What is wisdom?

Amanda Jackson5 said:To me, wisdom is basically just thinking and acting the right way—both in theory and in practice. Of course, that immediately opens a massive can of worms regarding what "right" actually means, but I’d argue it’s simply whatever aligns with the truth or the fundamental concept of good.

Honestly, I could never wrap my head around that logic. Truth and "the Good" aren't even in the same ballpark; they aren't related, they didn't grow up together, and they certainly don't walk the same path. There is no point in linking them. "The Good" is strictly a matter of human perspective—outside of our own view, talking about it is pointless. Truth, on the other hand, is entirely superhuman (and frankly, quite inhuman). If "truth" starts depending on our individual perspectives, then we can say with certainty that it isn't truth at all. Whether wisdom should target the absolute truth or focus solely on the human condition is entirely up to you.

bluemason3 said:There's really no point in comparing different species, let alone comparing inanimate objects to living things.

A person who is too dim to survive is definitely not wise.

Didn't the tortoise outsmart the hare and win the race?

If a meteor hits you in the head and kills you, is the guy standing two feet further away any wiser than you were...

Ethan Gomez82 said:Hardly.

We should probably start by defining what wisdom isn't. It certainly isn't drawing connections where none exist, nor is it failing to see connections that clearly do. People tend to trip over both mistakes. As for what wisdom actually *is*, we can't even begin to discuss it until we agree on a definition—which, let’s be honest, is nearly impossible. Some link it to knowledge and deep insight, others to ethics, and so on. Let everyone hold their own opinion; there's no point splitting hairs when we already know we won't reach an agreement and will just end up shouting our own monologues at each other.

We don't need to sit around "agreeing on a definition." You can't separate deep insight from ethics—it's impossible. Just look at anyone throughout history who was actually considered wise; they all shared the same core. Every single one of them was viewed as both a good person and an expert on the things that actually matter. Wisdom is simply where theory meets practice—where the truth aligns with what's good.

Ethan Gomez82 said:Hardly.

We should probably start by defining what wisdom isn't. It certainly isn't drawing connections where none exist, nor is it failing to see connections that clearly do. People tend to trip over both mistakes. As for what wisdom actually *is*, we can't even begin to discuss it until we agree on a definition—which, let’s be honest, is nearly impossible. Some link it to knowledge and deep insight, others to ethics, and so on. Let everyone hold their own opinion; there's no point splitting hairs when we already know we won't reach an agreement and will just end up shouting our own monologues at each other.

Broadly speaking, knowledge might be viewed as a mere collection of interconnected data points. Wisdom, however, transcends that by incorporating ethics—and, if I may venture an opinion, intuition as well. Ethics are fundamentally inseparable from empathy (unless, of course, one is a dualist who believes such things originate from some "otherworldly" realm, which you, given the established themes of your work, most certainly are not).

boldsailor32 said:Does this "idea" of good depend on the scope of the sage's environment—where they apply their wisdom practically—or perhaps the environment where they live mentally and spiritually?

Could someone be considered a sage within specific frameworks:

- Themselves
- Their family
- Their clan
- Their clan
- A spiritual community
- A religious community
- A business corporation
- A nation
- A state
- A continent (socially speaking)
- A planet
- The universe
- The Multiverse
- Beyond the bounds of space and time

🤔

The recommendations advocated by ancient Greek sages, as cited by Simplicity, remain valid today. Similarly, the guidance offered by King addresses how to live an "upright life," explaining how an ethical person acts in specific situations. Despite being millennia old, these principles remain relevant, requiring only minor adjustments to fit our modern society. It follows that—at least within human society—wisdom possesses a certain universality that transcends culture, nation, and even time.🙂

feralranger said:Broadly speaking, knowledge might be viewed as a mere collection of interconnected data points. Wisdom, however, transcends that by incorporating ethics—and, if I may venture an opinion, intuition as well. Ethics are fundamentally inseparable from empathy (unless, of course, one is a dualist who believes such things originate from some "otherworldly" realm, which you, given the established themes of your work, most certainly are not).

