention. Camouflage, in nature, relies partly on this principle. Fifth, perceptual “problem solving” is also reinforcing. Hence, a puzzle picture (or one in which meaning is implied rather than explicit) may paradoxically be more alluring than one in which the message is obvious. There appears to be an element of “peekaboo” in all art—thereby ensuring that the visual system “struggles” for a solution and does not give up too easily. For the same reason, a model whose hips and breasts are about to be revealed is more provocative than one who is completely naked. Sixth, the “generic viewpoint principle” signifies an abhorrence of unique vantage points. Seventh, perhaps most enigmatic is the use of visual “puns” or metaphors in art. Such visual metaphors are probably effective because discovering hidden similarities between superficially dissimilar entities is an essential part of all visual pattern recognition and it would thus make sense that each time such a link is made, a signal is sent to the limbic system. Eighth, symmetry, whose relevance to detecting prey, predator, or healthy mate is obvious. Indeed, evolutionary biologists have recently argued that detecting violations of symmetry may help animals detect unhealthy animals that have parasites. One potential objection might be that originality is the essence of art and our laws do not capture this. But the flaw in this objection becomes apparent when we consider the analogy with language. After all the

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“deep structure” of language discovered by Chomsky has enormously enriched our understanding of language even if it does not explain Shakespeare, Omar Khayyám, or Henry James. Likewise, these eight laws may help provide a framework for understanding aspects of visual art, aesthetics, and design, even if they don’t necessarily explain the evocativeness or originality of individual works of art—a question that continues to remain as mysterious as ever. Indeed, as Alfred Russel Wallace had conjectured, it may well be that human creativity is a manifestation of the spark of divinity that exists in us all, but that is not for a scientist to judge. We recognize, also, that much of art is idiosyncratic and defies analysis, but we would argue that whatever component of art is lawful— however small—emerges either from exploiting these principles or from a playful and deliberate violation of them.We cannot help but conclude with a joke: A young man brings his fiancée home to introduce her to his father. His father is astonished to note that she has a clubfoot, a squint, a cleft palate, and a hunched back, and can hardly conceal his dismay. Noticing his father’s reaction, his son calmly tells him, “Well Dad, what can I say? You either like a Picasso or you don’t.”

acknowledgements I thank Diane Rogers-Ramachandran, Francis Crick, Odile Crick, Julie Fuller Kindy, Mumtaz Jahan, and Nikki St. Phalle for stimulating discussions on numerous topics straddling the boundary between art and science.

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Livingston, M.S. and Hubel, D.H. (1987). Psychophysiological evidence for separate channels for the perception of form, color, movement and depth. Journal of Neuroscience, 7, 3416–3468. Marr, D. (1981). Vision. San Francisco: Freeman and Sons. Penrose, R. (1973). In praise of illusion. In R.L. Gregory and E.H. Gombrich (Eds.), Illusion in nature and art. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Ramachandran,V.S. (1990).Visual perception in people and machines. In A. Blake and T. Troscianko (Eds.), AI and the eye. Chichester: Wiley. Ramachandran,V.S., Armell, C., Foster, C., and Stoddard, R. (1998). Object recognition can drive apparent motion perception. Nature, 395, 852–853. Ramachandran,V.S. and Blakeslee, S. (1998). Phantoms in the brain. New York: William Morrow and Co. Ramachandran,V.S. and Hirstein, W.S. (1997). Three laws of qualia: Clues from neurology about the biological functions of consciousness and qualia. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 4, 429–457. Singer, W. and Gray, C.M. (1995).Visual feature integration and the temporal correlation hypothesis. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 18, 555–586. Snyder, A. and Thomas, M. (1997). Autistic savants give clues to cognition. Perception, 26, 93–96. Tinbergen, N. (1954). Curious naturalists. New York: Basic Books. Tovee, M.J., Rolls, E., and Ramachandran V.S. (1996). Rapid visual learning in neurons in the primate visual cortex. Neuroreport, 7, 2757–2760. Tranel, D. and Damasio, A.R. (1985). Knowledge without awareness: An autonomic index of facial recognition by prosopagnosics. Science, 228, 1453–1454. Tranel, D. and Damasio, A.R. (1988). Non-conscious face recognition in patients with face agnosia. Behavioral Brain Research, 30, 235–249. Van Essen, D.C. and Maunsell, J.H. (1980). Two-dimensional maps of the cerebral cortex. J. Comp. Neurol., 191, 255–281.

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Zeki, S. (1980). The representation of colours in the cerebral cortex. Nature, 284, 412–418. Zeki, S. (2000). Inner Vision. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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chapter 12

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A Scientific Study of Wisdom (Or Its Contributing Parts) Warren S. Brown

debate over reductionism is currently raging within science (Williams, 1997). Reductionism is the process of attempting to provide a complete explanation for a more complex phenomenon entirely based upon the laws of operation of lower-level constituent functions. In terms of the hierarchy of levels of complexity and organization described by Murphy in her introduction to this book, reductionism would consider each level entirely explainable via the concepts of the next lower level. An example would be explaining the experience of the perception of a visual form on the basis of activity of particular classes of neurons within specific brain regions. As a scientific strategy reductionism has been enormously fruitful over the past several hundred years, but one is left with the strong suspicion that specifying the behavior of a network of neurons does not fully capture the phenomenon of recognizing one’s grandmother. Arguments against reductionism suggest that this point of view tends to reduce human beings to nothing but raw matter and the operation of the laws of physics (MacKay, 1991). In this view, wisdom (as well as love, compassion, intelligence, and more) is merely a certain configuration of matter and energy operating over time by the laws of physics. As humans, our experiences of our own lives and the behavior of others would suggest otherwise. Those who argue in favor of a nonreductionist point of view would contend that: (1) The fruitfulness of reductionism is limited since the

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human mind will not be able to grasp the ultimate physical/molecular explanation of any complex phenomenon (should such an explanation be possible), particularly those involving the human mind; and (2) New principles of explanation emerge at higher, more complex levels of organization that are not evident in the laws governing more molecular phenomena (Williams, 1997).

wisdom as an emergent property The second of the arguments against reductionism points to the possibility that new properties emerge as a system such as the brain becomes both more powerful and more complexly interactive. By this view, the difference between the abilities of the brain of a rat and a human are not just more-of-the-same. Rather, the more powerful and complex brains of humans have allowed entirely new processes to emerge that were not present at the lower level, and that cannot be exhaustively explained on the basis of the neurophysiological principles of rat brain processing. The greater power and complexity of interaction of human brain systems that are not greatly dissimilar from those found in rodents have allowed entirely new mental properties to emerge that have no correlate in the rat (or in lower primates). For example, Deacon has provided an elegant argument that symbolic reference (the basis of language) is an emergent property of human mental and social function (Deacon, 1997). Wisdom would be another. Nevertheless, even from an emergentist point of view, there is reason to study the processes that contribute to higher human functions such as wisdom. Here the question would not be “How can we completely account for wisdom on the basis of the operation of lower-level cognitive properties?” but rather “What lower-level properties must be in place for wisdom to emerge, with its own causal influence on thought and behavior?”Thus, one might consider whether wisdom is dependent on (or emergent from) language and symbolic reference. In this manner, the essays of this part all, to one degree or another, have suggested mental functions and properties that are necessary for the emergence of wisdom. In her introduction, Murphy argued that wisdom is a concept that is

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at home at several levels of a hierarchy of complexity and organization of human function and behavior. While this is certainly true, I would suggest that at the levels of neurobiology and basic human cognition, one can only deal with critical components of wisdom, rather than wisdom itself. Neurobiology and human cognition are at least one step down from a level that would have descriptive concepts rich enough to describe the difference between behaviors that are wise or unwise.Thus, this part on the science of wisdom dealt mostly with critical components that contribute to wisdom. It is the interaction of these critical cognitive processes within the context of daily behavior, particularly social behavior, that may result in actions deemed to be wise.

cognitive contributions to wisdom In his chapter, Schloss voices clearly the emergentist view of wisdom. Following work by Plotkin (Plotkin, 1993), Schloss argues that wisdom has emerged with the capacity for metacognition (i.e., the process of evaluating one’s own thinking). In this sense, wisdom is a new heuristic (i.e., a way of learning new adaptations). Schloss suggests that there are three levels of heuristics to be taken into account: genetic, cognitive, and cultural. Each level of heuristic is nested within the lower level, but has the emergent property of partial decoupling from the laws that determine operation at the lower level. Schloss views wisdom as a “control device” within culture that may transcend culture to the point of becoming a new level of heuristic.Thus, wisdom emerges from culture, which has itself emerged from social usage of the cognitive capacities unique to humans, which are themselves dependent on neurobiological development, and so forth. Wisdom is a human capacity dependent for its origin and development on processes of evolutionary natural selection, but emerging based upon laws of selection existing primarily at the level of culture. In the context of rapidly changing cultural innovation, wisdom operates, in this view, as a top-down method to “adjudicate their suitability for human flourishing.” For Van Lancker, a major contributor to wisdom’s emergence within human cognitive function is the ability to produce and understand the

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richer, nonliteral forms of language such as metaphors and proverbs. Van Lancker describes how different these language forms are from ordinary propositional language. Such language often cannot be understood by literal analysis of the language expression; it is typically very familiar and overlearned; and it involves a certain stylized form of expression.Van Lancker suggests that comprehension of these language forms may be particularly reliant on processing in the right hemisphere of the brain. The sources of wisdom part of this book suggests some of the important aspects of wisdom held by, and communicated in, these language forms. Horn and Masunaga analyze wisdom from the point of view of their elaborate, multifactorial model of human intelligence. A key question for Horn and Masunaga in understanding wisdom is what aspects of intelligence do not show age-related decline, since we presume wisdom to be something that, if not characteristic of older adults, is at least increasingly possible as one gets older. For this reason, Horn and Masunaga see wisdom as a form of social expertise (i.e., a domain of knowledge gained through a great deal of practice and experience) that is dependent upon ready access to long-term memory and on the capacity for deductive reasoning, based on the accumulation of information and experience. From the perspective of my earlier chapter, development of significantly enhanced cognitive capacities was also important to the emergence of wisdom. I focus specifically on the capacities for complex problem solving and concept formation, and the ability of conceptual knowledge to influence the evaluative emotional responses elicited when considering a course of action. The important contributions of these two mental properties to the eventual expression of wisdom are illustrated in my previous chapter by cases of developmental cognitive disability due to agenesis of the corpus callosum (i.e., congenital failure of the development of the major link between the right and left hemispheres of the brain), and by neurological cases of damage to portions of the frontal lobes of the brain. These two conditions are interesting primarily because both occur in individuals in whom there has been no impact of the disorder on general intelligence as measured by standard intelligence tests. Deficits in wisdom can occur in these conditions without perceptible impact on measured intelligence, so wisdom is not

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the same as IQ. Doubtless these are only two of a number of brain disorders that can have a rather specific impact on wisdom. Taking seriously the idea that wisdom emerges from the interactive operation of certain cognitive components, we might consider combining the perspectives of these essays into a more complete understanding of wisdom.Wisdom is the outcome of a combination of ready access to long-term memories of accumulated information and experience (Horn and Masunaga); an ability to reason adequately based on that experience (Horn and Masunaga); adequate ability to solve problems, particularly about social situations (Brown); normal interactions between cognitive processing and the emotional responses that strongly influence our decisions (Brown); and an ability to comprehend and utilize the cultural accumulation of wisdom represented in formulaic language forms like proverbs, idioms, and metaphors (Van Lancker). All these capacities come together to engender a new heuristic for learning and adapting to our environment (Schloss). However, when adding together various contributions to wisdom, we must keep in mind that as an emergent property wisdom is, by definition, more that the sum of its constituent parts.

scientific definitions of wisdom To study wisdom in a scientific manner, it is first important to propose an operational definition of wisdom. Such a definition allows the investigator to specify more precisely what is meant by wisdom, and to recognize the presence or absence of wisdom within the behavior of individuals as they are studied. However, wisdom is particularly difficult to define operationally since it is highly contextual.The same behavior may or may not be wise, depending on differences in the context in which the behavior occurs, and such differences in context are often quite subtle. Perhaps the only way to define wisdom adequately is by the outcome, but this results in a tautology—wisdom is whatever leads to an outcome that would be judged as wise. Each contributor to this part on the science of wisdom has provided (either explicitly or implicitly) a somewhat different definition of wis-

