Wisdom-Centered Life

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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.

______________________________
 
Upcoming events

 

 Courses and presentations giving an overview of the history of wisdom, as well as of current research, and a method for developing wisdom. Various locations: e.g.,
____________ 
 
January 7, 2011
Introduction to Wisdom
1-3pm
OASIS, Rochester, NY.
 
 
January 14 - April 15, 2011
The Wisdom-Centered Life
12-week class in learning about wisdom and using situations from our own lives to cultivate our wisdom. OASIS, Rochester, NY.  
 
 
Ongoing
Wisdom Practicum
Weekly group featuring advanced practice and learning. 
  
For further information contact
 
Picture credits:
Top of page:  

Inside Passage, Alaska and British Columbia. Image courtesy of Free Stock Photos http://www.AngelsLanding.com/free-stock-photos/

Solon: 

"Bibliothek des allgemeinen und praktischen Wissens. Bd. 5" (1905), Abriß der Weltliteratur, Seite 41

Google images, public domain.

 


 Perceiving reality and doing what is best

or

Maximal understanding, optimal choices

or

Best possible choice.

 

Solon, son of Exekestes, of Salamos in Attica. In wisdom and education he surpassed all his contemporaries. Distinguishing himself among all others in excellence, he was zealous for praiseworthy excellence. Expending much time in all areas of learning, he was an athlete of every excellence.

 ἦν δὲ καὶ Σόλων πατρὸς μὲν Ἐξηκεστίδου, τὸ γένος ἐκ Σαλαμῖνος τῆς Ἀττικῆς, σοφίᾳ δὲ καὶ παιδείᾳ πάντας τοὺς καθ᾽ ἑαυτὸν ὑπερβεβληκώς. φύσει δὲ πρὸς ἀρετὴν τῶν ἄλλων πολὺ διαφέρων ἐζήλωσεν ἀρετὴν ἐπαινουμένην: πᾶσι γὰρ τοῖς μαθήμασι πολὺν χρόνον ἐνδιατρίψας ἀθλητὴς ἐγένετο πάσης ἀρετῆς.

Diodorus Siculus, 9.1.1. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989. From www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0083.

  

A bird is as bound to a slender thread as to a stout one, so long as it does not break it to fly freely.

Una ave esté asida a un hilo delgado que a uno grueso, porque, aunque sea delgado, tan asida se estará a él como al grueso, en tanto que no le quebrare para volar.

Juan de Yepes, San Juan de la Cruz,

Subida del Monte Carmelo, I.11

 

Sapienti proprium est iugiter ad individuam et suiipsius et summi opificis Dei unitatem feliciter niti, colligi mente elevari.
Distinctive of the wise person is ceaselessly and successfully to advance, be gathered into, and raised up in mind, to inseparable unity, both with hirself and with the supreme craftsman, God

Charles de Bovelles, Liber de Sapiente, VIII.5

 

Sapientibus contingit, in rebus dubiis plus alieno se quam proprio credere judicio. S. Bernardi Claraevallensis, Epist. 82, n. 1.


 

The Wisdom-Centered Life

Rochester, NY

USA

rht@wisdomcenteredlife.org

 
Thanks for visiting this site!
 
 
  Note on gender-inclusive language: for the generic use of pronouns with human referents, ‘E’ is sometimes used here for the nominative case (= he, she), and ‘hir’ for the other cases (=, e.g., him, her, his). We are fortunate that in English it is easy to make our language gender inclusive. There is no reason not to do so, and every reason not to postpone doing so. To use E or hir is as simple as to use ‘Ms.’ to refer to any woman (= Miss or Mrs.); and in speaking, the pronunciation is the same as currently used terms. That is, ‘E’ is pronounced almost like the word ‘he’, and ‘hir’ is pronounced exactly like the word ‘her.’ Incidentally, the term ‘hir’ dates back to Chaucer, though he used it as a plural
(= their).