Deep insights don't necessarily have anything to do with ethics unless that's specifically what they're addressing. You can't really link wisdom to any other personality trait; you can't identify it by anything other than the wisdom itself. A wise person could be a total recluse or the life of the party; they could be an extrovert broadcasting their views or an introvert keeping them to themselves. They might be practical and use what they know, or completely impractical and let it go to waste. Honestly, a wise person can be anyone—including someone who isn't wise at all. But, like I said before, it's all about perspective. You could view it as a form of social intelligence. In that case, a wise person might be somewhat dim-witted in many other areas. Personally, I wouldn't call those people wise, but if others do, that's fine. It all depends on where you set your focus and what you value most.

Ethan Gomez82 said:Deep insights don't necessarily have anything to do with ethics unless that's specifically what they're addressing. You can't really link wisdom to any other personality trait; you can't identify it by anything other than the wisdom itself. A wise person could be a total recluse or the life of the party; they could be an extrovert broadcasting their views or an introvert keeping them to themselves. They might be practical and use what they know, or completely impractical and let it go to waste. Honestly, a wise person can be anyone—including someone who isn't wise at all. But, like I said before, it's all about perspective. You could view it as a form of social intelligence. In that case, a wise person might be somewhat dim-witted in many other areas. Personally, I wouldn't call those people wise, but if others do, that's fine. It all depends on where you set your focus and what you value most.

Could you please define what you mean by "profound insights"?

Aside from that, the qualities you described in the latter half of your thought sound more like mere cunning to me. Cunning doesn't require empathy, whereas true wisdom certainly does. If my reasoning holds, there would have to exist some sort of "wisdom belonging to an egocentric swine," but to my ears, that sounds like a total oxymoron; I simply cannot decouple wisdom from empathy.

Joseph Murphy10 said:The Greeks put Socrates on trial, and honestly? The guy was such a genius that he basically saw the death penalty as a triple win. First, he finally got away from those shallow, cheap, shady, and straight-up moronic crowds. Second, he finally escaped his loudmouthed, angry, and total nightmare of a wife—Xanthippe. And third—the best part—he didn't have to deal with the misery of getting old. Seriously, smartest guy to ever live.

That’s exactly why Spinoza was so sharp—he skipped the marriage and dodged that whole university grind.

So, smart-ass Abelard wanted to teach at some big-shot university—you know, chase that prestige and glory—and he goes and marries Heloise. Now look at him. He totally blew it and lost his junk in the process.

Just something to think about.

Bravo, Sailor. Honestly, if we’re looking at wisdom through the lens of Western philosophy, you’ve hit on a solid starting point.

What I find wild today is how wisdom has basically "dropped out" of the conversation as a central subject in modern philosophical debates, even though—like you and a few others mentioned—it used to be the whole damn point.

Back in ancient Greece, wisdom was one of those big four virtues or human excellences (aretai), sitting right there alongside justice, temperance, and courage, making it the main focus of probably every single epistemological debate you could imagine. But long before Socrates or Plato ever showed up, you already had this whole genre of wisdom literature popping up in places like Egypt—think about the famous Ptahhotep's instructions or whatever you want to call them.

And don't forget the Far East, specifically China. If you really want to get into the weeds, comparing Chinese wisdom to Greek wisdom, or even Jewish and Egyptian traditions, gets pretty deep. The whole concept of what "wisdom" actually is has undergone this massive evolution and transformation from ancient times, through the early and middle ages, all the way to right now. In Western culture, the wisdom literature of the Jews played a huge, undeniable role—and I’m not just talking about the canon stuff like Job, Solomon's story, and Psalms, but even some of the apocryphal works too. But nowadays, whether it's fair or not, wisdom has been swapped out for something else entirely. I haven't a clue what it is. 😁

boldsailor32 said:Does this "idea" of good depend on the scope of the sage's environment—where they apply their wisdom practically—or perhaps the environment where they live mentally and spiritually?