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dom.The definitions of wisdom offered have captured important attributes of wisdom, but not all of its meaning. Schloss captured an important meaning of wisdom in defining it as a heuristic. In this view, wisdom is a new means of learning ways of adapting that not only transcends biology, but transcends culture. In transcending (i.e., becoming partially decoupled from) biology and culture, wisdom can serve as a top-down control device, modulating cultural and cognitive changes that the biological heuristic cannot keep up with. Since Schloss is not attempting to present specific realms of scientific data, his definition is broader and richer by not being limited by the necessity of being behaviorally operational. Van Lancker’s contribution is quite the opposite. While she makes no particular attempt to propose a specific definition of wisdom itself, she nevertheless describes critical research on a very concrete and tangible aspect of wisdom, its embodiment in certain language forms.The language forms she describes (proverbs, idioms, and metaphors) are apparently processed in a manner that makes heavy demands on rich, culturally-derived networks of semantic meaning that have become linked to a formulaic language expression. Thus, for Van Lancker, the implicit definition of wisdom would emphasize the culturally derived corpus of common life experiences that has become attached to particular, frequently used language formulae. My contribution and that of Horn and Masunaga disagree in our choice of words in defining wisdom. I define wisdom as a capacity different from expertise, while Horn and Masunaga would consider wisdom to be a form of expertise. I consider expertise to be a more crystallized form of understanding and knowledge, and wisdom to be a more fluid mental process of problem solving, particularly within the social domain. Horn and Masunaga, in contrast, prefer the term expertise as a description of wisdom, primarily because they wish to emphasize the importance of accumulated social experience in developing wisdom. Even so, there is conceptual congruence in our two operational definitions of wisdom. Horn and Masunaga include in their perspective on wisdom the capacity for deductive reasoning on the basis of the accumulated knowledge. This presumably means reasoning in the

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face of new problems. Thus, rather than disagree, Horn and Masunaga simply add an important aspect of wisdom—accumulated life experience—that I ignore in my discussion of the diminished likelihood of finding wisdom in those individuals whose problem-solving abilities have been diminished by minimally connected cerebral hemispheres. The cases of frontal lobe dysfunction that I discussed (based primarily on the work of Damasio, 1994) suggested another important definition of wisdom, that is the ability to put into action those perspectives and judgments that one can verbally describe as most appropriate and wise. The most surprising aspect of those patients with frontal lobe damage who behave capriciously and unwisely is that the fundamental problem is not a cognitive processing deficit per se, but rather a failure to react emotionally to their own mental representations of possible actions. Emotional reactions appear to signal a preconscious form of memory of past experiences important for the regulation of future behavior.Without normal emotional reactivity to conscious thoughts and plans, there is apparently no coupling of thought about action to the learned unconscious evaluative reactions by which we regulate our behavior in a wise manner. Thus, a definition of wisdom must ultimately include something about the adequacy of the emotional responsiveness of individuals deemed to be wise.

wisdom and art V. S. Ramachandran, in his chapter “The Science of Art,” chose not to deal with a science of wisdom, per se, but with a science of art. In so doing, he provides us with an important parallel case, as well as some additional insight into the nature of wisdom. First, art can convey wisdom (although it may not always do so). Ramachandran points out that visual art helps us to see not the physical objects themselves, but the essences they embody. He suggests that art helps us to experience much more clearly the deep structures of seeing, those structures that are constitutive of our experience of seeing. Hinman, in the final reflection chapter of this volume, argues that wisdom

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involves seeing and discernment. Ramachandran goes so far as to liken his eight laws of aesthetic experience to the Buddha’s eight-fold path to wisdom. Important in the sort of discernment that contributes to wisdom is the ability to see things as others see them. Visual art, as well as other forms of artistic expression, constitute a sharing of the artist’s perspective in some form. Often, the most important perspective gained by viewing or hearing or otherwise appreciating a work of art is the emotional experience elicited by the object of the art for the artist or performer.We can look through the emotional eyes of another person and gain empathy for his or her view of the world. In this respect, art can convey, if not wisdom itself, certainly richer life perspectives that enhance the possibilities for wisdom. The science of art that Ramachandran describes provides an important parallel case for the scientific study of wisdom, another important higher human experience. Scientific study can reveal how the potentiality for art emerges from the combined contribution of a number of lower level visual and perceptual attributes, for example, peak shift, symmetry, and contrast. In this respect, his description of the ways that art can be studied provides a methodological example for the scientific study of wisdom.

scientific illusions I began these reflections by raising the issue of reductionism. We have seen in these chapters on the science of wisdom the value of a form of reductionism. That is, it only becomes possible to study wisdom by adopting an operational definition of wisdom. However, such definitions typically reduce wisdom to the next lower level of complexity, that is, to the level of language, or metacognition, or expertise, or memory, or problem-solving skills, or emotional responsiveness. While none of these operational definitions fully capture the meaning of wisdom, they do allow us to learn much about wisdom in the process.The task of the scientist, and the reader of science, is to avoid being captured by the illu-

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sion that the constrained and operationalized definitions that make scientific progress possible are the entire substance of the meaning of a human phenomenon as rich and important as wisdom.

references Damasio, Antonio R. (1994). Descartes’s error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Deacon,Terrance. (1997). The symbolic species: The co-evolution of language and the brain. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. MacKay, Donald M. (1991). Behind the eye. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Plotkin, Henry. (1993). Darwin machines and the nature of knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Williams, Nigel. (1997). Biologists cut reductionist approach down to size. Science, 227, 476–477.

Part III ✦

The Learning of Wisdom

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c hap te r 13

Wise Emotions

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ew philosophers tackle the notion of practical wisdom more directly than Aristotle. His famous dictum that “discernment rests in perception” is a candid acknowledgment of the importance of appreciating changing particulars in deliberation about choice. I am reminded here of an Army lieutenant colonel from West Point who recently greeted me with an iron-fist handshake and then sighed as he reflected on my ethics chair at the Naval Academy, “Dr. Sherman, I don’t envy you one bit.You have a tough job ahead.You have to teach Marine colonels to embrace, I mean, to love ambiguity.”There was service rivalry in his words. But there was also an honest appreciation that ethics is less about hard and fast rules than about judgment of the case. Aristotle intends his lectures to be a practical resource in learning the art of wisdom. “Will not the knowledge of ethics, then, have a great influence on life? Shall we not, like archers who have a mark to aim at, be more likely to hit upon what we should?” (Nicomachean Ethics [NE] 1094a22–4). And yet just how to use Aristotelian ethics as a tool for practical deliberation has escaped many. In practical ethics courses, the emphasis has been on the standard bearers of utilitarianism, with its emphasis on promoting good consequences, and Kantianism, with its emphasis on restrictions on the kinds of means one can undertake to bring about those ends. Utilitarianism’s reliance on a calculus and Kantianism’s reliance on broad principles concerning respect and universalizability give easy handles for application. How does one come by tools for wise choice by relying on Aristotelian ethics?

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I want to suggest that Aristotelian virtue theory can provide practical tools through its conceptions of practical wisdom and its account of the role of emotions in wise choice. Both themes—that virtue requires the discernment of a practically wise judge as well as the robust engagement of cultivated emotions—have practical implications for how we develop virtue. I begin with considerations regarding practical wisdom (or ) and then turn to the emotions. Aristotle tells us that virtuous action is the action that the person of practical wisdom (the phronimos) would choose (NE 1169b35–71a2). That person is one and the same as the person of good character, who in turn, is the person who has a full complement of virtues or excellent states of character (NE 1144b30–2).To be wise is to know how to exercise those virtues as circumstances require. In the case of courage, it is a matter of knowing what the demands of courage are in particular circumstances, when to be fearful, when to be confident, what counts as having the right mix of each, what ends are worth sacrificing one’s life for; in the case of generosity, it is a matter of knowing when and how and toward whom generosity is well actualized, how much to give without leaving oneself destitute, how often is not often enough, and so on. In general, wisdom is a matter of seeing the morally relevant occasions for action, and then knowing, sometimes only after explicit deliberation, what to do.2 But what specific elements of Aristotle’s conception of practical wisdom are useful as tools in the teaching of practical ethics? The first is the familiar idea of an exemplar or role model implicit in Aristotle’s appeal to the person of practical wisdom. Virtue, in the Aristotelian view, is embodied, concretized in the flesh. To make virtuous living a goal is to think about virtue actualized, actualized in a person or persons with whom one can identify and appreciate as sharing some of one’s life circumstances.The moral importance of friendship, in Aristotle’s view, and in particular, the importance of the friendship of good character, reinforces this point. Some have argued that the role model notion yields little substance for actual practical choices. Here I am thinking of Rosalind Hursthouse (1991; see also 1997), who asks in terms of the hard choice of whether or not to have an abortion: What guidance can an adolescent girl gain from thinking of what Socrates would do in such

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a case? But her example makes my point.To an adolescent girl, Socrates is no concrete role model. He is an abstraction, little more fleshy than virtue with a capital “V.” True, the danger in having to be able to identify with another is that one might be thrown back into the narrow world of one’s own blindness. “Mom, what would you know about these matters?” one can hear one’s child saying. The plea for relevance can be a plea for close-mindedness, a shabby defense to stick within the limits of one’s own horizon. If we assume useful role models can be established for others, then some of what is at issue is indeed packaging—how to become relevant and accessible. But this has been, and always will be, the task of a good teacher, be it in morals or mathematics. The notion of identifying with others should not be underestimated. The rudiments of our personality are shaped, in no small way, through identificatory mechanisms, by taking in the ways of responding, coping, and interacting that fill our small world (see Stern, 1985). While we are more discriminating with age, relationships still shape common pursuits and interests. Specific parts of us come alive and flourish with certain individuals but not others. We take on determinate shape through the history of our relationships. We have been alluding to the background, psychological role that privileged and constant persons in our lives serve in the molding of character. But additionally, the force of a role model is that we learn through the concrete, through the narratives, stories, and drama of someone who has been there, faced the music, and made choices. Take the case of naval education, which I have been involved in for the past few years. It seems to make a huge difference in the teaching of naval ethics that midshipmen have, within their team of teachers, experienced officers who have stories to tell from the fleet—real cases where virtue was tested, where moral criteria were brought to bear, and choices made, often in the face of competing moral demands. What comes to mind is a recent classroom presentation I witnessed. A Naval commander, a former pilot, told his students that after a mission flying over the Basrah Road in Iraq, he returned to the aircraft carrier to learn that two planes had been downed with losses in each. A funeral service for the deceased took place, but the next day the bombing missions began

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again, with each pilot knowing, now unmistakably as they catapulted from the carrier and tailhooked back on the flight deck in the dead of night, just how treacherous the missions were. “If you are downed over Iraq,” they were told, “you are on your own. We can’t get you.You are in enemy territory.” Here was the courage, as well as the fear of the warrior, laid out before our eyes, especially so because the story was told in role play, with this commander entering class in his “zoom bag” (his aviator jump suit), in the course of giving a forty-minute brief on the mission that “we” were all about to engage in—to destroy the chemical weapon assembly plant thirty miles west of Basrah. The lights were dimmed, the overhead was put on, a time “hack” was given with watches set to standardized time, the weather conditions over the Basrah Road were reported, the chaplain, we were told, would be coming in a few minutes. By the end of forty minutes, we knew the leader, alternative leader, and striker leader of the mission, the size of our armaments, the terrain below, what the enemy MIG 29s would look like, how similar they looked to our own F-14s, what the expected threats were, what the code word for “mission aborted” would be, what would constitute a “no go” call, and so on. After this brief, the simulation was lifted and discussion was initiated about themes taken up earlier in the week—about the nature of Aristotelian courage and how it is partially constituted by skill and knowledge (of the sort, in this case, imparted in officer training school), about the emotions of the warrior, and how we grieve in war, how we compartmentalize our emotions in order to carry out a mission, how we regain our humanity or don’t, as in the case of those who go berserk or who never fully recover from post traumatic stress disorder (Shay, 1994). The point of this example is to mark the idea that becoming virtuous is often a matter of having a role model. But the splendor of the ideal ethics classroom, as opposed say, to the command post or workplace, is that teachers are models but also intellectuals who demand open and safe reflection about the very elements of virtue they cherish. As important as role modeling is, an ethics classroom is a place not to preach but to teach. Now not all of us can rely on the drama of war to illustrate courage at work. Not all of us have examples of living on the edge of danger,

