{"id":3876,"date":"2023-08-12T10:07:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-12T15:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/educationalrenaissance.com\/?p=3876"},"modified":"2023-09-17T13:06:44","modified_gmt":"2023-09-17T18:06:44","slug":"the-counsels-of-the-wise-part-6-a-pedagogy-of-prudence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/educationalrenaissance.com\/2023\/08\/12\/the-counsels-of-the-wise-part-6-a-pedagogy-of-prudence\/","title":{"rendered":"The Counsels of the Wise, Part 6: A Pedagogy of Prudence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At this point in our series, we have established prudence or practical wisdom as a Christian and classical goal of education<\/a>. We have also laid out several paths toward prudence, seeds really, which must be sown in early youth in order to reap the full flowering of practical wisdom in students\u2019 more mature years. Among these seeds are proverbial instruction<\/a>, good habits, exemplars, discipline and practice<\/a>. Even with all this we have yet to lay out a specific method for instilling prudence itself. In what sort of thought process does the capacity for prudence consist?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To answer this question we must return to Aristotle\u2019s definition of prudence itself, borrow from Charlotte Mason\u2019s \u201cway of the will,\u201d and consider educational activities that align appropriately with the nature of practical wisdom. These three pieces will enable us to develop a pedagogy of prudence, through which, with God\u2019s help and the student\u2019s voluntary learning, we can pass on prudence to the young.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Defining Traits of Prudence<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his Nicomachean Ethics <\/em>book VI Aristotle\u2019s main goal is to illuminate the nature of phronesis<\/em> or practical wisdom. In fact, he addresses the other four intellectual virtues (artistry, intuition, scientific knowledge, and philosophic wisdom) mainly in order to define more precisely what prudence is by comparison with other species of the overarching category or genus, intellectual virtue. This makes sense given the fact that it is a treatise on ethics, and so intended to clarify how we are to live in the world. Prudence itself involves the deliberate choices that would lead to a good life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In one place, Aristotle defines practical wisdom as \u201ca state involving true reason, a practical one, concerned with what is good or bad for a human being\u201d (Reeve, Aristotle on Practical Wisdom<\/em>, 56; VI.5 translation). It is not simply having good habits but involves the reasoning faculty of a human being, directed particularly at things that are good or bad for us as human beings. Practical wisdom is therefore not concerned, strictly speaking, with what objectively happened in the past or with what might happen in the future or elsewhere, but which has no immediate relevance to us. \u201cNothing that happened in the past, however, is deliberately chosen\u2013for example, nobody deliberately chooses to have sacked Troy\u201d (Reeve, 50; VI.2). It is concerned with those things that might benefit or harm us as human beings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this way, practical wisdom differs from scientific or theoretical knowledge, which makes truth claims about the world regardless of their relationship to us. Nevertheless, there is an analogy between them. As Aristotle explains, \u201cWhat assertion and denial are in the case of thought\u2013that, in the case of desire, is precisely what pursuit and avoidance are\u201d (Reeve, 48; VI.2). Prudence causes us to pursue or avoid things, whereas knowledge simply asserts or denies. This is precisely what makes practical reasoning practical<\/em> in Aristotle\u2019s thinking<\/a>; it is the type of thinking that we engage in as doers, actors in the world. Therefore, our desires and our deliberate choices are involved in the experience of practical wisdom.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Way of the Will<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

These two companions (desire and deliberate choice) might be said to make practical wisdom what it is. But they are uneasy companions even in the best of times. And that is because our desires are often in conflict with one another and with reason. As the apostle James says, \u201cWhat causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel\u201d (4:1-2a ESV). This is why, for Aristotle, the moral virtues are a necessary precursor to practical wisdom, because if a person\u2019s desires are entirely corrupt, he is not able to reason correctly about what is good for himself. His vision is so blurry, so obscured we might say by the log in his own eye, that he cannot see with any clarity what would in fact be good, either for himself or anyone else.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Charlotte Mason, a British Christian educator from the turn of the last century, offers the \u201cway of the will\u201d as a guide to moral \u201cself-management.\u201d Being aware of our conflicting desires and able to manage them through deliberate choice is part and parcel of what prudence consists of. She explains this explicit instruction that children should be given in order to fortify their wills in vol. 6 Towards a Philosophy of Education<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Children should be taught (a) to distinguish between \u2018I want\u2019 and \u2018I will.\u2019 (b) That the way to will effectively is to turn our thoughts away from that which we desire but do not will. (c) That the best way to turn our thoughts is to think of, or do some quite different thing, entertaining or interesting. (d) That after a little rest in this way, the will returns to its work with new vigour. (ch. 8<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

We might add on to Mason\u2019s categories here by helping our students understand that they often want not one thing but many different things, and that part of becoming wise is not listening to only one of those voices, those competing desires, at any one time. We are prudent if we hear them each out in turn, think through the options rationally to discern what is best for us, and then choose with our will. And at the same time, as we will<\/strong> to follow one particular desire, we stop our ears to the others through tactics like diversion. (I have discussed this tactic and another like it, pre-committment) at some length in a two-part series entitled “Educating for Self-Control”: 1) A Lost Christian Virtue<\/a>, 2) The Link Between Attention and Willpower<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the moral virtues that are a necessary prerequisite to Aristotle\u2019s course on prudence he names specifically temperance (sophrosune<\/em> in Greek), noting that it is called this because it saves or preserves (sozousan<\/em>) the person\u2019s practical wisdom (ten phronesin<\/em>; see Reeve, 58; VI.5). The temperate and wise man has a strong will, in Mason\u2019s terminology, to be able to resist the suggestions of wayward desires. Of course, our ultimate goal is that a person would desire the right things in the right way and to the right degree. The moral virtues help set the desires straight on things that are actually good for you as a human being and at a degree that is appropriate. But in this life, we know as Christians, we will still struggle against the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life. And so, we must strive for temperance and prudence, baptized by charity, at one and the same time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what is the central work of prudence itself? What does it take to will<\/strong> correctly with regard to human good? For Aristotle, the mental act of deliberation is highlighted as the key activity of a prudent person:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Practical wisdom, however, is concerned with human affairs and what can be deliberated about; for of a practically wise man we say that this most of all is the function, to deliberate well, and nobody deliberates about what cannot be otherwise or about the sorts of things that do not lead to some specific end, where this is something good, doable in action. The unconditionally good deliberator, however, is the one capable of aiming, in accord with calculation, at the best, for a human being, of things doable in action. (Reeve, 64; VI.7)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Deliberation then is the golden key that unlocks the door of a prudent life. A wise person must be able to think through options, calculate the respective values of different human goods, and accurately choose the best course of action.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Training the Powers of Deliberative Reasoning<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Aristotle this deliberation or consultation will take the form of what we might call deliberative or practical syllogisms. They will know fundamental or categorical principles of what is good for human beings (the universal or major premise), and then they will also know the particular facts of this or that situation (particular or minor premise), leading them to reason: <\/p>\n\n\n\n