Could someone be considered a sage within specific frameworks:

- Themselves
- Their family
- Their clan
- Their clan
- A spiritual community
- A religious community
- A business corporation
- A nation
- A state
- A continent (socially speaking)
- A planet
- The universe
- The Multiverse
- Beyond the bounds of space and time

🤔

To get things rolling, you have to realize that dialectical thinking is basically built on the marriage of the universal and the particular. If you look at this through that lens, the concept of "the good" is a solid, universal idea—it’s a metaphysical category that stays constant regardless of how much space you occupy. But, obviously, figuring out how to actually *do* good in a specific moment, right here and right now, depends entirely on your surroundings. That’s just the particular side of the coin. Every single concept is really just a three-way intersection: it’s the self (the universal), the other (the particular), and the fusion of both (the individual). So, if you’re looking at this from a dialectical standpoint, you can’t claim an idea relies solely on the general or strictly on the specific; it’s tethered to both simultaneously. You can't pull them apart because truth itself lives in the tension between those two aspects.

boldsailor32 said:Does this "idea" of good depend on the scope of the sage's environment—where they apply their wisdom practically—or perhaps the environment where they live mentally and spiritually?

Could someone be considered a sage within specific frameworks:

- Themselves
- Their family
- Their clan
- Their clan
- A spiritual community
- A religious community
- A business corporation
- A nation
- A state
- A continent (socially speaking)
- A planet
- The universe
- The Multiverse
- Beyond the bounds of space and time

🤔

Yeah.

Ethan Gomez82 said:Honestly, I could never wrap my head around that logic. Truth and "the Good" aren't even in the same ballpark; they aren't related, they didn't grow up together, and they certainly don't walk the same path. There is no point in linking them. "The Good" is strictly a matter of human perspective—outside of our own view, talking about it is pointless. Truth, on the other hand, is entirely superhuman (and frankly, quite inhuman). If "truth" starts depending on our individual perspectives, then we can say with certainty that it isn't truth at all. Whether wisdom should target the absolute truth or focus solely on the human condition is entirely up to you.

Truth belongs to the realm of the ideal just as much as Goodness does. In fact, the entire concept of truth is built upon the relationship between the subject and the object. You see this clearly in pretty much any standard definition of what truth is.
The reason you aren't seeing the necessary link between truth and goodness (which are also tied to beauty) is likely because you haven't quite grasped the underlying metaphysical categories and how they interact—it’s basically an argument from ignorance, where one claims something isn't true simply because it hasn't been personally recognized as such.
When you suggest that something is merely a matter of human perspective, what you're actually implying is that it belongs to an ideal mode of existence. Those aren't the same thing.
The fundamental thing to realize is that truth is a product of knowledge. From there, you have to look at the connection between knowing and acting—that is, the bridge between the theoretical and practical sides of an idea. You might find it easiest to think of Goodness as rationality (the ideal sphere) transitioning into objectivity (the real sphere). Put another way, goodness only truly exists when the subjectivity and objectivity of an idea are in sync; essentially, it happens when that which was previously just a thought or a directed will finally becomes an objective, physical reality:

"Goodness is rationality seeking realization, or rationality functioning as an end goal. Just as pure objectivity is insufficient to constitute truth, pure subjectivity is insufficient to constitute goodness if it lacks a corresponding determination of objectivity."

(Erdmann: Outline of logic and metaphysic, p. 243)

Hegel puts it even more pointedly and comprehensively:

"The Idea, as a process, moves through three distinct stages during its development. The first form is life—the Idea in its state of immediacy. The second stage involves mediation or differentiation, where the Idea emerges as cognition or knowledge, appearing in a dual form as both theoretical and practical ideas. The process of cognition eventually results in a renewed unity, now enriched by that previous differentiation, which yields the third stage: the Absolute Idea. This is the final stage of the logical process, revealing itself as the only entity that truly exists through its own essence."

("Encyclopedia" Logic, p. 158)

feralranger said:Could you please define what you mean by "profound insights"?