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for the sake of noble ends. But that is not the point. Rather, it is that as teachers, particularly in higher education, we tend to focus on the abstract and forget the riveting power of an enactment to immerse a class in a gripping and nuanced discussion of a moral topic, such as in this case, the nature of courage. A second heuristic element of Aristotle’s account of practical wisdom is his notion that good moral decisions rest on a grasp of the particulars of the case, as the wise person would determine them. “The decision rests with perception” (NE 1109b23). Aristotelian particularism emphasizes the point that a moral judge has an obligation to know the facts of the case, to see and understand what is morally relevant, and to make decisions that are responsive to these exigencies. The thought is captured, too, in Aristotle’s definition of virtue. “It is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean relative to us, this being determined by reason and in the way in which the person of practical wisdom would determine it” (NE 1106b36–7a3). I want to focus on the phrase “relative to us.”To some, this augurs notions of moral relativism and/or subjectivism, that on the one hand, moral choices are relative to the customs of a group and that there is no independent grounds for critique, and on the other, that moral judgments are a matter merely of the opinions or tastes of an individual. But Aristotle is making neither point. Rather, the idea is simply that good moral choices are responsive to the circumstances in which an individual finds herself. An agent has a moral obligation to know the facts of the case.This does not preclude the use of general rules. But they are, at best, only rough guides, summaries of past actions, a part of our web of background knowledge useful in understanding a case. Of course, sometimes overinvolvement in details amounts to little more than rationalization and an obsessional way of avoiding the need to make a decision. But this is at the extreme, and does not itself impugn the importance of discerning the case. Third, Aristotelian practical wisdom gives us some insight into how to use moral rules. Contrary to many interpretations of Aristotelian ethics, Aristotle, in my view, does not outright reject the role of rules in moral education. True, he does not think mature virtue is a matter of applying rules. Rather, it is a matter of specifying ends in highly variable circumstances through attention to the details of the case. Still, in

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the early stages of learning virtue, one typically begins with summary rules, or what he calls “for the most part” rules (NE 1094b21), that is, generalizations about what typically counts as the specifications of particular virtues. So, “generally, facing the enemy is courageous” or “generally, giving to those more needy than oneself is an act of generosity.” In this way, the virtues correspond in some rough way to rules of thumb. But the qualifications of “generally” or “for the most part” make it clear that Aristotle means to deny that any action that is a matter of facing the enemy is necessarily courageous, and that because facing the enemy is morally relevant in one case, it will necessarily have the same relevance wherever it occurs.The point is simply that there are characteristic or paradigmatic contexts for the expression of virtue, and characteristic ways of acting, though these may be defeasible. The role of practical wisdom is not to serve prudence (i.e., to find the exceptions or loopholes that allow for expedience), but to find the moral accommodations that depend upon more sensitive and nuanced judgments of the case. It may turn out that there are theories and conceptions other than Aristotle’s that can substantively help us with these accommodations—such as, for example, the natural law notion of double effect in deciding on whether one can violate the prohibition on killing in order to save. But Aristotle’s contribution is no less important for making clear the more basic point—that as heuristic as rules are, they have definite limits in the wise judgment of particulars. I have talked about heuristic elements of Aristotle’s conception of practical wisdom in terms of its emphasis on concrete role models, the discernment of particulars, and the circumscribed used of rules. But Aristotle offers something else for those interested in learning how to make wise choices. And that is a plea for wise emotions. The virtuous person, in the Aristotelian view, has emotions that hit the mean.That is, she has emotions that are appropriate and well-regulated by the judgments of good reason. She has emotional maturity. What account of emotions and emotional development does Aristotle’s view presuppose? What are the various functions emotions serve in the life of virtue? I begin with the last question first. How do emotions figure in morality? The question is crucial. For if emotions do figure centrally in the moral life, then as a practical matter we need a conception of practical

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ethics that offers guidance not just for choosing actions but for emotional growth. We need a conception of ethics that addresses the question of how we transform and develop emotions. There are several functions we can limn, broadly in agreement with the spirit of Aristotle’s theory, though he is not fully explicit here. The first thing to note is that emotions play a crucial epistemic role in the moral life in their function of recording information. We can think of them as modes of attention enabling us to notice what is morally salient, important, or urgent in ourselves and our surroundings.3 They help us track the morally relevant “news.” They are an affective medium by which we discern the particulars. Through capacities for grief we are primed to notice loss and the anguish of suffering loss; through pity, we are sensitive to the fact that people fail, sometimes through blameless ignorance, or duress, accident, or sickness; through empathy, we can identify with what others delight in and sorrow over.The general point is that moral situations don’t come pre-labelled. Emotions help us to label them under specific descriptions. Those who lack moral perception, who are obtuse about the moral dimensions of a situation, are often just those who have never cultivated their emotional repertoire. If emotions are antennae, they are antennae that can record with urgency and heat. Emotional data tend to leave tracks deeper than those of cold reason. In addition to tracking what is salient in our environment, emotions can also disclose to us what is salient within ourselves. Feelings of anxiety, excitement, wariness, or joy may tip us to thoughts and preoccupations that have been until this point unconscious or at least out of our immediate perview. So I might notice myself getting excited about an upcoming visit of a dear friend. Until cued by these emotions, I hadn’t realized how much I was anticipating the visit, how important it is for me to see this friend. In addition to their role as modes of attention, emotions play a role in communicating information to others. They are modes of responding and showing others moral interest and concern. So the generous action that falls short of generous emotions is often a morally compromised response. As parents we know this all too well. We expect our children to exhibit the right attitude as well as the right conduct. Indeed we

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would be sorely disappointed with our children’s moral demeanor if it were always only external actions that were in line. We want character to go deeper, to reveal emotions that are harmonized with action and not always in conflict. This is not to deny a place for inner conflict in the moral life. Sometimes it is enough to rely on the firm hand of duty or principle, precisely because we cannot quite summon up our sympathy or feelings of compassion to support what we know we should do. But while flawless perfection in expressing emotions is indeed too demanding, some expectation for emotional cultivation and effort is perfectly reasonable. It simply would be expecting too little to have others treat us from duty or principle without at the same time expecting them to cultivate the human emotions that betoken concern, interest, and engagement. So far it might seem as if emotions only track and express what we already care about. But emotions have a third role in creating some of what is valued. That is, they can themselves invest with value what are otherwise neutral states of affair. The point is clearest when we think about the kind of “halo effect” loved or admired ones have over our lives.Things we associate with people we admire often come to be valued by us derivatively. At work is a kind of transference that is a familiar part of certain identificatory emotions, such as emulation, respect, and love.We learn best from those with whom we can identify because what they care about becomes what we care about. That is just a fact about how values get transmitted. There is a fourth point. And this is that experiencing emotion itself bears value. A world without humor, laughter, playfulness, as well as aggression and fear, would simply be impoverished, let alone unrecognizable as human. Simply to be an emotional creature and to live with others on an emotional plane (in a life that engages our emotions and in which emotions are part of the social fiber) is an intrinsic part of living humanly. We prize that way of experiencing self and others, apart from whatever else it leads to. Certainly, in the Aristotelian view, a flourishing life is a life lived emotionally, and part of what is valuable is realizing oneself through emotions. We express our excellent functioning through both action and emotion, and these emotional expressions are valued in their own right (ne 1109a23).

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There is a final role for emotions and one probably most emphasized in connection with morality. This is the role of emotions as motives. Emotions can move us to action. They are motivational. We act out of compassion, out of friendliness, out of sympathy. In this role, they are reasons for acting. Kant as well as the Stoics, cast suspicion on the moral significance of this role, arguing that emotions as moral motives are unreliable. Duty or principle, and not emotion, are the unwavering motives for moral action widely available to all. But as I said earlier, I think this is too restrictive a view. I shall not say much more here about the motivational aspect of emotion except to note than an exclusive emphasis on it throughout the history of moral philosophy has obscured the other important roles emotions serve in our lives. To summarize then, emotions help us to attend to and record what we care about (they are moral antennae, if you like); they are modes of broadcast, too, of expressing values; in some cases, they help to establish what we value or detest; additionally, emotions can be valued for their own sakes, simply as important ways of living a full, human life; finally emotions motivate action. They provide impetus for action. I now want to consider Aristotle’s analysis of the emotions and conclude, in the section that follows, with remarks about the nature of Aristotelian emotional development. Aristotle’s analysis is best appreciated by considering three alternatives to his own. In a commonsense view emotion is thought to be an irreducible quality of feeling or sensation. It may be caused by a physical state, but the emotion itself is the sensation we feel when we are in that state. It is an affect, a distinctive feeling, but not something that is about something else. The view quickly falters, however, when we realize that emotions in this view become no more than private states, feelings like itches and tickles, inaccessible to identification in terms of propositional content (i.e., mental representation of what they are about). A second view, associated with William James and Carl Lange (1884), is that emotions are proprioceptions of visceral or behavioral movements. They are an awareness of bodily changes in the peripheral nervous system. We are afraid because we tremble, angry because of the knots in our stomachs, not the other way round. This view, though rather counterintuitive, nonetheless captures the idea that emotions,

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more than other mental states, seem to have conspicuous physiological and kinesthetic components.These often dominate children’s and adults’ reports of their emotional experiences. But even well-honed physiological feelings do not easily identify specific emotions. Proprioceptions of our skin tingling or our chest constricting or our readiness to flee or fight underdetermine just what emotion we are feeling. Many distinct emotions share these features, and without contextual clues, and thoughts that dwell on those clues, we are in the dark about what we are experiencing (Schachter and Singer, 1962). The chief burden of the work of the psychologist Walter Cannon (1927) was to show that emotional affects are virtually identical across manifestly different states. A third view steps outside the privacy of the mind, locating emotions in behavior (Skinner, 1953; also Frijda, 1986). In this general view emotions are modes of readiness to act, or in Freud’s early idiom, discharges of tension. Support for this view comes from the fact that we often experience emotions as excitations in need of release,4 and we often describe emotions in terms of dispositions to concrete behavior. “I felt like hitting him,” “I could have exploded,” “I wanted to spit,” “I wanted to be alone with him, wrapped in his embrace.”Yet the action tendency view seems at best a partial account of emotion.The basic problem here is not that some emotions, such as apathy, inhibition, and depression seem to lack clear activation modes, while others are more a matter of the rich movement of thought, so well depicted, for example, in the novels of Henry James. It is rather that emotions are about something (internal or external) that we represent in thought. As such they have propositional content. Their identity depends on that content. This takes us to Aristotle’s view, implicit in the Nicomachean Ethics, but explicitly developed in the second book of the Rhetoric. At the heart of his account is the view that emotions are about something that we represent in thought. Emotions are intentional states. As such they have cognitive content.They are identified by that content, by what we dwell on, whether it be fleetingly or with concentrated attention. Equally, these states can be beliefs or just musings and construals that are only slenderly based on “objective” evidence. Such an account need not exclude other features of emotion, such as awareness of physiological and behavioral response or felt sensations.The claim is that these, when

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present, are dependent on cognitive (i.e., descriptive and evaluative) content, and are directed toward that content. Thus, in Aristotle’s view, emotions are produced by evaluations, but also, more strongly, emotions are partly constituted by them. That is, it is not just that certain antecedent evaluations typically cause certain emotions. Rather, the connection is a conceptual one. Anger wouldn’t be anger without thoughts of misjustice or the like. Fear would not be fear if there weren’t some mental content of a threat or danger. Indeed, Aristotle is insistent that closely related emotions, such as contempt, spite, and insolence, are differentiated not by their “feels,” but by their distinct intentional focuses—by what they are about (Rhetoric 1378b14). At this point we can begin to see the broad compatibility between an Aristotelian account of the emotions and an account of the moral significance of emotions, along the lines limned in the previous section. Emotions are not blind sensations, but judgments of what we take to be good and bad in the world. They track salience in virtue of making evaluations about the world. These evaluations may present reasons for action. Moreover, through emotions we convey to others not just that we are in pleasure or pain, but that we care about something in particular, or are the sort of person who takes certain things to be important. We convey and record determinate information through our emotions. Of course, those who hold a sensation theory of the emotions might also see a close connection between certain kinds of evaluations and the emotion as a quality of feeling.They could argue that certain beliefs typically cause those feelings (Oakley, 1992, p. 22). But in so far as the connection is not conceptual but merely contingent, it could be, in such a view, that while fear is typically caused by something appearing to be threatening, on other occasions fear could be experienced without having that characteristic thought or indeed, any cognition paired up with that affect at all. For it is the feel, alone, that constitutes the emotion, and anything that it is associated with it is purely contingent.Thoughts, such as that cantaloupes are orange, could be connected with fear, so long as the feel is characteristic. The Aristotelian view of emotions as intentional not only is inherently more plausible, but gives a more natural account of how emotions track salience.

