Knowledge without wisdom

I don't think it would have all got me quite so down if just once in a while—just once in a while—there was at least some polite little perfunctory implication that knowledge should lead to wisdom, and that if it doesn't, it's just a disgusting waste of time! But there never is! You never even hear any hints dropped on a campus that wisdom is supposed to be the goal of knowledge. You hardly ever even hear the word "wisdom" mentioned!

J. D. Salinger (Franny and Zooey)

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Let's face it; wisdom has an image problem. As far as the popular media are concerned, it is the province of ghost whisperers, extraterrestrials—think Mr Spock the Vulcan—and wizened kung-fu sages ("The body is the arrow, the spirit is the bow, Grasshopper").

Wise people are portrayed as old, alien and weird and bookish, risk-averse and unemotional. As La Rochefoucauld said, "old people delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer set bad examples." No wonder the pearls of wisdom of the old are routinely ignored by the impetuous young.

Youth thirsts for new experiences; it's in their nature to take chances and follow their hearts. Wisdom just gets in the way. "Fools rush in where wise men never go," says the old song. "But wise men never fall in love, so how are they to know?"

You might imagine that universities hold a different view; they are in the wisdom business, after all. Well, you might think this, but you would be wrong. Every type of knowledge—massage therapy, homeopathy, even circus performing appear in university catalogues—but "wisdom" is rarely mentioned.

It was not always like this. At least in its religious version, wisdom was central to the medieval university, and its importance persisted right down to John Henry Newman's day. But wisdom is no longer on the curriculum; skills have replaced it. Today's universities are mainly concerned with preparing students for a career. Newman called such practical learning "a deal of trash", but surely he was wrong. There is nothing wrong with vocational training; a fulfilling career is vital for a good life.

Much of my academic work over the years has been devoted to career preparation. I was once a Dean of Medicine, and there are few more vocational courses. Our students were bright but narrowly focussed on their career goals. It's easy to see why. Studying philosophy does not make it any easier to remove a prostate gland; reading Galen sheds little light on curing pneumonia. As far as our students were concerned, time spent on subjects not directly related to a doctor's daily work was time wasted.

It's easy to empathise with the medical students. Their education is long, arduous and expensive. Why add to its length and cost with apparently irrelevant subjects? If some doctors want to study history, literature and philosophy, they can take them up when they retire and have time for such frivolity. Focusing on practical skills makes sense from the students' vantage point, but it demeans the purpose of universities. Of course, we must prepare graduates for what they will do in life, but we must also help them think about what kind of people they wish to be.

Indeed, these two educational goals are inextricable. No one would argue that a deep knowledge of philosophy makes surgeons better at removing a prostate. But it might deepen their empathy and improve their understanding of what constitutes a high-quality life, both of which could help them to decide whether to remove the prostate in the first place.

It's not just doctors who could benefit from a broader education.

Studying drama would not help financiers devise the complicated financial instruments that cause periodic economic crises. But, if they were familiar with Faust, they may have thought twice about the consequences of their actions.

Being able to quote Shelley will not help politicians get elected (certainly not in my country of Australia), but studying Ozymandias might make them more humble and thoughtful about their accomplishments.

As I write these words, I can imagine the raised eyebrows of my academic colleagues. A generation of graduates familiar with the great works of history, philosophy and literature is a wonderful vision, but reading widely does not guarantee wisdom. They are correct. Reading, by itself, will not make anyone wise. Experience is also required. As Odysseus learns on his journey back to Ithaca, some important lessons can only be learned the hard way—through bitter experience. Nothing has changed. Youth start out with sex, drugs and rock and roll; with maturity, they eventually come to appreciate the Delphic prescription "nothing to excess".

There is a problem, however. Experience, alone, cannot guarantee wisdom any more than reading can. The lessons of life are only available to those who are ready to learn them. If wisdom is the goal, then students must "Walk 10,000 miles, Read 10,000 books," said 17th-century Chinese philosopher Gu Yanwu. In other words, becoming wise requires not just having adventures but a cultured mind that is open, ready and able to absorb the lessons that experience teaches. Pasteur famously said that "Chance favours the prepared mind", and our job as university academics is to take his words seriously.

To prepare students to learn from experience, we need to go beyond vocational training. Life, death, love, beauty, courage, loyalty—our modern vocational curricula omit all of these. Yet, when it comes time to sum up our lives, they are the only things that ever really matter. On Ash Wednesday, the priest admonishes the faithful to "remember, that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return." A helpful reminder of what we all have waiting for us. In the meantime, like the Preacher in Ecclesiastes, we spend our years trying to find meaning in our lives.

It is easy to fall into the pit of nihilism, to consider life "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing". But before we let our students reach this conclusion, we should at least try to provide them with the intellectual foundation they need to make such a judgement. In the few years they are with us, we should not only teach students the state of various arts, we should also be concerned with the state of their hearts.

It is not easy for universities to go against the utilitarian flow, but we have to try. As Flannery O'Connor wrote in a letter to a friend, "You have to push as hard as the age that pushes against you". It's time we once again started hearing the word "wisdom" on campus.

This article, in other forms and versions, appeared in the Times Higher Education Supplement (London), the Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian.