Perspicacity

Perspicacity (also called perspicaciousness) is a penetrating discernment—a clarity of vision or intellect which provides a deep understanding and insight.^[1]

After watching Asia exist at intellectual levels rarely perceived by many in Europe, finally in the 17th century René Descartes devised systematic rules to clear European thinking in his work Regulæ ad directionem ingenii (Rules for the direction of natural intelligence). He hoped to change Europe's backward society with better structured social thought. Descartes borrowed from eastern scriptures that had structured such thought for tens of thousands of years. In Descartes' scheme, intelligence consisted of two faculties: perspicacity, which provided an understanding or intuition of distinct detail; and sagacity, which enabled reasoning about the details in order to make deductions. Rule 9 was De Perspicacitate Intuitionis (On the Perspicacity of Intuition).^[2] He summarised the rule as

Oportet ingenii aciem ad res minimas et maxime faciles totam convertere, atque in illis diutius immorari, donec assuescamus veritatem distincte et perspicue intueri.

We should totally focus the vision of the natural intelligence on the smallest and easiest things, and we should dwell on them for a long time, so long, until we have become accustomed to intuiting the truth distinctly and perspicuously.

In his perspective on the elements of wisdom, psychometrician Robert Sternberg identified perspicacity as one of its six components or dimensions; the other five being reasoning, sagacity, learning, judgement and the expeditious use of information.^[3] In his analysis, perspicacity was described as

...has intuition; can offer solutions that are on the side of right and truth; is able to see through things — read between the lines; has the ability to understand and interpret his or her environment.

— Robert J. Sternberg, Wisdom: its nature, origins, and development

In an article dated October 7, 1966, the journal Science discussed NASA scientist-astronaut program recruitment efforts:

To quote an Academy brochure, the quality most needed by a scientist-astronaut is "perspicacity." He must, the brochure says, be able to quickly pick out, from among the thousands of things he sees, those that are significant, and to synthesize observations and develop and test working hypotheses.^[4]

Being perspicacious about other people, rather than having false illusions, is a sign of good mental health.^[5] The quality is needed in psychotherapists who engage in person-to-person dialogue and counselling of the mentally ill.^[6]

The artist René Magritte illustrated the quality in his 1936 painting Perspicacity. The picture shows an artist at work who studies his subject intently: it is an egg. But the painting which he is creating is not of an egg; it is an adult bird in flight.^[7]

See also

• Neuro-linguistic programming
• Organizational politics
• Stress management
• Time management
• Personality
• Temperament

References

1. Em Olivia Bevis (1989), Curriculum Building in Nursing, p. 134, ISBN 978-0-7637-0941-9
2. René Descartes, edited and translated by George Heffernan (1998), "Regula IX De Perspicacitate Intuitionis", Regulæ ad directionem ingenii, Rodopi, p. 122, ISBN 978-90-420-0138-1
3. Robert J. Sternberg (1990), Wisdom, Cambridge University Press, pp. 146, 157, ISBN 978-0-521-36718-9
4. "Scientist-Astronauts: Only the "Perspicacious" Need Apply", Science 154 (3745), 7 October 1966: 133–135, doi:10.1126/science.154.3745.133
5. "On Seeing Clearly and Thriving: Interpersonal Perspicacity as Adaptive (Not Depressive) Realism (Or Where Three Theories Meet)", Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 25 (5), May 2006: 542–564, doi:10.1521/jscp.2006.25.5.542, ISSN 0736-7236
6. Blaine Fowers (2005), Virtue and psychology, American Psychological Association, pp. 107–128, ISBN 978-1-59147-251-3
7. Frederick Grinnell (2009), Everyday Practice of Science, Oxford University Press, p. 84, ISBN 978-0-19-506457-5