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As we have said, Aristotle holds that we are morally assessed not only for our actions, but for emotions that have become part of our cultivated states of character. Both can be praiseworthy and blameworthy, both fine and shameful. But in what sense, according to Aristotle, can we be held responsible for our emotions? In what sense are they “up to us,” or related to choice (prohairesis)? In what sense are we emotional agents? How do our emotions develop? Aristotle assumes that emotions are within our dominion, though does not explicitly instruct us about how we take charge. His general remarks on habituation are well known. We become just by doing just actions, become generous through generous deeds. As I have argued elsewhere, the plea is not for mindless repetition of behavior, but for critical practice that develops the cognitive skills constitutive of virtuous choice-making and action (Sherman, 1989, chap. 5). Aristotle also holds that critical habituation is part of the development of the emotions, but again, he does not give us many details. Nonetheless we can fill in the lacunae in keeping with the spirit of his view that through practice, we can come to “stand well” with regard to the emotions. Common parlance includes a host of locutions, which presume that emotions are “up to us” in various ways. Thus we exhort ourselves and others by such phrases as “pull yourself together,” “snap out of it,” “put on a good face,” “lighten up,” “be cheerful,” “think positive,” “keep a stiff upper lip.” In many of these cases, what we are being implored to do is to take on the semblance of an emotion so that it can “take hold” and rub off on our inner state. Practice as if you believe and you will believe. As Ronald de Sousa puts it, “earnest pretense is the royal road to sincere faith” (De Sousa, 1988). Sometimes we “pretend” through behavioral changes—through changes in facial expressions, body gestures, and vocalizations that evoke in us a changed mood. If we are fuming, relaxing our facial muscles, ungnarling our fingers, and breathing deeply and slowly may put us in the frame of mind to see things in a calmer light. Something like this may undergird Aristotle’s notion of becoming by doing. Putting on the look of an emotion may introduce into our thoughts the evaluations that typically constitute such emotions. Some of the above suggestions involve massaging an emotional state from outside in—trying on more luxuriant smiles as a way of trying to

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become more loving. But equally, a newly felt emotion may demand a new look, a concrete and stable realization for oneself and others to behold. Here the nudging works from inside out, though still it is the facial or gestural expression that coaches the emotion.Thus, we can fuel the flames of an emotion by allowing it bodily expression.To weep may intensify our grief, or simply bring us to acknowledge its presence. But of course we would expect that in an Aristotelian view emotional changes require not merely facial or behavioral alteration, but an evaluative change (a change of the evaluative or cognitive content of emotion). And that moreover, behavioral or expressive changes really prepare us for changes at this level. But if this is so, then there are more direct ways to alter emotions through changes of perception or belief. So, for example, imagine Josh, a ten-year-old, who often fumes with anger about how his classmates treat him. A psychologically minded parent or teacher may try to get the child to reflect on specific instances, including just what caused the anger and whether or not it was justified. In some cases it may turn out that there are real external taunts and insults that spark the child’s anger. But in other cases, the anger may be less the result of his “enemy’s” attitude than his own attitude projected outward onto classmates. The adult who tries to get the child to see this is attempting to make the child self-observant and critical of his own contribution in tracking what is morally salient. She helps the child by shifting the Gestalt, by recomposing the scene in a way that is more accurate. This is not simply a lesson in psychology, but a lesson in morality, to the extent that a chronically bullying and angry attitude stands in the way of morally finer methods of interacting with individuals. A more general point is that many morally problematic attitudes have at their core emotions that require reform. Racism feeds on irrational hatred, abuses of power often flow from arrogance and a self-righteousness that belie a failure of empathy. Change that penetrates not merely conduct but attitude must work on those emotions and their constitutive evaluations. The aim is to bring these constitutive evaluations in line with reflective and justified beliefs. Of course, a died-inthe-wool racist may simply refuse to subject his views to rational assessment. More resourceful methods may be required to break down the habituated attitude. But the point still remains that an evaluative

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change is what is required, and that it is an evaluation that infuses the emotion. In all these cases, the aim is to expose the implicit judgments that emotions involve.This becomes crucial in the moral education of children as well as adults. If we believe that emotions need not be unregulated impulses for acting out, then we need to empower individuals with capacities to reflect on their emotions so that they can begin to assess the reasonableness of the judgments implicit in their emotions. In essence, the emotions and their impact have to enter an individual’s discursive world and be examined in terms of their implicit claims and appropriateness. None of this is earth-shattering. Our virtuous as well as vicious conduct rely upon a whole gamut of emotions, which inform what we see and how we act. If we are traditional Kantians and believe that emotions are divorced from the full commerce of reason, we retreat at just this point. Genuine virtue cannot be grounded in emotion, for emotion can never adequately partake of our rational and discursive sides. The Aristotelian challenges just this point. Emotions are ways of judging the world. Some of the ways we regulate them is by arguing against their judgments. The Stoic reaction to this Aristotelian point is instructive.The Stoics agree with Aristotle that emotions are constituted by thought. Indeed, they believe that emotions are simply beliefs. But the Stoics believe something else as well. They hold that emotions are false beliefs. They are false because they attach to things outside our control that we mistakenly think have good value. To grieve is to be subject to losses that we can not control, to fall in love is to be vulnerable to unrequited love or the death of a beloved or the ravages of jealousy and competition in one’s love; to feel pity is to see that fate and circumstance can take the best among us and knock us around like mere leaves blowing in the wind. However, what is good and of true value in the world are things we can control, things we can master.Virtue and good living rest in that arena; everything else is a matter of indifference; they don’t really contribute value to the good life of inner virtue.They are truly external and indifferent. You might prefer love rather than not, but it is not a really good thing, to be chosen for its own sake. It adds no substantive value

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to the goodness of a good life. Now this means that the virtuous person, intent upon the truly good life, will try to divest of emotions precisely because of their uncontrollable objects of attachment; the orthodox Stoic will do everything she can to live a life independent of emotions, for to incorporate them into virtue would be to give up on control, to be subject to grief when love dies, to be subject to pity when tragedy strikes. Upon learning of the death of a child, Cicero reports that the truly Stoic individual can say,“I knew when he was born he was a mere mortal.” There is no loss, for the investment was thwarted from the start. Now Aristotle was not so radical a reformer. Emotions are not merely beliefs or evaluations. They are that, but in addition, they are investments, hot, sticky beliefs that matter, beliefs that hang on stories we really cling to and live with. We can never fully lose our vulnerability to those kinds of investments, never fully lose our capacity to be affected by forces outside our controlling reason or by conflictual tendencies from within. Nor should we, if we are to retain our humanity. Of course, emotional tendencies that are harmful to ourselves and others, or that are deeply irrational and destabilizing, we must try to change. And emotions that jeopardize our self-control, so crucial in times of adversity and deprivation, we must also try to master and restrain. But as a matter of every day principle, to root out emotions lock, stock, and barrel, to isolate our reason from affect, to shun all emotions, is to throw away the baby with the bath water. It is to lose all the million ways, from infancy upward, that we notice things in the world, remember, and convey our interests back to others in fleeting moments of union or ongoing relationships. Even if emotions sometimes make us vulnerable, even if they put us on a roller coaster on which it sometimes feels we can’t get off, those experiences seem a small price to pay for the benefits emotions afford us in processing the world of self and others. Freud put this the clearest.We are ruled by different parts of the soul, as Aristotle and Plato thought. But this means we often face internal conflict. Our task in growing wise minds and characters is to try to resolve conflict, harmonize the different parts of our psyches, inform more recalcitrant desires and emotions by our best enlightened judgments. Freud was well aware that internal conflicts are never fully over-

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come; we simply work out better and more adequate compromise solutions. He proposed methods to harmonize the soul different from those available to Aristotle. His seminal contribution was to find ways to probe the depths of the psyche, so that we can become aware of why we cling to certain emotions and beliefs so tenaciously, despite their surface irrationality. Aristotle did not know of depth psychology. But both Aristotle and Freud share the all important view that the full psyche is something more than just the calm, cool intellect, and that excellence in our human navigation through the world depends upon wise choices no less than wise feelings.

notes 1 This chapter is a modified version of “Character Development and Aristotelian Virtue,” which appears in Virtue Ethics and Moral Education, edited by D. Carr and J. Steutel (Routledge: 1999). 2 At a deeper level, the wisdom may involve understanding that the intrinsic conflict that a virtue like courage regularly brings with it—of experiencing fear against real danger and this pitted against the desire to stand one’s ground for the sake of some higher good—is a conflict necessary for courage, a noble conflict, and one quite different from the struggle, for some, say, to be temperate. For in the latter case, what stands against one’s desires to be temperate are desires that devalue temperance, desires that aim for immoderate satisfaction.Whereas it is noble to triumph over fear of real dangers, it is far less noble to have to triumph over desires for excess. Those are temptations, not external threats, and the battle should already be won. 3 On the general issue of moral salience, see Blum (1980); Murdoch (1970); Nussbaum (1986); Dancy (1993); McDowell (1979); Herman (1993, ch. 4); Sherman (1989). Something like this role of the emotions is noticed by Descartes too, but primarily in terms of an account of the objects that cause different emotion, without attention to the intentionality of the emotions. So he notes, objects that move the senses cause “diverse passions in us . . . because of the diverse ways in which they may harm or help us, or in general be of some importance to us.” (Article LII) of The Passions of the Soul.

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4 In this regard, there is similarity between behaviorism’s push outward and the classical Freudian notion of the release of drive, though Freud was by no means offering a behavioral account that reduced the mental to outward movement.

references Blum, Lawrence. (1980). Friendship, altruism and morality. Boston, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Calhoun, C. and Solomon, S., Eds. (1984). What is an emotion? New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cannon, Walter. (1927). The James-Lange theory of emotion: A critical examination and an alternative theory. American Journal of Psychology, 39, 106–24. Dancy, Jonathan. (1993). Moral reasons. Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Darwin, Charles. (1872). The expression of emotion in man and animals. In C. Calhoun and R. Solomon, Eds. (1984). What is an emotion? (pp. 115–24). New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Descartes, René. (1927). Descartes selections. Ed. Ralph M. Eaton. New York: Scribner. De Sousa, Ronald. (1987). The rationality of emotion. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press. Ekman, Paul, Ed. (1973). Darwin and facial expression. New York: Academic Press. Ekman, Paul. (1982). Emotion in the human face, 2nd ed. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Frijda, Nico. (1986). The emotions. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Greenspan, Stanley I. (1989). The development of the ego. Madison CT: International Universities Press.

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Herman, Barbara. (1993). The practice of moral judgment. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press. Hursthouse, Rosalind. (1991).Virtue Theory and Abortion. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 20, 223–246. Reprinted in Crisp R. and Slote, M., Eds. (1997). Virtue ethics (pp. 217–238). New York: Oxford University Press. Hursthouse, Rosalind. (1997). Virtue ethics and the emotions. In D. Statman (Ed.), Virtue ethics. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. James, William, and Lange, Carl Georg. (1884). What is an emotion? Mind, 19, 188–205. Reprinted in C. Calhoun and R. Solomon, Eds. (1984). What is an emotion? (pp. 127–41). New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. McDowell, John. (1979).Virtue and reason. Monist, 62, 331–350. Reprinted in Nancy Sherman, ed. Aristotle’s ethics: Critical essays, pp. 121–144. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Murdoch, Iris. (1970). The sovereignty of the good. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Nussbaum, Martha. (1986). The fragility of goodness: Luck and ethics in Greek tragedy and philosophy. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Oakley, Justin. (1992). Morality and the emotions. New York: Routledge. Piper, Adrian. (1990). Higher-order discrimination. In O. Flanagan and A.O. Rorty (Eds.), Character, psychology, and morality (pp. 285–309). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Schachter, Stanley, and Singer, Jerome. (1962). Cognitive, social and physiological determinants of emotional states. Psychological Review, 69, 379–399. Reprinted in C. Calhoun and R. Solomon, Eds. (1984). What is an emotion? (pp. 173–83). New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Shay, Jonathan. (1994). Achilles in Vietnam: Combat trauma and the undoing of character. New York: Atheneum. Sherman, Nancy. (1997). Making a necessity of virtue: Aristotle and Kant on virtue. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

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Sherman, Nancy. (1989). The fabric of character: Aristotle’s theory of virtue. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Skinner, B.F. (1953). Science and human behavior. New York: Free Press. Stern, Daniel. (1985). The interpersonal world of the infant. New York: Basic Books. Stocker, Michael. (1996). Valuing emotions. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

