Welcome to the Wisdom-Centered Life!
The Wisdom-Centered Life website provides information on research on wisdom, as well as on the history of wisdom. It also presents a method for developing wisdom (using traditional methods and current research on learning theory, skills development, expertise and, of course, wisdom). Wisdom can be cultivated in the same way critical thinking and learning skills can be cultivated. It is the goal of
Wisdom-Centered Life to provide methods for developing wisdom that are effective, adequate to the concept, and that can be tested and improved. Wisdom is defined as perceiving reality and doing what is best. In four words: Maximal perception, optimal action. (Many definitions and descriptions of wisdom by philosophers, theologians, and psychologists can be found in the "About Wisdom" section of this site.) Individuals are encouraged to work out their own definition along with a rationale for that definition.
After long neglect, wisdom has been receiving attention from the scholarly community. In the West, until the 1950s, there was little interest in wisdom from the fields of theology, philosophy, or psychology. It has only been in recent decades that wisdom has ceased to “vanish almost entirely from the philosophical map” (Smith,
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 1998). In regard to theology, Walter Brueggemann (1996:182) writes that, "It is fair to say that wisdom studies had, in critical scholarship, been almost completely dormant. In the 1960s and 1970s, however, a vigorous new effort in wisdom studies was undertaken."
You can get an idea of the growth of interest in wisdom from checking the entries in the standard indexes.
Philosophers’ Index lists
115 articles with wisdom as subject between 1940-1959;
220 between 1960-1979;
161 between 1980-1989;
238 between 1990-1999;
192 between 2000 and listings as of December 2006.
PsychINFO lists
1 article with wisdom as keyword between 1940-1959;
7 between 1960-1979
13 between 1980-1989
57 between 1990-1999
174 from 2000 to December 2006 (searches made December, 2006)
22 from Dec 2006-Dec 2007 (search made Dec 9, 2007: "wisdom" as keyword, peer reviewed journals)
20 from Dec 2007-Dec 2008 (search made Feb 19, 2009: "wisdom" as keyword, peer reviewed journals)
At least some of these articles are actually not related to wisdom. At least 4 of the 20 listed between Dec07-Dec08 do not belong. One, for example, is on the list because "conventional wisdom" is a keyword.
Since the first published empirical study of wisdom in 1980, there have been over 50 more. Check here:
Empirical research for descriptions of these studies.
Note: For detail regarding references, see the Bibliography in the About Wisdom section of this website.