Wisdom
is the ability to think and act using knowledge, experience, understanding,
common sense, and insight.Wisdom has been regarded as one of four cardinal
virtues; and as a virtue, it is a habit or disposition to perform the action
with the highest degree of adequacy under any given circumstance. This implies
a possession of knowledge or the seeking thereof to apply it to the given
circumstance. This involves an understanding of people, objects, events,
situations, and the willingness as well as the ability to apply perception,
judgement, and action in keeping with the understanding of what is the optimal
course of action. It often requires control of one's emotional reactions (the
"passions") so that the universal principle of reason prevails to
determine one's action. In short, wisdom is a disposition to find the truth
coupled with an optimum judgement as to what actions should be taken.
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Contents
1 Definitions
2 Philosophical perspectives
3 Educational perspectives
4 Psychological perspectives
5 Sapience
6 Religious perspectives
6.1 Ancient Egypt
6.2 Bahá'í Faith
6.3 Buddhism
6.4 Christianity
6.5 Confucianism
6.6 Hinduism
6.7 Islam
6.8 Judaism
6.9 Taoism
6.10 Others
7 See also
8 References
9 External links
9.1 Resources
Definitions[edit]
The Oxford English Dictionary defines wisdom as
"Capacity of judging rightly in matters relating to life and conduct;
soundness of judgement in the choice of means and ends; sometimes, less strictly,
sound sense, esp. in practical affairs: opp. to folly;" also
"Knowledge (esp. of a high or abstruse kind); enlightenment, learning,
erudition." Charles Haddon Spurgeon defined wisdom as "the right
use of knowledge". Robert I. Sutton and Andrew Hargadon defined the
"attitude of wisdom" as "acting with knowledge while doubting
what one knows".
Philosophical perspectives[edit]
The ancient Greeks considered wisdom to be an
important virtue, personified as the goddesses Metis and Athena. Athena is said
to have sprung from the head of Zeus. She was portrayed as strong, fair,
merciful, and chaste. To Socrates and Plato, philosophy was literally the
love of Wisdom (philo-sophia). This permeates Plato's dialogues, especially The
Republic, in which the leaders of his proposed utopia are to be philosopher
kings, rulers who understand the Form of the Good and possess the courage to
act accordingly. Aristotle, in his Metaphysics, defined wisdom as the
understanding of causes, i.e. knowing why things are a certain way, which is
deeper than merely knowing that things are a certain way.
The ancient Romans also valued wisdom. It was
personified in Minerva, or Pallas. She also represents skillful knowledge and
the virtues, especially chastity. Her symbol was the owl which is still a
popular representation of wisdom, because it can see in darkness. She was said
to be born from Jupiter's forehead.
Wisdom is also important within Christianity.
Jesus emphasized it. Paul the Apostle, in his first epistle to the
Corinthians, argued that there is both secular and divine wisdom, urging
Christians to pursue the latter. Prudence, which is intimately related to
wisdom, became one of the four cardinal virtues of Catholicism. The Christian
philosopher Thomas Aquinas considered wisdom to be the "father" (i.e.
the cause, measure, and form) of all virtues.
In the Inuit tradition, developing wisdom was one
of the aims of teaching. An Inuit Elder said that a person became wise when
they could see what needed to be done and do it successfully without being told
what to do.
Educational perspectives
Truth and Wisdom assist History in writing by
Jacob de Wit, 1754
Public schools in the US have an approach to
character education. Eighteenth century philosophers such as Benjamin Franklin,
referred to this as training wisdom and virtue. Traditionally, schools share
the responsibility to build character and wisdom along with parents and the
community.
Nicholas Maxwell, a contemporary philosopher in
the United Kingdom, advocates that academia ought to alter its focus from the
acquisition of knowledge to seeking and promoting wisdom, which he defines as
the capacity to realize what is of value in life, for oneself and others. He teaches that new knowledge and technological know-how increase our power to
act which, without wisdom, may cause human suffering and death as well as human
benefit. Wisdom is the application of knowledge to attain a positive goal by
receiving instruction in governing oneself.
Psychological perspectives
Psychologists have gathered data on commonly held
beliefs or folk theories about wisdom. These analyses indicate that
although "there is an overlap of the implicit theory of wisdom with
intelligence, perceptiveness, spirituality and shrewdness, it is evident that
wisdom is a distinct term and not a composite of other terms." Many,
but not all, studies find that adults' self-ratings of perspective/wisdom do
not depend on age. This stands in contrast to the popular notion that
wisdom increases with age, supported by a recent study showing that
regardless of their education, IQ or gender, older adults possess superior
reasoning about societal and interpersonal conflicts. In many cultures the
name for third molars, which are the last teeth to grow, is etymologically
linked with wisdom, e.g., as in the English wisdom tooth. In 2009, a study
reviewed which brain processes might be related to wisdom.
Researchers in the field of positive psychology
have defined wisdom as the coordination of "knowledge and experience"
and "its deliberate use to improve well being." With this
definition, wisdom can supposedly be measured using the following criteria.
A wise person has self-knowledge.
A wise person seems sincere and direct with
others.
Others ask wise people for advice.
A wise person's actions are consistent with
his/her ethical opinions.
Measurement instruments that use these criteria
have acceptable to good internal consistency and low to moderate test-retest
reliability (r in the range of 0.35 to 0.67).
John Vervaeke has argued for a cognitive science
of wisdom and argues that basic relevance realization processes that underlie
cognition, when fed back onto themselves and made self-referential lead to the
enhanced insight abilities we associated with wisdom.
Dr. B. Legesse et al., a neuropsychiatrist at
McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School, offers "a theoretical definition
that takes into account many cultural, religious, and philosophical themes is
that wisdom represents a demonstrated superior ability to understand the nature
and behavior of things, people, or events." He states "this results
in an increased ability to predict behavior or events which then may be used to
benefit self or others." He furthermore adds "there is more often a
desire to share the accrued benefits with a larger group for the purpose of
promoting survival, cohesion, or well-being of that group. The benefits do not
result from malicious or antisocial intents or inequitable behavior.
Environmental factors, such as family, education, socioeconomic status,
culture, and religion, are involved in generating the milieu in which the
personal value system develops. Many of these same factors also influence how a
given community decides whether wisdom is present or not. This model of wisdom
relies on the individual’s ability to generate a mental representation of the
self (cognitive, emotional, and physical), the external world, and the dynamic
relationship of the self with the external world." Dr. Legesse proposes
that "the neural (brain) systems critical to enable these functions are
distributed but heavily dependent on those that support memory, learning,
understanding other people’s mental states (Theory of Mind), and assigning
relative value to information." The neuroanatomy of wisdom he says depends
on "the three frontosubcortical neural networks, the limbic system, and
the mirror neuron system" which "are of particular importance for
supporting these activities." He describes the function of this neural
system as working "in concert to weigh and estimate the risks and benefits
of various mentally modeled courses of action to generate wisdom." It was
proposed that "the neural substrates of empathy may be conceptualized as
biasing the information processing network in favor of valuing others,
interpersonal communication, cooperation.
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