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chapter 14

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Setting the Stage for the Development of Wisdom: Self-understanding and Moral Identity During Adolescence William Damon

isdom, full blown, draws on many diverse components of human judgment: cognitive appraisals, learned behavioral “scripts,” emotional (or “gut”) feelings, moral awareness, and spiritual consciousness (the latter being the least understood by psychological science). Wisdom includes the capacity to make intelligent judgments about life—that is, “knowledge about the pragmatics of life” (Baltes and Staudinger, in press)—but it cannot be reduced to that alone. Wisdom also implies a capacity to live (not just think) in a manner informed not only by knowledge but also by a reflective and deeply felt sense of the good (Nozick, 1989). As Nozick points out, wisdom consists of all the kinds of knowledge—conscious or intuitive—that guides one’s life toward the good. He writes, “Wisdom is what you need to understand in order to live well and cope with the central problems and avoid the dangers in the predicament(s) that human beings find themselves in” (Nozick, 1989, p. 267). Because wisdom is multifaceted, it demonstrates itself in myriad ways in different people and situations. The biblical wisdom of Solomon made use of clever insight into the nature of maternal love; the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin’s almanac emanated a solid sense of practical virtue (as in “honesty is the best policy”); the folk wisdom of Will Rogers evoked a humorous and humane perspective on everyday events; the charismatic wisdom of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther

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King, Jr., conveyed profound understandings about how ancient religious principles may revitalize modern-day political realities. The particularities and contextual circumstances of these widely-recognized acts of wisdom varied widely among themselves.Yet, despite their differences, they shared one common core: a moral center that directed the critical judgments and choices. I begin with the assumption that, if we examine any widely-recognized act of wisdom, we will always find a moral center that has directed the act and endowed it with its personal meaning. While wisdom may, in some instances, require flexibility and even a strategic relativism (Baltes and Staudinger, in press), it cannot depend upon, nor can it coexist with, moral relativism.Wisdom is incompatible with moral relativism because a primary purpose of wisdom is making cogent life decisions that can be justified on both moral and personal grounds. An act that cannot be justified on both moral and personal grounds would be wrong-headed, foolish, and certainly not wise. This chapter explores the developmental roots of wisdom during the adolescent years. Later in the chapter, I offer samples of unusually insightful and humane statements by teenagers whom I have interviewed. These youngsters, though by no means fully mature in their judgmental capacities, clearly are wise for their years. Their reflections can provide us with clues about how wisdom develops in its early phases. In the chapter, I argue that an essential precursor to wisdom is the ability to understand oneself in terms of moral purposes that guide one’s critical life choices. Normally, this capacity makes its first appearance— in embryonic form—during adolescence.When (and if) the moral purposes become fully integrated into a person’s self-identity, the purposes become commitments that provide the person with a coherent framework for interpreting the world, with a stabilizing sense of direction through difficult and confusing times, and with a way of balancing the person’s own subjective biases with an orientation toward the needs and perspectives of others. This does not happen for all people. But for those who do develop the capacity to identify the self through a coherent moral perspective, wisdom becomes possible. In this chapter and in my other writings, I refer to the capacity to integrate self and morality as “moral identity” (see Damon and Gregory, 1997).

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Before discussing what youth wisdom looks like when moral identity first develops, I begin with an illustration of the lack of integration between self and morality—leading, in effect, to an absence of wisdom. The case that I quote below is drawn from a data set collected by the ethnographer Mercer Sullivan and originally published in his memorable study Getting Paid (Sullivan, 1989). The boy, code-named Arturo, is reflecting upon what he was like during a period in his life when he was constantly getting into serious trouble. Arturo was seventeen at the time of his reflections about himself. His trouble-making days were not far behind him, if indeed they were at all. Let’s say it was right before the burglary with a serious armed robbery charge on me and pending. How was I thinking then? If I was to write my thinking about myself in a scale of 1 to 10, it was a 2 if I was lucky: 1. Didn’t care if I got caught by police, prepared to do any crime. Down to shoot, stab, not fatal thoughts though, mug, rob anybody, burglarize any property. 2. No job at all. 3. No girlfriend or person to count on. 4. School, I gave up on that. 5. Family, let down. 6. Real tight dirty relationships. 7. Try to get over on cheap shit (crime in general). 8. Thinking to do a job for some money. 9. Wasting time on absolutely nothing but to think of nasty and dirty things to do. 10. Damaging myself physically on a day-to-day basis without doing any positive thinking for myself. 11. Almost every penny to get high or find dumb pleasures. 12. Didn’t handle boredom the right way.

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william damon 13. Being in the neighborhood 90 percent of the time. 14. Hanging out with the wrong people 85 percent of the time I hang out. 15. Thinking that I had authority to rob and steal. 16. Not think about the future at all, a serious thing not to do especially at such a young age. 17. Just falling into hell. 18. Not using nothing at all as lessons. 19. Not knowing all I was doing was wrong and later going to be punished for it. 20. Letting money problems get to me thinking I was slick, having a “let’s do it” attitude. 21. Nothing to be happy about. (Sullivan, 1989, pp. 42–43)

In itself, this remarkable document provides a mirror image—an obverse—of the elements of youth wisdom. Arturo notes that the following pursuits are missing from his life: work, school, close relationships, good health habits, and sustaining interests or beliefs. What this leaves for goals are “dumb pleasures” and “nasty and dirty things to do.” This is nothing more than a chase after “random nows,” in the phrase that Cornell West has used to characterize the behavior of many misdirected youth; it also echoes the old Hobbesian lament about lives destined to be “nasty, short, and brutish” (West, 1992). For Arturo, this direction provides little basis for learning (“not using nothing at all as lessons”), hope (“not thinking about the future at all”), or satisfaction (“nothing to be happy about”). As a consequence, Arturo has very little basis for building a wellfunctioning sense of self. Identity construction, the primary task of adolescence, requires certain essential building blocks, such as positive identifications with admired role models, school- or work-related skills, stable habits of character, and commitments to enduring relationships, callings, and beliefs (Erikson, 1968). Above all, identity formation

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requires a moral sense of direction as an organizing principle within and between the building blocks, an intimation about which choices are “right” for oneself, in a moral as well as a personal sense. Arturo has lacked precisely this intimation. He regrets “not knowing all I was doing was wrong” and, inevitably, “just falling into hell.” Not all is lost for Arturo, however. Paradoxically, his own despairing reflections may open the door to more hopeful prospects. When a young person complains about falling into hell, we can be sure that the youngster has some inkling of a better place to be. In the course of many hard knocks, Arturo has manifestly acquired such an awareness. For this reason, Arturo’s insightful self-ruminations may lead him to a more comprehensive moral perspective; and that, in turn, could provide a new direction for his future and a new center for his sense of self. Now it is by no means certain that this will happen, but it is clearly a possibility. It would be foolish for us (an act of societal non-wisdom) to give up on a youngster as bright and soul-searching as Arturo. Fortunately, many adolescents get a better start than Arturo in constructing a self-identity infused with moral understandings. Below I illustrate how this can occur in the normal course of development, drawing upon data from a longitudinal interview study that I conducted some years ago (Damon and Hart, 1988). The study focused on the development of self-understanding during the childhood and adolescent years. In order to chart the normal progress in self-understanding as youngsters grow older, we interviewed boys and girls on three succeeding occasions, at eighteen-month intervals, over a period of four and one-half years. The first set of quotes below is drawn from interviews with a subject code-named Paul, initially when he was eleven and one-half and then when he was thirteen.

paul, age eleven Interviewer: What would you wish for? Paul: A minibike. Int.: Okay, a minibike.

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william damon Paul: A new house. And money. Int.: And money? Okay, why would you wish for a minibike? Paul: ‘Cause they look like fun. I’ve ridden on one with a friend. They look fun. Int.: So you think it would be a fun thing to do, ride a minibike around? Paul: Uh huh. Int.: Okay, and why would you want a new house? Paul: ‘Cause our house is old. Int.: Okay, your house is pretty old. So why would you want a new one? Paul: ‘Cause new houses are nice. Int.: What do you mean nice? Paul: We would have more things, like there may be a swimming pool in that house that we don’t have in our other house. Int.: Okay, so you’d want a house with a swimming pool? Paul:Yeah. Int.: And why else would you want a new house? And why would you want money? Paul: ‘Cause you can buy a lot of things with money. Int.: Okay, what do you think are the most important things for you? Paul: Living a good life. Like going traveling and all instead of just sitting home and growing old. Int.: Okay, so living a good life is important. Paul: Having a good time.

deve lopme nt of w i sdom Now, here is the same child at age thirteen.

paul, age thirteen Int.: What else can you say about yourself, besides that you’re a good person. Paul: Well, I guess I’m helpful, kind. Int.: What do you mean by you’re helpful? Paul: Well, I help people if they have problems in school, if they need help in math or whatever. And I help a lot around the house. Int.: Is that important to you that you’re helpful? Does that matter to you? Paul: It does some. Int.: Why is that important to you? That you’re helpful? Paul: It encourages you. Int.: What do you mean? Paul: It makes you feel good that you can help someone else do something. Int.: How come you think it makes you feel good that you can help someone? Paul: Just knowing that you helped someone with something that they didn’t understand or couldn’t do.You just feel good. Int.: Okay, did you say “kind” afterwards? Paul:Yeah. Int.: What do you mean by kind? Paul:Well, I’m not mean. I’m not rude to anyone. I don’t sass the teachers in school.

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william damon Int.: Does that matter to you? Is that an important part of you? Paul:Yeah. . . . Int.: Can you tell me something that you’re not? Paul: I’m not mean . . . I’m not unthankful for anything . . . I guess when you’re thankful, you make someone feel better because they’re really happy that you thanked them for what you got. Int.: Okay, why is it important for you to make people feel better? Paul: It just makes you feel better to have other people feel good, so they’ll know that I’m thankful.

At each age—eleven and thirteen—Paul speaks about himself in a way that is typical for youngsters of that age. At eleven, Paul thinks about himself, and about the things that are important to himself, in terms of activities that he enjoys or is particularly good at in comparison with other people. He enjoys riding a minibike; and so that is what is important to him—and ultimately to who he is. Similarly, Paul believes that a house with a swimming pool, lots of money, and travel will enable him to become the person he wants to be, to begin “living the good life.” Eighteen months later, at age thirteen, Paul thinks instead about the quality of the interpersonal relationships that he engages in. He thinks about his own characteristics in terms of how they affect his social relationships. Paul endorses self-attributes that contribute to positive social relationships (“I’m helpful, kind”) and rejects traits that could harm his relationships (“I’m not mean”). Morality makes its first appearance in the development of self-identity when a youngster considers the interpersonal implications of his or her personal characteristics. Generally there are moral overtones to personal characteristics that promote positive social relationships (as there are often immoral overtones to qualities that harm relationships). Being helpful, kind, and thankful are moral virtues that have positive social implications; being mean is a behavior without virtue that has poisonous

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social implications. When youngsters begin thinking about themselves in terms of how their own personal qualities affect their interpersonal lives, they begin thinking about themselves in moral terms: hence the use of moral descriptors (kind, helpful, thankful, not mean) in Paul’s responses to our self-interview questions. As youngsters turn to moral descriptors to define themselves, an early form of moral identity is born. The transition from an action-oriented, comparative conception of self to an interpersonal conception with sociomoral implications is part of a normal developmental sequence that my colleagues and I have documented in our previous work (Damon and Hart, 1988, 1992). Fig. 14.1 presents a schematic diagram of the normal self-understanding sequence. The change in Paul’s thinking is captured in the shift from level two to level three in Fig. 14.1. In his second interview, Paul concludes that what is important to him is “help(ing) someone else do something,” noting that “it just makes you feel better to have other people feel good.” This is a decided movement away from Paul’s earlier focus on “the good life” through minibikes and money. In our studies and others that we have reviewed (Damon and Hart, 1992), we have found that most adolescents, in this country and in others where our self-interview has been given, move from level two to level three. A few begin to move from level three to level four. At level four, morality enters the scene as a coherent system of belief rather than a list of self-descriptors with moral overtones. In the interview quoted below, a subject whom we have code-named Samantha begins to make this change by the time of her second interview. Samantha was thirteen when we first interviewed her; on that occasion, she sounded much like Paul at age thirteen (and like most other teenagers once they have become aware of the social-relational implications of their personal characteristics). By age fifteen, during her second interview, Samantha speaks more systematically about her moral identity, in a manner that is reflected in the transition from level three to level four, as depicted in Fig. 14.1. In this regard, Samantha is precocious: self-understanding based upon systematic beliefs is rare among adolescents and far from universal even among adults (Damon and Hart, 1992;Walker, Pitts, Hennig, and Matsuba,1995).

