What is Wisdom?

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What is Wisdom?

At first glance, wisdom would be defined as the ability to apply knowledge. However, there is much more to wisdom than just that brief of a statement. The New Expanded Webster’s Dictionary defines wisdom as “sound judgement and sagacity; prudence; learning or erudition (pg 378)” What exactly does this definition mean? Some fallacies about wisdom include: confusing wisdom with intelligence, having a college degree, having common sense, or simply having life experiences. In order to prove these fallacies wrong, the definition of wisdom needs to be explored.

The dictionary meaning of wisdom included the words sagacity and erudition. Sagacity, according to the dictionary, means “quickness of discernment; shrewdness; high intelligence (pg 292).” Erudition means “learning, knowledge gained by study; scholarship (pg 113).” When looking at these definitions, one can see that they involve high intelligence, discernment, and knowledge gained by study. Upon scrutinizing these words even further, one can deduce that wisdom is the ability to discern, given a high intelligence and knowledge gained by study. Well, what exactly is it that needs to be discerned?

Discernment can also mean to distinguish. According to the website, www.thefreedictionary.com, wisdom is “the ability to discern what is right and true” or what we would call, insight. Therefore,...

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