Aside from that, the qualities you described in the latter half of your thought sound more like mere cunning to me. Cunning doesn't require empathy, whereas true wisdom certainly does. If my reasoning holds, there would have to exist some sort of "wisdom belonging to an egocentric swine," but to my ears, that sounds like a total oxymoron; I simply cannot decouple wisdom from empathy.

The meaning of any concept is dictated by how people communicate it. How else? A wise person usually communicates with extreme shrewdness and intelligence, so that's what the term implies. Like many other terms, this one is poorly defined, so once you get into the weeds, everyone ends up thinking something slightly different. Of course, egocentric pigs can be wise. Even you can find a bit of wisdom among politicians. Criminals can be wise, too. They are the ones who are so skilled and calculated—who weigh every variable and anticipate exactly what their pursuers are thinking so they never get caught. You can't pin them down; they're just too smart (both clever and wise). It isn't an oxymoron to me. Wisdom isn't a virtue; it’s just a quality, much like strength or speed. Everything depends on how you choose to use it.

@Amanda Jackson5

That is an utterly flawed philosophy—the exact kind of reasoning that leads people to dismiss philosophy as nothing more than "beating a dead horse."

For instance:
It remains an undeniable truth that the Nazis murdered Jews in gas chambers. Any rational human being understands that this is an absolute evil. Truth and morality are not, in any way, causally linked. Evil can be just as truthfully existent and enacted... as good can be. And quite often, unfortunately, it is.

We could probably just touch upon this briefly, without getting bogged down in a deep dive, but it’s worth noting that pretty much every philosopher throughout history has recognized how truth and goodness are fundamentally intertwined. Take Plato, for instance; he argued in his work on the republic that the Good serves as both the source and the ultimate goal of all knowledge. Then you have Aristotle, who maintained that everything naturally gravitates toward what is good, essentially defining "good" as that which is desirable. If we want to take a page out of Wittgenstein’s book, we might say a "good" knife is simply one that functions as a true knife—it actually fulfills the very concept of what a knife is supposed to be. Even in Scholastic metaphysics, there was this idea that if something exists, it is inherently good; goodness was considered one of those four transcendental properties of being, alongside oneness, truth, and beauty.

Ethan Gomez82 said:The meaning of any concept is dictated by how people communicate it. How else? A wise person usually communicates with extreme shrewdness and intelligence, so that's what the term implies. Like many other terms, this one is poorly defined, so once you get into the weeds, everyone ends up thinking something slightly different. Of course, egocentric pigs can be wise. Even you can find a bit of wisdom among politicians. Criminals can be wise, too. They are the ones who are so skilled and calculated—who weigh every variable and anticipate exactly what their pursuers are thinking so they never get caught. You can't pin them down; they're just too smart (both clever and wise). It isn't an oxymoron to me. Wisdom isn't a virtue; it’s just a quality, much like strength or speed. Everything depends on how you choose to use it.

You are conflating cunning with wisdom. While egocentric swine might certainly be cunning, we would never deign to call them 'wise.' If wisdom were merely a synonym for what you're describing, then the word 'cunning' wouldn't even need to exist in our lexicon, yet we require both. That subtle, vital distinction lies squarely in the realm of empathy. A truly wise person marries exceptional intelligence with profound humanity (for which empathy is an absolute prerequisite).

Cunning is ethically and empathetically 'neutral'; it can be deployed for either good or evil. Wisdom, however, is not a potential "tool" for evil, but rather its antithesis.

Ethan Gomez82 said:The meaning of any concept is dictated by how people communicate it. How else? A wise person usually communicates with extreme shrewdness and intelligence, so that's what the term implies. Like many other terms, this one is poorly defined, so once you get into the weeds, everyone ends up thinking something slightly different. Of course, egocentric pigs can be wise. Even you can find a bit of wisdom among politicians. Criminals can be wise, too. They are the ones who are so skilled and calculated—who weigh every variable and anticipate exactly what their pursuers are thinking so they never get caught. You can't pin them down; they're just too smart (both clever and wise). It isn't an oxymoron to me. Wisdom isn't a virtue; it’s just a quality, much like strength or speed. Everything depends on how you choose to use it.

