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In a sense, knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows:  for details are swallowed up in principles.  The details of knowledge which are important will be picked up ad hoc in each avocation of life, but the habit of the active utilisation of well understood principles is the final possession of wisdom.

A.N. Whitehead, The Aims of Education, [ANW, 46]

<p>In a sense, knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows:  for details are swallowed up in principles.  The details of knowledge which are important will be picked up ad hoc in each avocation of life, but the habit of the active utilisation of well understood principles is the final possession of wisdom.</p>

cited in S.R. Covey, First Things First, [CMM, 71]

<p>A.N. Whitehead, ''The Aims of Education'', [ANW, 46]<br>

cited in S.R. Covey, ''First Things First'', [CMM, 71]</p>

If I reflect on my own POV, it becomes evident that the critical focus and main interest of this inquiry is on the kinds of inquiry that cross a certain threshold, that of becoming deliberately conducted and critically controlled.  But in order to remain critical and reflective I have to be interested in both sides of this distinction.  This is the usual pattern of the circumspect transition that I just personified in the form of the JE.  But here it seems to lead to the disconcerting conclusion that reason is founded on unreason, and that this reason is justified by the end that it leads to, not by the state that it starts in.  This sounds ominous and dangerous, but I think that the difficulties it raises are partly verbal, the fault of ambiguities that are quick to right themselves on reflection, but more seriously, partly due to misleading theory of what constitutes a foundation, a theory that tends to be applied on the modern scene as an uncritical reflex of that very same and everyday modern POV.

If I reflect on my own POV, it becomes evident that the critical focus and main interest of this inquiry is on the kinds of inquiry that cross a certain threshold, that of becoming deliberately conducted and critically controlled.  But in order to remain critical and reflective I have to be interested in both sides of this distinction.  This is the usual pattern of the circumspect transition that I just personified in the form of the JE.  But here it seems to lead to the disconcerting conclusion that reason is founded on unreason, and that this reason is justified by the end that it leads to, not by the state that it starts in.  This sounds ominous and dangerous, but I think that the difficulties it raises are partly verbal, the fault of ambiguities that are quick to right themselves on reflection, but more seriously, partly due to misleading theory of what constitutes a foundation, a theory that tends to be applied on the modern scene as an uncritical reflex of that very same and everyday modern POV.

One thing is apparent:  If reflective inquiry, based on the rationality of the intellectual share of reason, addresses instinctive inquiry, based on the sensibility of the affective, emotional, and motivational portion, as something wholly other, indeed, as its logical opposite, then it obstructs the eventuality and even precludes the possibility of discovering their compatibilities and continuities, and it interferes with the chances of seeing how each form of inquiry completes and extends the other.

One thing is apparent:  If reflective inquiry, based on the rationality of the intellectual share of reason, addresses instinctive inquiry, based on the sensibility of the affective, emotional, and motivational portion, as something wholly other, indeed, as its logical opposite, then it obstructs the eventuality and even precludes the possibility of discovering their compatibilities and continuities, and it interferes with the chances of seeing how each form of inquiry completes and extends the other.

====5.3.2. The Light in the Clearing====

====5.3.2. The Light in the Clearing====