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Universities have long been dominated by a philosophy of inquiry that may be called knowledge-inquiry. This holds that, in order to do justice to the basic humanitarian aim of helping to promote human welfare, academic inquiry must, in the first instance, seek knowledge and technological know-how. First, knowledge is to be acquired; once acquired, it can be applied to help promote human welfare. But this philosophy of knowledge-inquiry is an intellectual and humanitarian disaster. It violates three of the four most elementary rules of rational problem solving conceivable, and as a result fails to give priority to the task of helping humanity resolve those conflicts and problems of living, such as the climate and nature crises, that need to be resolved if we are to make progress to a better world - a world in which there is peace, democracy, justice, liberty, and sustainable prosperity, for all. Very few academics today are aware of this rationality scandal. We urgently need to bring about a revolution in universities around the world, wherever possible, so that academic inquiry puts all four rules of rational problem solving into practice, and becomes rationally devoted to helping humanity learn how to make progress towards a better world. Knowledge-inquiry needs to become wisdom-inquiry, rationally devoted to helping humanity create a wiser world.
List of contents
1. Bad Philosophy, the Climate Crisis, and other Global Problems.- 2. Bad Academic Philosophy Responsible for Global Problems.- 3. The Post-Cartesian Blunder, and The Failure to Develop Philosophy as Critical Fundamentalism.- 4. The Post-Newtonian Blunder, and The Failure to Develop Aim-Oriented Empiricism.- 5. The Post-Enlightenment Blunder, and the Failure to Develop Academic Inquiry so as to Become Rationally Devoted to Helping Humanity Create a Civilized World.- 6. What We Need to Do.- 7. Appendix 1 How to Solve Hume's Problem of Induction.- 8. Appendix 2 How Aim-Oriented Empiricism Would Benefit Science.
About the author
Nicholas Maxwell is Emeritus Reader at University College London. He has devoted much of his working life to arguing we need to bring about a revolution in academia so that it comes to seek and promote wisdom and does not just acquire and apply knowledge. He has published fifteen books on this theme.
Summary
Universities have long been dominated by a philosophy of inquiry that may be called knowledge-inquiry. This holds that, in order to do justice to the basic humanitarian aim of helping to promote human welfare, academic inquiry must, in the first instance, seek knowledge and technological know-how. First, knowledge is to be acquired; once acquired, it can be applied to help promote human welfare. But this philosophy of knowledge-inquiry is an intellectual and humanitarian disaster. It violates three of the four most elementary rules of rational problem solving conceivable, and as a result fails to give priority to the task of helping humanity resolve those conflicts and problems of living, such as the climate and nature crises, that need to be resolved if we are to make progress to a better world – a world in which there is peace, democracy, justice, liberty, and sustainable prosperity, for all. Very few academics today are aware of this rationality scandal. We urgently need to bring about a revolution in universities around the world, wherever possible, so that academic inquiry puts all four rules of rational problem solving into practice, and becomes rationally devoted to helping humanity learn how to make progress towards a better world. Knowledge-inquiry needs to become wisdom-inquiry, rationally devoted to helping humanity create a wiser world.