The problem is, the meaning of words shifts so much that you can't just rely on whatever some random person on Twitter thinks or whatever slang is trending this week to define anything. Honestly, you’d think philosophers would at least have the decency to stay aware of how easily the words they use can be twisted or weaponized.

ruggedraven36 said:Look, they gave him an out—letting him propose his own fine. His friends were ready to bankroll whatever amount they slapped on him, too. But instead of taking the deal, he doubled down just to spite them. He suggested a measly sum—something like twenty cents today—just to mock the whole process. Then, while he was sitting in a cell waiting for his sentence, he had a golden opportunity to bolt. Since the tradition dictated they couldn't carry out the execution until Theseus returned his ship from Crete, the door was basically left wide open for him to escape. He chose not to.
To get back to the motive: the indictment basically boiled down to this—Socrates was guilty because he didn't believe in the state's gods and was supposedly introducing new, demonic entities, all while corrupting the youth. That Socratic "daemon" is really just what we’d call a conscience today. Socrates was pushing his fellow citizens—especially the kids—to actually think for themselves, to judge right from wrong, and to question even the most basic social norms. To a society built on rigid tradition, that kind of thinking is radioactive. It introduced a principle they couldn't tolerate. In the end, Socrates was right, but the Athenians were also right in their own way. You had two fundamental principles crashing into each other head-on.

This brings to mind a certain anecdote often circulated among the religious (and I make a sharp distinction between being "religious" and being a "believer"—we are all believers in the broader sense, whereas the religious are merely adherents to those bloody Abrahamic faiths)
The story goes that a man finds himself in mortal peril and prays to God for salvation. In response, God sends people and circumstances to rescue him, but the man rejects every lifeline because he is "relying solely on God's salvation" (and, predictably, he dies).

I can't recall the exact details, but wasn't Jesus also praying to his "Father" to be spared ("take this cup away") before eventually choosing to remain silent when offered the chance to defend himself—or perhaps just "philosophizing" about the truth? 😬?

Sandra Murphy33 said:This brings to mind a certain anecdote often circulated among the religious (and I make a sharp distinction between being "religious" and being a "believer"—we are all believers in the broader sense, whereas the religious are merely adherents to those bloody Abrahamic faiths)
The story goes that a man finds himself in mortal peril and prays to God for salvation. In response, God sends people and circumstances to rescue him, but the man rejects every lifeline because he is "relying solely on God's salvation" (and, predictably, he dies).

I can't recall the exact details, but wasn't Jesus also praying to his "Father" to be spared ("take this cup away") before eventually choosing to remain silent when offered the chance to defend himself—or perhaps just "philosophizing" about the truth? 😬?

If you look at what Fromm was getting at, he'd say everyone is essentially religious; the real question is whether that drive pushes you toward authoritarianism or toward actual liberation. In his essay, "You Will Be Like God," he actually digs into the roots of radical humanism by looking straight at Jewish religion—like, how the God of the Jews can really only be defined by what He isn't. Fromm sees submitting to God in two ways: it could be that mindless authoritarian submission, or it could be a way to break free from human tyranny, kind of like that whole epic saga of the Jews escaping Egypt)

Amanda Jackson5 said:Truth belongs to the realm of the ideal just as much as Goodness does. In fact, the entire concept of truth is built upon the relationship between the subject and the object. You see this clearly in pretty much any standard definition of what truth is.
The reason you aren't seeing the necessary link between truth and goodness (which are also tied to beauty) is likely because you haven't quite grasped the underlying metaphysical categories and how they interact—it’s basically an argument from ignorance, where one claims something isn't true simply because it hasn't been personally recognized as such.
When you suggest that something is merely a matter of human perspective, what you're actually implying is that it belongs to an ideal mode of existence. Those aren't the same thing.
The fundamental thing to realize is that truth is a product of knowledge. From there, you have to look at the connection between knowing and acting—that is, the bridge between the theoretical and practical sides of an idea. You might find it easiest to think of Goodness as rationality (the ideal sphere) transitioning into objectivity (the real sphere). Put another way, goodness only truly exists when the subjectivity and objectivity of an idea are in sync; essentially, it happens when that which was previously just a thought or a directed will finally becomes an objective, physical reality:

