From the Acquisition of Knowledge to the Promotion of Wisdom

Dear Colleagues,

The world is currently beset with global problems that threaten our future: the climate crisis; destruction of the natural world, loss of wild life, mass extinctions; pollution of earth, sea and air; lethal modern war; the menace of nuclear weapons; deranged politics assisted by the internet; and the pandemic (spread by modern travel). Some hold that all these global problems have been made possible by the extraordinarily successful pursuit of modern science and technology dissociated from a more fundamental concern to help humanity resolve conflicts and problems of living in more cooperatively rational ways, so that we may begin to make progress towards a better, wiser world. Are universities today, devoted as they are to the acquisition of knowledge, doing all that they might to help humanity solve our grave global problems? Or, do universities need to change, perhaps quite radically? If so, what changes need to be made, and how would these changes help? Do universities need to give intellectual priority to the task of helping humanity both discover, and do, what needs to be done to solve our urgent problems of living so that we may make progress to a wiser world? If so, what implications would this have for the social sciences and the humanities? What implications would it have for the way in which the university is related to the rest of the social world? What are the implications for education? How might natural science be affected?  Is the basic intellectual aim of science to acquire knowledge of truth? Or, are there problematic assumptions concerning metaphysics, values, and politics inherent in the aims of science, which need scrutiny and improvement as science proceeds? Is academic inquiry, as at present constituted, genuinely rational in seeking to help promote human welfare? Could the basic aim of academic inquiry be to promote wisdom?

It is hoped that contributions to this Special Issue of Philosophies will explore questions such as these about how universities ought to be helping humanity solve global problems, and thus make progress towards a good, civilized, wise world.

Mr. Nicholas Maxwell
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Philosophies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.