Bad Philosophy, the Climate Crisis, and Other Global Problems

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 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 the climate crisis and other global problems that need to be resolved if we are to make progress to a better world—one in which there is peace, democracy, justice, liberty, and sustainable prosperity, for all. We urgently need to bring about a revolution in universities around the world, 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—a kind of academic inquiry rationally devoted to helping humanity create a wiser world.