1. Early Childhood

2. Middle & Late Childhood

3. Early Adolescence

Social Sensitivity, Communicative Competence, & Other Psychologically Related Social Skills

Knowledge, Cognitive Abilities or Acts Considered in Light Abilities or of Others’ Reactions Ability-Related Emotions

Momentary Moods, Feelings, Preferences & Aversions Psychological Self

Social-Personality Characteristics

Fact of Membership in Particular Social Relations or Groups Social Self

Active Attributes That Influence Social Appeal & Social Interactions

Abilities Relative to Others, Self or Normative Standards

Typical Behavior

Active Self

Physical Attributes That Influence Social Appeal and Social Interactions

Capability-Related Physical Attributes

Bodily Properties of Material Possessions

Physical Self

Inter-Personal Implications

Comparative Assessments

Categorical Identification

General Organizing Principle

The Self-As-Object

Belief Systems, Personal Philosophy, Self’s Own Thought Processes

Moral or Personal Choices Concerning Social Relations or Social-Personality Characteristics

Active Attributes That reflect Choices, Personal or Moral Standards

Physical Attributes Reflecting Volitional Choices, or Personal and Moral Standards

Systematic Beliefs and Plans

Fig. 14.1. Developmental model of self-understanding.

4. Late Adolescence

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samantha, age thirteen I think I’m rather friendly. Like I would go up to anyone and just talk to them and, you know, I’d help them. But the kids who don’t help me, I don’t really feel the obligation to help them. I would ask if they really needed it, but say if someone who never helped me asks me for a pencil, I wouldn’t give him the pencil. If I had one I’d like to shove it in my pocket and say “I don’t have a pencil.” I wouldn’t like to tell him that I don’t have a pencil at all. I think I’d still not want to hurt people’s feelings. I really feel so bad ‘cause, like, it’s happened to me so many times. . . . I don’t judge people usually, unless it’s really something severe. ‘Cause, like, I really feel bad for people ‘cause it’s happened to me before. As a matter of fact we had this project to do in a team and there was this one girl—her name is Beth Smith; she’s in my music class—and no one would pick her for the group. And I hate groups anyway ‘cause they’re so, you know. So I felt so bad for her and I don’t judge people like that cause she doesn’t really have that great a personality and she’s kind of shy. So I brought her into our group.You know, I’m like that. I don’t like the way people judge people. And, like, I don’t like the people, ‘cause people do that at my age, you know. They’re, they’re . . . if you don’t play sports you don’t belong like and I don’t like that. ‘Cause it’s happened to me and so I don’t like doing it to other people.

Now here is Samantha one and one-half years later:

samantha, age fifteen Samantha: I think I’m basically, like, honest. I don’t like people that aren’t honest. Pretty good-natured. I don’t know. Maybe nonconformist. I think people that lie or something like that must have something to cover up. Like I’ve never known anyone that it’s compulsive, you know, it’s just so compulsive for them to lie. It’s like on soap operas or something like that; it’s just

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william damon that unreal, someone that lies like that. You know, a one-sided person that lies like that. I don’t know how to explain it. Like someone that cheats and stuff like that. I like being honest, like with yourself and with everyone. ‘Cause, you know, if you’re a bad person, lying, is like—that’s how I’d label someone. If they lied, they would be a bad person to me. Like they could be, in the eyes of everyone else, like, the best person in the world, but if I knew, like, they were lying or cheating, in my eyes they wouldn’t be. Whereas it would be the opposite; like it could be some criminal who never told a lie, you know, if he was brought on the jury stand and said, “I did it,” then I would consider him all the more man or person to say he did it, to admit his fault like that. Interviewer: Okay, could you summarize that and say what that says about what kind of person you are? Samantha: I don’t know. I guess, like, I respect people more if they respect themselves. So if you cheat, you’re not, like, respecting yourself. You’re not giving yourself, you know, yourself a chance. I think if you don’t like yourself, then no one else will like you.‘Cause you know, what’s there to like about you if you don’t even like yourself. So if you like yourself you won’t abuse yourself, you won’t do things like that and you won’t cheat. Because if you like yourself, you like what you’re doing without the good or bad mark. It shouldn’t shock you that much. Unless there’s some pressure to do well, like that. So it all goes back to, like, you have to like what you’re doing and everything else from there. When I’m friendly, it’s more like, you know, to tell people that it’s all right to be yourself. Not necessarily don’t conform, but just whatever you are just, you know, be happy with that. Don’t, like, you know, try to prove anything for anybody, just be yourself. So I’m not an overly bubbly person that goes around, “Hi, how are you?” you know like that. That makes me sick. But, you know, just if someone wants to talk to me, you know, sure. I wouldn’t like, not talk to someone. Just anybody, you know, I’d say hi to. Like that.

deve lopme nt of w i sdom I think the total giving of something to, like, one idea is really—especially a good idea. Like if you’re gonna devote yourself to, you know, massacres of people, then that’s not too good. But if you’re gonna, like, devote yourself to the good of people, totally devote yourself then, you know, I think that’s great. I don’t know. It’s hard for me to say. ‘Cause it ties into, like, my religion. So I don’t know, it’s not really my belief; it’s just been, like, what I’ve been brought up with. . . . And I think laughter is really important. Int.: Why is laughter important? Samantha: Because people take things too seriously. I think so many times, like, I mean things should be taken seriously. I don’t think we should all sit there and laugh at everything, you know, the economy’s going downhill, you know, and just laugh about it. But I think laughter is very, like important too, to be a good person.You have to know when to laugh. I think there’s a right time to laugh, you know. But I think it’s very important at some time to laugh, you know. Especially laugh at yourself. I think you have to be able to, like, look at yourself and see something’s funny and, you know, laugh about it. I think that you’d be closer to yourself if you can laugh at yourself and view yourself objectively. I know a lot of people who could never laugh at themselves. They’d get really, you know, mad if you laughed at them. Whereas me, if I did something stupid, I’d, like, always laugh at myself. Sometimes I may seem crazy, but I do. I think it’s important. I don’t think, like, you should always be laughing, but I think a good sense of humor is needed to get along. I think, you know, if you never had a sense of humor, I don’t think you could really survive in a world like this where so much bad news is always cropping up. And then I think it’s important to have, like, you know, like, a little time when you can laugh. That’s probably what I mean when I say, you know, to affect a lot of people at one time. Just something where you could take them away from the problems of the world for a little while, you know, through whatever medium or whatever. And just, you know,

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william damon give them time to forget the problems and everything. ‘Cause, I think, if you didn’t have that time there’d be a lot of insane people going around. . . . So I guess when I grow up I want to be Mother Teresa and Chevy Chase.

At age fifteen, Samantha ties together multiple parts of her self-identity with two pivotal and morally-charged ideas: honestly and devotion to the good of others. Samantha’s dedication to honesty gives moral meaning to her sense of her self as a nonconformist and to her sense of self as a budding humorist. Samantha’s honesty is the basis of her selfacceptance and her self-respect (“I like being honest, like with yourself and with everyone”;“if you cheat, you’re not, like, respecting yourself ”). As a moral value, honesty shapes Samantha’s judgments about others (“I don’t like people who aren’t honest . . .lying, is like—that’s how I’d label someone. If they lied, they would be a bad person to me”). Humor is important for Samantha primarily because it is a way of being honest with yourself (“I think you have to be able to, like, look at yourself and see something’s funny and, you know, laugh about it. I think that you’d be closer to yourself if you can laugh at yourself and view yourself objectively”). Humor is also a way of gaining perspective on problems. As part of her wish to “devote (myself) to the good of people,” Samantha hopes to help people see the humor in their predicaments. In the end, Samantha identifies a famous comedian (Chevy Chase) as one of her two chosen role models. The other is Mother Teresa— significantly, a devout religious figure as well as the world’s most widelynoted exemplar of charitable living in recent times. Samantha has noted the influence of religious belief on her own altruistic desires. Is likely that the structure of this religious belief has contributed to the systematic quality of Samantha’s self-understanding, but Samantha puts it all together in her own way. With her unique combination of descriptors and chosen identifications, Samantha joins the disparate strands of herself into a coherent and morally-centered sense of identity. Samantha is a well-educated child with extraordinary verbal intelligence. Her skill in articulating her self-reflections may suggest to the reader that the development of moral identity is a matter of education

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and verbal intelligence alone. If so, this is an incorrect impression that I wish to correct. In studies of children and adolescents growing up with relatively little formal schooling, we have found the same pattern of change in self-understanding, including the emergence of morally-based self descriptions during the adolescent years. For example, among youngsters living in an isolated Puerto Rican fishing village, we found age trends similar to those found in a Massachusetts middle-class community (Hart, Lucca-Izquierda, and Damon, 1986). In a study of youngsters living in disadvantaged conditions in an urban American setting, Hart and his colleagues found a number of “care exemplars” who had developed a sense of moral identity far above the norm of teenagers from the most privileged backgrounds (Hart and Fegley, 1995). I quote below from an interview with an African-American boy code-named David, taken from the study by Hart and his colleagues (Hart, Yates, Fegley, and Wilson, 1995, pp. 323–324).

david, age seventeen Interviewer: How would you describe yourself? David: I am the kind of person who wants to get involved, who believes in getting involved. I just had this complex, I call it, where people think of Camden as being a bad place, which bothered me. Every city has its own bad places you know. I just want to work with people, work to change that image that people have of Camden. You can’t start with adults because they don’t change. But if you can get into the minds of young children, show them what’s wrong and let them know that you don’t want them to be this way, then it could work because they’re more persuadable. Int.: Is there really one correct solution to moral problems like this one? David: Basically, it’s like I said before.You’re supposed to try to help save a life.

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william damon Int.: How do you know? David: Well, it’s just I mean, how could you live with yourself? Say that I could help save this person’s life; could I just let that person die? I mean I couldn’t live with myself if that happened. A few years ago my sister was killed and um I was um the night she was killed I was over at her house, earlier that day. And a few days before I was at her house too. I have said to myself, well maybe if I had spent the night at her house that day, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Int.: Okay. You said that you’re not a bad influence on others. Why is that important? David: Well I try not to be a bad role model. All of us have bad qualities of course; still, you have to be a role model even if you’re a person walking down the street.You know we have a society today where there are criminals and crooks. There’s drug users. Kids look to those people. If they see a drug dealer with a lot of money, they want money too; and then they’re going to do drugs. So it’s important that you try not to be a bad influence because that can go a long way. Even if you say oh wow, you tell your little sister or brother to be quiet so mom and dad won’t wake so you won’t have to go to school. And they get in the habit of being quiet (laugh), you’re not going to school, things like that. So when you’re a bad influence, it always travels very far. Int.: Why don’t you want that to happen? David: Because in today’s society there’s just really too much crime, too much violence. I mean everywhere. And um I’ve even experienced violence because my sister was murdered. You know, we need not to have that in future years; so we need to teach our children otherwise.

Like Samantha in her second interview, and every bit as determinedly, David constructs a theory of self that centers on moral concerns. The two youngsters’ moral concerns, and their particular self theories, differ

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from one another in many ways: Samantha focuses mostly on the saving powers of honesty and humility—personal virtues that she believes she should share with others—whereas David focuses on his wish to raise the standards of his community through direct action and good role-modeling. When David says “I am the kind of person who wants to get involved, who believes in getting involved,” he indicates that his self-identity is infused with his personal sense of responsibility for those around him. David takes on a general responsibility for the community (“I just want to work with people, work to change that image that people have of Camden”) and a special responsibility for younger members of the community (“I try not to be a bad role model”). Being a good role model is not a casual or arbitrary undertaking for David. He has thought carefully about why this is important for children’s development and for the civil life of the community. David’s sense of self revolves around his goal of improving community life by reducing crime and violence, and this goal leads David to his vision of himself as a redeemer of the town’s children: “ Even if you say oh wow, you tell your little sister or brother to be quiet so mom and dad won’t wake so you won’t have to go to school. And they get in the habit of being quiet, you’re not going to school, things like that. So when you’re a bad influence, it always travels very far. . . . Because in today’s society, there’s really too much crime, too much violence. . . .You know, we need not to have that in future years; so we need to teach our children otherwise.” Yet despite the differences in their particular moral concerns, Samantha and David share a number of characteristics when they speak about themselves: they both speak of firm moral commitments that provide them with purposeful directions in their lives. Their senses of “moral identity” establish for each of them a stabilizing perspective on the events of a world that could otherwise seem distressing and confusing. For both youngsters, this stabilizing perspective based on moral identity is at the heart of their budding wisdom. With her astute insights about humor, honesty, humility, trust, and adaptiveness, Samantha reveals an understanding of mental life that could do justice to any clinical psychologist. With his astute insights into processes of social influence and child development, David sounds a bit like a contemporary developmental and social psychologist.

