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  3. The quest for wisdom is as old as Socrates, but it’s also an up-to-the-minute economic indicator. A contrarian one: when things

The quest for wisdom is as old as Socrates, but it’s also an up-to-the-minute economic indicator. A contrarian one: when things

admin2019-09-30  92
问题     The quest for wisdom is as old as Socrates, but it’s also an up-to-the-minute economic indicator. A contrarian one: when things are going well, you don’t have to go searching for wisdom. It streams nonstop over CNBC, its avatars sit atop, the Forbes list of billionaires and each day it proves again the eternal truths of the free market. Then in due course things go to hell; the elites humbly confess their ignorance to Congress or a grand jury, and the search for new patterns begins.
    Tellingly, scholars date the modem scientific study of wisdom to the work of the American psychologist Vivian Clayton in the malaise-ridden 1970s. Clayton devised the first empirical tests for wisdom, which she defined as the ability to acquire knowledge and analyze it both logically and emotionally-picking up on the work begun by Socrates.
    So it’s no coincidence that several dozen researchers in fields ranging from neuroscience to art, music and law have just received wisdom-seeking grants under the auspices of the University of Chicago. The $2.7 million program, funded by the Templeton Foundation, is called Defining Wisdom, a name that implies the researchers will know what they were looking for once they find it. Wisdom, according to Robert J. Sternberg of Tufts University, the author of several books on the topic, is still an obscure field with minimal academic cachet.
    With so much at stake, the program’s directors, psychologists John Cacioppo and Howard Nusbaum, dismissed the traditional approach to wisdom research; rather they cast their nets wide and deep into the pools of academy. The 38 proposals they approved include ones aimed at finding wisdom in computer operations and in classical literature. Starting at the beginning, one scholar observes that "language is the medium by which wisdom-related knowledge is usually conveyed." That sounds self-evident, but another scientist proposes to "explore music as a form of wisdom." "We are trying to think out of the box," says Nusbaum.
    Cacioppo and Nusbaum dismiss arguments about the inherent circularity of searching for wisdom at the same time as defining it. But they have some preconceptions about what they expect to find. They see "wisdom" in part as a corrective to the "rational choice" pattern of decision making, the foundation of free-market economics. Rational choice holds that everyone’s happiness is best served when people maximize their short-term individual gains, even at the expense of the broad interests of society or the long-term future. That is precisely opposite the approach of, for example, ants, which are entirely indifferent to their individual fates and don’t, as a rule, over-expand out of reckless greed.
Which can be inferred from the first paragraph?
选项 A、The quest for wisdom is an old-fashioned economic indicator.
B、When things proceed smoothly, people don’t need to go searching for wisdom.
C、Billionaires listed on the Forbes are demonstrating the profits of free market.
D、In the long run, all the wealthiest individuals will confess their ignorance.
答案B
解析 推理判断题。定位到第一段。本段第二句提到“当一切进展顺利时，你不必去追求智慧”，B项意思与之吻合。
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