Q&A: Intellect
Intellect
Question
It sounds from Maimonides like intellect is the key to everything: it makes you a better person, helps you conduct yourself in the world more correctly (and thus be "under providence"), and it also seems to me—at least by implication—to make a person more emotionally and psychologically stable.
There is also what Socrates says: that once you fully understand something intellectually, you will also act accordingly, and if you act otherwise that is a sign that you did not fully understand it intellectually (although Plato disagrees with him).
On the other hand, there is the saying, "He who increases knowledge increases pain"…
And more generally, I am not sure how much this stands the test of reality—are smarter people necessarily better as people as well, in terms of character traits, and do they necessarily have a healthier psyche?
Thanks in advance!
Answer
There is a conflation here of several levels that do not necessarily go together. The question whether it is beneficial for mental health and the question whether it makes me a better person are different questions. "He who increases knowledge increases pain," and in the popular phrasing: no brains, no worries—this is usually a true saying. But that does not mean that there is an ideal of being stupid. See Column 62.
Discussion on Answer
Ignoramuses are not more righteous but more stupid. Sometimes they adhere more to Torah and commandments because they are not aware of ways around things and of doubts.
As for mental health, I have no idea. That is a question for a psychologist. It makes him more complete. Goodness is a moral matter, not an intellectual one.
Yes. That is why I put "more righteous" in quotation marks, but I only meant to say that in this case the statement "more knowledge, more pain" is not correct, because knowledge allows more flexibility within Torah, and so it often allows less pain…(ways around things / leniencies…)
I agree that good is a moral matter, but a moral matter also involves an intellectual aspect.
After all, morality is no small field in philosophy—to understand what the definition of the good is, which values take priority in different cases, and so on.
Though that is a kind of wisdom that also involves emotion, unlike, for example, a scientist…
Morality is not connected to emotion. But usually it is the result of systematic thinking, and there is not necessarily an advantage to high intelligence. Sometimes maybe yes, in complicated and confusing cases.
I read it, thanks! (In the column there is an emphasis that ignoramuses are "more righteous," but actually that usually increases their pain, because they are more stringent.)
I would be glad if you could relate to and say what you think regarding the two questions: whether wisdom and developing the intellect are beneficial for mental health, and whether that makes a person better.