The challenges of intellectual

[zakkiromeo]

First of all, hello...I'm new here..and well, I suppose I'm taking advantage here a bit, but I sort of need help. I'm just finishing a philosophy course and we have to hand in an essay on what my teacher calls intellectual challenges.

Now, I'm not asking anybody to write this for me or something equally...monstrous, just wondering if anybody has some good ideas or references or something. Anyways, here's what my assignment is:

1. Identify the most important intellectual challenge of our time.

* Clarification: By ”intellectual challenge” we mean a challenge that calls for WISDOM rather than new invention or discovery as a solution to this challenge.
* (We are not interested in proposals that state that the most serious challenge of our time is pollution and the solution to this problem is a technological device called ”polution eraser” the mechanisms of which are yet undiscovered. This kind of solution is just more pollution )

2. Explain why this challenge is the most important one.
3. Identify the group that faces this challenge and bears the responsibility for dealing with it.
4. Propose a solution to this challenge or a strategy of dealing with this challenge and explain why it is, in your opinion, the best solution to this challenge.

I was thinking of writing about peace, and how the lack of, well, morals and ethics makes us unable to communicate and accept eachother (my mother belives the lack of communication is one of the main reasons behind discrimination and lack of acceptance).

So I was reading up on Kant and uhm... Hobbes, who both had some rather negative views on human nature....o.o and I was thinking of making a comparison between them and then maybe make some references to Moore's Utopia, since that kind of extreme seems impossible and unacceptable as well...

And well...yes, I'm rather stuck, because while they mention ethics, I don't have enough background on why we can't be peaceful or how we could become peaceful (communication issues aside).

So, any ideas? Is there perhaps some obscure philosopher I neglected who might've had some opinion on the subject?

Thanks and oh, sorry if this doesn't make a lot of sense, it's almost 2 am, but I was so happy I found a decent forum that actually doesn't talk only about anime or whatever, that I had to post...................
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[Cunninglinguist]

HI, welcome to LitNet!

The "most important" "intellectual challenge" of our time... That rather depends on what one deems as "most important," too. Conceptions undoubtedly vary widely. What comes to my mind first is the religion debate, i.e. the atheists vs. the theists. But all in all, while it is a hot contemporary issue, there's an argument to be made that its content is not all that important and Dawkins is just taking out that he was abused by a trusted religious official as a boy or that he never got enough hugs from his mother on the church. Plus, all the atheists in your class will (predictably) be entertaining that theme anyways. Perhaps, cleverly, you ought to say that the most important challenge we face today is elucidating the most important challenge...or, rather, the second most important; propose potential candidates, and justify one. Then identify the group and so forth...

[cyberbob]

I would say the different economic/political ideologies such as capitalism, socialism, fascism, communism have caused the biggest conflicts of modern times.

They usually encompass other intellectual problems like racism, sexism, issues of freedom and morality, science vs religion etc. and since there's no clear answer as to which if any is right, they're usually grounds for some of the most heated, idealistic debates.

[The Atheist]

1. Identify the most important intellectual challenge of our time.

I find that ridiculously easy to answer.

Why are critical thinking skills not valued/How can we encourage all humankind to use critical thinking?

If we look at the physical challenges facing the world, top of the list is clearly climate change, yet people refuse to accept the valid science put forward to support the threat. People are selfish and gullible, always ready to jump on some pseudoscientific claptrap that suits their agenda.

Critical thinking involves thinking outside of one's personal experiences, biases and agendas.

Which is probably why we don't do it much.

:D

[The Atheist]

What comes to my mind first is the religion debate, i.e. the atheists vs. the theists.

Maybe theists differ, but I'd call it the least-important intellectual issue facing mankind. It's light entertainment, not an issue of any gravitas.

[jajdude]

1. Identify the most important intellectual challenge of our time.

Tough one. I would reckon serious human problems are not intellectual. If they are, then how can they be solved, or resolved, with the same thing that causes them? If I am the problem, how can I solve myself?

Perhaps the divisions people create with their various beliefs and urges for an identity cause a lot of grief. If one must be a Christian or Muslim, an American or a Chinese, and give these things psychological weight, division and conflict will ensue. So maybe the urge for psychological security, which probably does not exist, is at the root of much human suffering.

--just a bit of amateur philosophy...

[Cunninglinguist]

Maybe theists differ, but I'd call it the least-important intellectual issue facing mankind. It's light entertainment, not an issue of any gravitas.

I would generally agree -- I wouldn't call it the least important...We have other topics in philosophy for that...I think it first came to my mind because that day, yesterday, I had read MLK's Letter from Birmingham Jail, which has many religious elements in it, and then subsequently watched a TED presentation by Dawkins where he employed a great deal of rhetoric to defend his thesis that we are too respectful of everyone else.

[oshima]

What I view as the most important intellectual challenge is somewhat related to The Atheist's issue. Our world is flummoxed, overrun, besieged by an overabundance of information, in all the infinite senses of the word. Whether it be ideology, methodology, culture, etc., one must develop and way of disentangling what is useful, "good", or beautiful, from the glut of information (again, in the broadest sense of the word) in order to find their way though the quagmire of sign attempting to grab attention/demand adherence. The only tools I can imagine one can use navigate these labyrinths are critical inquiry and the necessary time needed to cultivate a critical consciousnes

Why this is important is fairly obvious, I think, but if anyone needs wants me to state why, I will.

However, I think most human beings, whether it be circumstances or disposition, are not really interested in developing this kind of perspective in a practical way, mainly because it takes time, energy, and patience, and really one never stops adjusting their methodology as they get older (or so I hope). Also, it can be so easy to get caught up in learning the information others have left behind without internalizing it in a useful way. I can read as much Plato, Nietzsche, Suze Orman, Noam Chomsky, J.K. Rawling (jk), as I want, but unless I can internalize it and apply it usefully (define that however you like), I can fool myself into believing I'm wise, when at best I'm simply erudite.

[Ecurb]

"Should Barry Bonds be elected to the Hall of Fame?"

Personally, I say, "Yes."

This has replaced the burning issue of 60 years ago, which was, "Which New York centerfielder is the best, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, or Duke Snider?"

I just read a biography of Mantle that I got for Christmas. Former teammate Clete Boyer was asked how much better Mantle would have been if he had not injured his knees. "How much better COULD anyone have been?" answered Boyer. Nonetheless, I'm a Mays backer.

[Ecurb]

I stand by my previous answer -- but here's another one:

Our modern concepts of reality have undergone fundamental changes, and we seek new ways of dealing with them. First, reverence for (and belief in) the past has been shaken. Science looks not to the past, but to the future. “Predictions” are the sin qua non of knowledge – which is strange – as if astrology had suddenly become more epistemologically acceptable than astronomy. Philosophically, this is in part due to a reverence for science, and in part due to changing conceptions of time. Educated people no longer see time as universal or linear. Instead, it is “relative”. “Eternalism” suggests that the past, the future and the present are distinct only conceptually, rather than in reality.

Memory – and its twins history and myth – are denigrated as shifty and uncertain. The future is more important -- even more "real" or "true" -- than the past. This is a significant change in world-view, and we haven’t quite learned to cope with it yet.

[injunuity]

Why this is important is fairly obvious, I think, but if anyone needs wants me to state why, I will. .

id like to read what you think about that, if you feel like arranging the words.