Understanding
Other names:
Intuition
Definition:
Applied intuition: Ability to grasp the first principles relevant in the specific case; "the right estimate about some final principle, which is taken as self-evident" (II-II q. 49 a. 2)
Pure intuition: The habit of grasping the first principles that underly all of reality; "...the habit that perfects the intellect for the consideration of such truth is called "understanding," which is the habit of principles" (II-II q57 a2)
Advice:
"spend 15 to 30 minutes each day on focused thinking" (Corley #3)
Empirical Research:
Case examples:
Gifts of the Spirit:
Further reading:
Vices opposed:
Negligence, "a lack of due solicitude stemming from a lack of a prompt will" (Freddoso)
Inconstancy (or irresoluteness), "withdrawal from a definite good purpose stemming from the passion of desire" (Freddoso)
Inconstancy (or irresoluteness), "withdrawal from a definite good purpose stemming from the passion of desire" (Freddoso)
Case Study
ReplyDeleteIn her autobiography, Tough Choices, Carly Fiorina explains how her engagement with philosophy in college helped her to cultivate the intellectual virtue of understanding, which she would ultimately apply to her business career. "Among the most valuable classes I took was a graduate seminar called Christian, Islamic and Jewish Political Philosophies of the Middle Ages. Each week we had to read one of the great works of medieval philosophy: Aquinas, Bacon, Abelard. These were huge texts—sometimes we were reading a thousand pages a week. And by the end of the week we had to have distilled their philosophical discourse into two pages.
"For me the process would begin with writing twenty pages. Then I’d edit to ten, then five and finally two. I finally would get to a two-page, single-spaced paper that I hoped didn’t merely summarize, but rendered all the fat out of a body of ideas, boiling it down to the very essence of its meaning. Two pages were not an easy, superficial abstraction of a work; they were the distillation of all the details of a work. Certainly the philosophies and ideologies left a deep impression on me, but the rigor of the distillation process itself, the exercise of mental refinement, the ability to say clearly in two pages what previously had been said in twenty—all were important new skills. Invariably I learned that I understood the text much better when I finished this process than when I’d begun. Without knowing it at the time, I was developing an important management tool: how to understand and get from a seemingly overwhelming amount of information to the heart of the matter. And I was learning a leadership lesson: understanding and communicating the essence of things is difficult, takes a lot of thought, and has a big impact." (Fiorina, Tough Choices, ch.1)