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For both youngsters, it is the sense of moral identity that has led to the examination of these complex issues in such depth. Moral identity creates a framework of interpretation that not only enables a young person to think about personal events in a coherent manner but also suggests avenues for further exploration and questioning. It also triggers an affect-laden desire to become a person of virtue, thereby motivating the personal exploration and questioning. In these and other ways, moral identity sets the stage for the development of wisdom in the adolescent years. How do young people like Samantha and David acquire a moral identity? How do they construct a coherent sense of self built around an integrated set of self-identifications, moral ideas, purposes, and commitments? Fig. 14.2 offers a schematic account of the developmental processes responsible for the acquisition of moral identity. All children begin life with the rudimentary elements of morality, including the capacity for self-appraisal, social awareness, and morallytinged emotional reactions such as empathy. In addition, socialization and other forms of early experience lead to the acquisition of habits with moral significance (civility, self-control, rule-following, respect for authority, truthfulness, and so on). Social influence, opportunities for moral action, feedback on such action, and self-reflection can turn this collection of self-appraisals, insights, emotions, and habits into a coherent moral identity, as Fig. 14.2 indicates. I say “can turn” because this does not always happen: for a coherent moral identity to form, there must be some coherence in the social experience that provides the child with feedback, awareness, and guidance. Elsewhere, I have written about how multiple spheres of social influence can be either coherent or conflicting (Damon and Gregory, 1997; Damon, 1997). Only when there is at least a minimal level of moral coherence in a child-rearing community (a condition that I have called an implicit “youth charter”) is there a high likelihood that children who grow up there will form strong moral identities.This is not to say that it is impossible for a child to ever find moral coherence on his or her own, but rather that it is far more likely when the child receives consistent guidance. A youth charter can be based on common values, civic and religious traditions, a local, national, or cultural ethic, or on any set of moral stan-

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Self Concept (Multiple)

Moral Emotions

Moral Judgments

Moral Identity

Moral Responsibility

Habitual Moral Conduct

Reflective Moral Action

Expanded Moral Identity

Fig. 14.2. Elements of moral identity and moral action.

Extended Range of Habitual Moral Conduct Reflective Moral Action

dards that are broadly shared among the community of people who come in contact with the child. Studies have shown that children growing up in communities with clear youth charters tend to avoid antisocial behavior and engage in prosocial behavior to a greater extent than children in communities with low or conflicting standards, whatever the economic or demographic make-up of the community (Ianni, 1989; Damon, 1997). The sociologist Ianni, describing the results of his study of ten American communities—rural and urban, rich and poor—wrote,

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“We soon discovered that the harmony and accord among the institutions and what their adolescent members heard from them in concert was what scored the adolescent experience” (Ianni, 1989, p. 20). Ianni concluded that, for positive identity formation, every young person needs coherent structure, “. . . a set of believable and attainable expectations and standards from the community . . .”(Ianni, 1989, p. 267). Of course, the standards and expectations that the youth charter imparts inevitably reflect the moral traditions of the society. In this way, the structured guidance that the child receives facilitates the early acquisition of wisdom not only by helping the child achieve a coherent moral identity, but also by providing the child with substantive moral goals, values, and standards to live up to. In the end, though, wisdom is an active process, and the child must be an active agent in acquiring it. As Fig. 14.2 indicates, reflections about self and about moral action play an essential role at key junctures in the development of moral identity. For this reason, opportunities for reflection can be highly educative. Unfortunately, amidst the rush of modern life and the crazed clatter of our entertainment-driven culture, opportunities for reflection about self and morality are in scarce supply for many young people. When given such an opportunity, youngsters eagerly make use of it, as if starved for this kind of growth experience. Recently I read through some short essays that American teenagers had written for an essay contest initiated by the John Templeton Foundation. The rules of the annual contest require that students discuss the “laws of life” that they have learned.What is striking about the essays is how often they focus on students’ reflections about self and morality. No doubt the students make use of this activity to help them with that key developmental challenge of the adolescent years, the formation of moral identity. It is also striking that the essays sparkle with youthful wisdom, perhaps beyond what we might expect from the desultory popular view of teenagers these days.When young people are given a chance—along with the encouragement—to reach new levels of achievement and insight, they generally rise to the occasion (Damon, 1995). I close with a quote from an essay written by a fourteen-year-old boy for a “Laws of Life” contest. The words reveal the boy’s beginning formation of moral identity and the concomitant stirrings of early wisdom.

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I have realized that it is an obligation of mine, as well as all throughout society, to become a giver and at the same time a receiver. My personal responsibility, which I feel I have yet to achieve to my full potential, is simply the concept of giving as well as receiving on a moral level contrary to what is expected. . . . I will strive to be honest, loyal, courageous, and kind as I live my life, but the most important thing I can do for myself and others is to listen with my heart and understanding.

references Baltes, P.B. and Staudinger, U.M. (in press). Wisdom: A meta-heuristic (pragmatic) to orchestrate mind and virtue towards excellence. American Psychologist. Damon, W. (1995). Greater expectations: Overcoming the culture of indulgence in our homes and schools. New York: Free Press. Damon, W. (1997). The youth charter: How communities can work together to raise expectations for all our children. New York: Free Press. Damon,W. and Colby, A. (1996). Education and moral commitment. Journal of Moral Education, 25, 31–45. Damon, W. and Gregory, A. (1997). The youth charter: Towards the formation of adolescent moral identity. Journal of moral education, 26, 117–131. Damon, W. and Hart, D. (1988). Self-understanding in childhood and adolescence. New York: Cambridge University Press. Damon, W. and Hart, D. (1992). Self-understanding and its role in social and moral development. In M. Bornstein and M. Lamb (Eds.), Developmental psychology: An advanced textbook. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Erikson, E.H. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. New York: W.W. Norton.

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Hart, D. and Fegley, S. (1995). Prosocial behavior and caring in adolescence: Relations to self-understanding and social judgment. Child Development, 66, 1346–1359. Hart, D., Lucca-Izquierda, N., and Damon,W. (1986).The development of selfunderstanding in Puerto Rico and the United States. Journal of Early Adolescence, 6, 293–304. Hart, D., Yates, M., Fegley, S., and Wilson, G. (1995). Moral commitment in inner-city adolescents. In M. Killen and D. Hart (Eds.), Morality in everyday life: Developmental perspectives (pp. 317–341). New York: Cambridge University Press. Ianni, F. (1989). The search for structure: A report on American youth today. New York: Free Press. Nozick, R. (1989). The examined life: Philosophical meditations. New York: Simon & Schuster. Sullivan, M.L. (1989). Getting paid: Youth crime and work in the inner city. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Walker, L., Pitts, R., Hennig, K., and Matsuba, M. (1995). Reasoning about morality and real-life moral problems. In M. Killen and D. Hart (Eds.), Morality in everyday life: Developmental perspectives (pp. 371–407). New York: Cambridge University Press. West, C. (1992). Race Matters. Boston: Beacon Press.

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Lessons Learned: The Role of Religion in the Development of Wisdom in Adolescence James L. Furrow and Linda Mans Wagener

dolescence is commonly understood as a time of preparation for the serious work of adulthood. Yet, more and more this period of life is seen as a serious time in itself. The transition to adulthood is marked with an increasing array of challenges. Drug and alcohol abuse, sexual promiscuity with its attendant potential for pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, depression and suicide, eating disorders, school failure, and violence comprise a list of some of the more severe behaviors frequently associated with this developmental phase (Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, 1989). In the face of these deleterious risks there is far less room for the mistakes of youth and far greater pressure to make wise choices. The positive side of this developmental period lies in the opportunity for youth to develop ethics and goals for life that will bring meaning and purpose to their journey into adulthood. A number of scholars recognize that the unprecedented risks in the youth culture are associated with an increased exposure to dangerous behavior and a decreasing exposure to consistent standards (Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, 1989; Hamburg, 1990; Millstein, Peterson, and Nightingale, 1993; Wilson, 1993). For Wilson, the criminologist, the reduced exposure to standards is clear in the growing relativism that he observes in the college classroom. He finds that today’s students’ responses to moral dilemmas tend to focus on finding excuses

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for behavior, rather than examining an individual’s responsibility and consequences relative to his or her actions. Such responses to the dilemmas of moral choice reflect a logical outcome in the postmodern era of “normlessness,” relativism, and the primacy of individual perspectives. When an open mind and nonjudgmental acceptance of alternatives is valued over adherence to culturally prescribed standards, it is common for adolescents to be left without guidance about how to conduct their lives. Limited themselves in maturation, cognition, and life experience, they lack wisdom at a time in their lives when it is sorely needed. Adolescents are also less dependent upon the narrow confines of the child/parent relationship and increasingly subject to a cacophony of voices asserting influence on their world. Media and advertising executives have learned this lesson well as teens become an ever-increasing demographic “target.” Adolescents encounter social conditions and culture more directly than children and may do so without the translational buffer of the family.The value-mediating role, which the family fulfills, gives way to competing voices within a larger culture, which may or may not contribute to an adolescent’s well-being (Berger and Berger, 1983).Youth are vulnerable to risk-prone influence as they lack a fully developed identity and consequently often incorporate aspects of that culture more readily than do adults. This culture to which they turn can be characterized as normless, contradictory, and confusing. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz as she asks the scarecrow which road to follow to the Emerald City, adolescents are given little guidance. “Some people go that way,” he points. “Others try that way,” he says while pointing in the opposite direction. This is frequently the way “guidance” is offered to today’s youth. One sign says, “If it feels good, do it, get it while you can, think for yourself.” Another says, “Get into the right school, have plenty of extracurricular activities, make connections, network,” and yet a third reads, “be safe, obedient, good, follow the rules.” What is then the response to the adolescent need for wisdom in this risk-saturated and confusing culture? While wisdom is appropriately conceptualized as a later life stage acquisition, researchers like Damon (see chapter 14) provide support for its potentiality in adolescence. It is proposed that while wisdom is not endemic of youth, it is necessary for

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healthy development in a context of inconsistent standards and prevalent risks. Such a view requires attention to the individual and the social system that provides a context for the individual’s development. In this paper it is argued that one aspect of wisdom, namely restraint, can be identified among youth who avoid the common risks of adolescence. A model is offered, which suggests critical influences and resources are essential for the development of wise young people. This premise is considered specifically with respect to the role of religiousness in imparting and sustaining wise choices and behavior in youth. In advancing this argument wisdom is conceptualized as a socially shared body of knowledge and skills rather than as a trait of the individual. It includes not only “facts” but also skills of discernment and the exercise of judgment. It is attained through encounter with human history and experience.Therefore it reaches back beyond any one individual’s life span, beyond the experience of any one generation, or that of any one community. Wisdom is that domain of human experience that is concerned with the pragmatics of living. All the more important to adolescent development, it is wisdom that presents pragmatic guideposts for living against a context of transcendent meaning and purpose. Religion has traditionally been associated with wisdom in providing similar orientations. There are two areas of adolescence that have received much attention from researchers and theorists.The first is the area of adolescent risk (Jessor, Donavon, and Costa, 1991; Lerner, 1995; Resnick et al., 1997). From a risk perspective the principle concern is how to help youth make good decisions in order to keep them “safe.” Researchers seek to identify the difference between those kids who engage in risky behavior and those who abstain. Following this emphasis an examination of the role of restraint as a buffer to adolescent risk behavior is considered. A second domain of adolescent research highlights the importance of identity development. From Erickson (1968) through Damon (see Chapter 14) theorists describe the search for personhood that preoccupies youth; namely, how one can find an identity that gives structure and personal meaning to life. Similarly, in this paper an examination of the contribution of a religious identity as a resource to positive development is considered.The importance of religious identity as an aspect