"Goodness is rationality seeking realization, or rationality functioning as an end goal. Just as pure objectivity is insufficient to constitute truth, pure subjectivity is insufficient to constitute goodness if it lacks a corresponding determination of objectivity."

(Erdmann: Outline of logic and metaphysic, p. 243)

Hegel puts it even more pointedly and comprehensively:

"The Idea, as a process, moves through three distinct stages during its development. The first form is life—the Idea in its state of immediacy. The second stage involves mediation or differentiation, where the Idea emerges as cognition or knowledge, appearing in a dual form as both theoretical and practical ideas. The process of cognition eventually results in a renewed unity, now enriched by that previous differentiation, which yields the third stage: the Absolute Idea. This is the final stage of the logical process, revealing itself as the only entity that truly exists through its own essence."

("Encyclopedia" Logic, p. 158)

It never crossed my mind to suggest that human perspective belongs to an ideal mode of existence. It belongs strictly to the human (particular) mode. Sure, it could belong to a lion's mode or a monkey's mode, but it doesn't go much further than that. Human "truth" fares no better. It’s nothing more than a little truthlet—a mere shadow of Truth that doesn't even emerge from the subject-object relationship. In fact, the very assumption of a subject-object relationship is itself untrue.

gentlerider7 said:The problem is, the meaning of words shifts so much that you can't just rely on whatever some random person on Twitter thinks or whatever slang is trending this week to define anything. Honestly, you’d think philosophers would at least have the decency to stay aware of how easily the words they use can be twisted or weaponized.

Meanings evolve. They tend to expand rather than contract. You can't build a foundation for truth based solely on how many people use a word incorrectly. It isn't just a handful of people talking; everyone is participating in this linguistic drift. I agree that philosophers need to be aware of this and should stop hijacking mass-marketed terms to describe something highly specific and technical. They ought to coin new terminology to prevent confusion. Then again, if they didn't do that, nobody else would likely care anyway. 😁

gentlerider7 said:If you look at what Fromm was getting at, he'd say everyone is essentially religious; the real question is whether that drive pushes you toward authoritarianism or toward actual liberation. In his essay, "You Will Be Like God," he actually digs into the roots of radical humanism by looking straight at Jewish religion—like, how the God of the Jews can really only be defined by what He isn't. Fromm sees submitting to God in two ways: it could be that mindless authoritarian submission, or it could be a way to break free from human tyranny, kind of like that whole epic saga of the Jews escaping Egypt)

Exactly.
The first example of "submitting to God" involves believing in a deity as an external entity existing outside ourselves. This effectively displaces power from the individual to an external force, making authoritarianism not just possible, but highly probable.
That is religion in its sense of bondage (even the etymology of the word implies a certain kind of binding or connection).
The second case, which involves liberation, occurs when their belief in "external" help is actually a realization of their own true strength—strength they wouldn't have summoned without that catalyst. That is faith.
True faith relates to transcendence (which is liberation), and in that context, authoritarianism cannot exist, as authoritarianism is the defining characteristic of any religion or hierarchical relationship.

Religion itself doesn't "drive" one toward either authoritarianism or liberation; rather, those two paths depend on historical conditions and circumstances. A person doesn't achieve liberation constantly—at least not in that manner—but only under extraordinary conditions.

(On another note, isn't authority actually a good thing? The assertion of one's own authority is both necessary and desirable—so is it really authoritarianism that is considered evil and distorted? 😉 .... btw, I just picked up Fromm's "authority and family," and it looks like it'll be an interesting read! 🙂 )