Overview

In order to make progress towards a better world we need to learn how to do it. And for that we need institutions of learning rationally designed and devoted to helping us solve our global problems, make progress towards a better world. It is just this that we lack at present. Our universities pursue knowledge. They are neither designed nor devoted to helping humanity learn how to tackle global problems - problems of living - in more intelligent, humane and effective ways. That, this book argues, is the key disaster of our times, the crisis behind all the others: our failure to have developed our institutions of learning so that they are rationally organized to help us solve our problems of living - above all, our global problems. Having universities devoted almost exclusively to the pursuit of knowledge is a recipe for disaster. Scientific knowledge and technological know-how have unquestionably brought great benefits to humanity. But they have also made possible - even caused - our current global crises, above all the impending crisis of global warming. In this lucid and provocative book, Nicholas Maxwell argues convincingly that we need urgently to bring about a revolution in universities round the world so that their basic aim becomes wisdom, and not just knowledge.

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9781845405731

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Thirty years ago, Nicholas Maxwell first argued that our universities must be rationally designed and devoted to helping us learn how to solve our problems of living. In the intervening years it has become more, not less, urgent that we take up his challenge. -- Julian Baggini editor-in-chief The Philosophers' Magazine This book begins by acknowledging that today most people lead longer and healthier lives than previous generations, primarily as a result of 'knowledge-inquiry', mainly in universities. Perversely, the result is ever-expanding populations, pressing against the limits to growth on a finite planet. Maxwell gives a good case for addressing these problems by universities putting much greater emphasis on 'wisdom-inquiry'. It is a timely and interesting idea. I think the book deserves a wide readership. -- Professor Lord Robert May Oxford University Which ideal matters more to us, knowledge or wisdom? Nicholas Maxwell has long fought staunchly for wisdom in this debate, and in this book he once more points out shrewdly how much our universities need to learn this lesson. It's to be hoped that this time they are listening! -- Mary Midgley Nicholas Maxwell argues that in order to address the problems of global society, we must transform our universities. At UCL we fully agree and we have already made such changes central to our 2011 Research Strategy 'Delivering a Culture of Wisdom'. Our UCL Grand Challenges programme, which has so far involved more than 250 academics, is putting these ideas into practice. -- David Price Vice-Provost of Research, UCL

Author Information

Nicholas Maxwell is Emeritus Reader in Philosophy of Science at University College London. Previously, he taught philosophy of science in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at UCL for nearly thirty years. Much of his teaching and research has been devoted to arguing that we need to bring about a revolution in academia so that it comes to seek and promote wisdom and does not just acquire knowledge. He has published six books on this theme.

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