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of development is often overlooked in developmental research. In this examination of restraint and religious identity, support for wisdom as a developmental resource is advanced.Wisdom offers guideposts for how to live a life of restraint. It also offers direction toward a life filled with meaning and purpose, giving both guidelines about the appropriate conduct of life and an understanding of the human condition. We would argue that access and exposure to sources of wisdom are necessary components of the network that supports healthy development. In other words, adolescents need to be embedded in a wise community that surrounds and exposes them to multiple sources of wisdom including wise adults, mentors, libraries, churches, youth leaders, and sensible peers. A community of wisdom helps youth close the gap between their current performance and their potentiality. This “scaffolding” can support youth in their behavioral choices prior to the time when they have developed the internal standards and identity that can guide them through critical choice points (Vygotsky, 1978).

developmental assets In examining the impact of access and exposure to wisdom among youth, an understanding of the developmental networks associated with healthy development must be considered. Benson (1997) proposed a framework for explaining positive human development among youth that is helpful in this regard. Based upon a review of relevant empirical findings in child and adolescent risk and resiliency research, Benson and his colleagues (1998) have identified forty assets as core developmental processes that are fundamental to socialization. These forty assets have been extensively described elsewhere (Benson et al., 1998). The Search Institute presents the assets as elements in a larger framework of eight different categories. Each category belongs to one of two primary domains.The domain of External assets includes the assets that are available from adults and community in the child’s world.The Internal asset domain describes assets that are associated with personal abilities, competencies, and self-perceptions that develop over time. A brief description of each of the asset categories and their corresponding domain is

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useful in understanding the relationship of these developmental assets to wisdom and youth

Support (External) An adolescent’s development is determined in part by the supportive relationships that surround a young person in his or her social network. Assets related to support reflect the adolescent’s awareness that he or she has fulfilling, supportive, and caring relationships with various adults in the family, school, and community. This includes an emphasis on the ways in which a young person experiences love, affirmation, and acceptance. Research studies have consistently shown the value of social support to the well-being of youth.The proximal nature of support suggests that its impact may be differential depending on the source of the support (e.g., family support versus neighborhood support).The significance of a particular source of support also appears to vary depending on the outcome being assessed. Studies of parental support have demonstrated association with reduced reports of risk activities including substance abuse, delinquency, and early sexual involvement (Bogenschneider, et al., 1997; St. Lawrence, et al., 1994). Supportive school environments have demonstrated associations with higher academic scores, school attendance, and sense of competence among children (Davis and Jordon, 1994; Goodenow, 1993). Supportive relationships within the community involve nonfamilial adults. Several studies indicate a positive association with prosocial behavior and school success, and an inverse relationship with reported risk behavior (Cochran and Bo, 1989; Coon et al., 1992; Sampson, et al., 1997; Levine and Rosich, 1996; Werner, 1993).

Empowerment (External) This category represents assets that identify the ways in which youth report that they are seen as valuable to their neighborhoods and communities. Students reporting high levels of empowerment believe that young people in their communities make a difference.The assets in this category focus on personal and social beliefs regarding youth and their

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potential to make a positive contribution to society. This category emphasizes the importance of the dual nature of caring (Chaskin and Hawley, 1994). Adults in the community support and invest in their youth, and the youth in turn recognize and support the concerns and rights of others in their community.The contribution of the empowerment assets in the lives of adolescents is evident in research findings that demonstrate gains in psychological indicators and declines in problematic behavior among youth in empowering communities. When youth report an awareness of value or possess a useful role in the community, they report greater self-esteem (Kurth-Schai, 1988), and a heightened optimism about the future (Kurth-Schai, 1988; Nettels, 1991).

Boundaries and Expectations (External) The assets in this category describe norms of social behavior. These norms provide clear signals about socially sanctioned behavior among youth. The assets represent an assessment of boundaries and positive influences that may be present in family, school, and neighborhood contexts. Attention is given to the impact of positive peer influence, the presence of adult role models, and the motivating expectations of parents and teachers in the young person’s life. Research studies have confirmed the contribution of several of these factors to increases in social and academic performance and decreases in problematic behavior. Numerous studies assessing the influence of parental supervision and neighborhood involvement demonstrate the consistent positive benefit of these assets to youth. These benefits include increased levels of academic achievement and motivation (Astone and McLanahan, 1991; Brooks-Gunn et al., 1993; Dornbush et al., 1987). They have also been linked to decreased reports of problem behaviors (Barber, 1996; Block et al., 1988; Patterson and Stouthamer-Loeber, 1984).

Constructive Use of Time (External) An adolescent’s involvement in constructive activities is positively related to social and emotional development. The Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development (1992) suggested that youth involvement in pro-

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ductive activities would limit exposure to risky situations and would foster development through the acquisition of social support and the reinforcement of socially sanctioned behaviors. Constructive use of time includes a youth’s participation in creative activities, youth programs, religious activities, and a limited amount of unstructured time at home. One of the emphases in this category is the increased exposure to and relationships with nonparental adults in these activities.There is a moderate correlation between a student’s report of extra-familial adult support and constructive use of time (r = . 30). Other research on adolescent behavior appears to validate the Carnegie Council’s assumptions regarding the importance of positively structured uses of time. Involvement in creative activities is associated with increases in selfesteem (Roberts, 1995), greater creativity (Conti et al., 1995), and academic achievement (Bergin, 1992). Youth participation in extracurricular activities is associated with gains in psychological development (Shaw et al., 1995), skill development (Brown, 1982; Dubas and Snider, 1993; Orr and Gobeli, 1986), and academic achievement ( Jarrett, 1994; Posner and Vandell, 1994). Religious involvement among youth has demonstrated an inverse effect upon risk-taking behavior (Burkett, 1977; Jensen et al., 1990; Kandel, 1980; Mulvey et al., 1997). Time at home with family is linked to lower rates of delinquency (Zitzow, 1990), and alcohol and drug use (Shilts, 1991).

Commitment to Learning (Internal) Positive development in adolescence is often measured in school-related performance. Social and academic progress is often evident in the school setting. The assets in this category characterize the student’s perception of his or her adaptation to school and its requirements. Included in this category are an emphasis on having a positive relationship to the school environment and evidence of student responsibility with regard to school tasks. Research studies show that a positive adjustment to and engagement with school is associated with gains in psychological, social, and desired behavioral outcomes. Studies have also shown that students with high achievement motivation report gains on psychological indicators and decreased involvement in risk behavior (Connell et al., 1995;

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Hay, 1993). Associations have been found between positive school adaptation and academic performance, and positive psychological development (Connell et al., 1995; Marsh, 1991; Paulson et al., 1990).

Positive Values (Internal) Six positive values represent this category. They reflect both personal character and prosocial values. Personal character is indicative of youth who express the importance of honesty, integrity, responsibility, and selfcontrol. Prosocial values emphasize more general concerns for social justice and equality. Studies of the influence of positive values offer support to the conclusion that these beliefs are related to positive developmental outcomes among youth. A positive value orientation is associated with increased academic ability (Hanson and Ginsburg, 1988; Wentzel, 1991), lower risk behaviors (Barnea et al., 1992; Donahue, 1987; Ford and Norris, 1993; Weinfurt and Bush, 1995), and positive psychological attributes (Eisenberg et al., 1991; Estrada, 1995; Johnson, 1993; Solomon et al., 1993).

Social Competencies (Internal) This category summarizes a student’s awareness and skills in relationship to the larger social sphere. These assets reflect a youth’s development of social skills and sensitivity to a multicultural world. These abilities include planning and decision-making, nonviolent conflict resolution skills, and the personal values of restraint and sensitivity to cultural differences. Adolescents who report having these assets are more likely to demonstrate an ability to exercise sound judgement and manage situations to increase the well-being of themselves and others (Peterson and Leigh, 1990). A review of research findings indicates broad support for the positive contribution of these social competencies and well-being in adolescence. It can be argued that social competence is as much an indicator of positive development as it is a predictor of it. Evaluation and research studies demonstrate a positive relationship of the development of these skills with positive outcomes among adolescents. Increases in decision-making skills are related to decreases in risk-taking behaviors

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(Moore and Gullone, 1996; Rogel et al., 1980). Interpersonal and cultural competencies are related to positive social adjustment and scholastic performance (Arroyo and Zigler, 1995; Elias et al., 1986). Several studies have identified the value of resistance skills and their association with lower risk-related behavior reported among youth (Donaldson et al., 1994; Iso-Ahola and Crowley, 1991; Rohrbach et al., 1987).

Positive Identity (Internal) Inherent in the goal of positive development is the recognition that a growing child will acquire a coherent sense of self-awareness.The assets associated with positive identity include emphases upon an awareness of personal attributes and the purposeful roles a child has within his or her world. Specific assets reflect a positive orientation toward self-description, personal purpose, self-efficacy, and future opportunities. The psychological benefits of a positive identity are self-evident. Numerous research efforts have concentrated on the positive relationship between a positive identity and academic success, although the role of a positive identity as a social intervention (i.e., promoting self-esteem) has not resulted in the robust outcomes expected. Findings related to personal efficacy, purpose, and a positive future suggest that adolescents possessing these attributes are more likely to demonstrate greater achievement in academic tasks (Bouffard-Bouchard et al., 1991; Karnes and McGinnis, 1996) and a reduced likelihood to participate in risk-taking behaviors (Allen et al., 1990).

developmental assets and risk behavior in youth The study of developmental asset patterns among middle school and high school students has demonstrated a protective influence in the lives of youth who are asset-rich. Benson and colleagues have shown the cumulative effects of developmental assets on involvement in self-reports of high-risk behaviors (Benson, 1997; Leffert et al., 1998). These results demonstrate that assets work together and their influence on risk may

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in fact represent a nonsummative influence. Comparisons across grade cohorts demonstrate a potential trend with declines in assets and increases in risk activities seen across each successively older cohort.These comparisons are based upon cross-sectional data and do not definitively represent differences across time. Leffert and colleagues (1998) demonstrated a differential influence of community strengths as predictors of a community risk indicator. We report here a partial test of the predictive value of assets on risk taking by youth. It is based upon these findings and observations that our exploration of wisdom, risk, and developmental assets begins.

developmental assets and wisdom among youth The protective influence of assets is seen clearly in the avoidance of high-risk behaviors by high-asset adolescents.The relationship between the presence of developmental assets and the absence of risky behavior in the lives of youth provides a means for understanding the impact of the social network on positive developmental outcomes. Avoidance of risk is both evidence of a student’s personal use of wisdom and an indication of the youth’s access to wisdom in his or her developmental context through the positive influence of adults, peers, and community

developmental resource scales As an extension of the Search Institute asset model a factor analysis was performed on the items in the Search Institute Profiles of Student Life: Attitudes and Behavior Survey, which is used to measure the forty assets. Survey responses from an aggregate sample of 99,462 adolescents were examined. The responses were compiled from students enrolled in the sixth through twelfth grades, who took the survey in the 1996–1997 academic year. The responses represent youth from 213 American cities and towns. The sample over-represents Caucasian youth from smaller cities and towns, whose parents have higher than average formal edu-

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cation. The youth completed the 156-item questionnaire, which measures each of the forty developmental assets, as well as twenty-four highrisk behaviors and a number of other constructs. Risk-related behaviors included items indicative of substance abuse, sexual intercourse, antisocial behavior, violence, suicide, and gambling. Reported Risk Behavior (RRB) was measured by the total number of risk behaviors endorsed by the student. Low scores on this scale are indicative of low risk, while high scores indicate that the student reports participating in several high risk activities. A factor analysis of the asset items produced sixteen factors. Each factor was analyzed for internal consistency. Some items were removed to improve the reliability of each scale. Fourteen of the sixteen scales demonstrated moderate to strong reliability coefficients (a = .62–.85).Table 15.1 illustrates the relationship between the eight asset categories, conceptualized by the Search Institute, and the fourteen-factor scales used in this study. The final column lists the actual developmental assets represented in each factor scale. While all items related to each of the forty assets were included in the exploratory factor analysis, only twenty-eight of the assets were retained in the summated scales. While the fourteen factors provide conceptual support for the eight-category model proposed by the Search Institute (Benson, 1997, Leffert et al., 1998, Scales and Leffert, 1999), the factors do not adequately represent the forty-asset model proposed by the Search Institute. Findings in this paper are based upon the fourteenfactor scales, which from this point on will be termed Developmental Resource Factors. An examination of the predictive utility of these Developmental Resource Factors to the avoidance of risk by youth was conducted through a multivariate regression procedure (OLS). Several demographic variables were regressed upon Reported Risk Behavior in the initial step as a control for the potential confounding influences of age, family compositions (e.g., single parent), and parental education. The fourteen resource scales were then entered using a stepwise procedure. The model explained 60 percent of the variance of Risk Reported Behavior (R2 = .60; F = 6550.97, p