Not knowing
Socrates recognized that there was so much he did not know. Knowing this, however, may have been precisely the reason that made him wiser than all the others. It was this awareness of his own ignorance that differentiated him. Thus, in a rather paradoxical way, Socrates expressed that he knew nothing except that he knew that he knew nothing – in short, he recognized the many unknowns in his world. However, does the possession of wisdom imply knowing that you don't know? Is it the acceptance of your own ignorance? Thus, the greatest wisdom may very well lie in the explicit recognition that one is not all knowing.
Hopefully, you have entered a stage of life when you realize how little you know. Of course, you may think, somewhat nostalgically, about your younger years when you thought that you knew everything, but if you are truly in pursuit of wisdom, these thoughts will be fleeting. Only when you realize how little you really know will you make the effort to continue trying to understand what the world has to offer. Eventually, like Socrates, you may have figured out that knowledge is infinite, that knowledge changes at all times, and that all knowledge is transient as it is linked to the world around it. Therefore, knowledge is subject to change as the world is ever in the process of changing. It is for exactly this reason that Socrates felt compelled to continue searching for new knowledge and to understand things even better. This never-ending pursuit of knowledge may have been undertaken with the hope that wisdom eventually would be within reach. To attain it, however, was going to be another story. Wisdom has this infuriating tendency to always remain untouchable.
Defining wisdom
Socrates did not really define what wisdom meant to him and what would be its various components. Frankly speaking, defining what wisdom is all about is difficult. Wisdom is of a rather ethereal nature. It cannot really be taught; it cannot just be mere knowledge. It is not just intelligence. Although we recognize that when referring to wisdom, knowledge and intelligence may play a role and we also realize that wisdom is a much more complex entity.
Generally speaking, we feel compelled to acquire knowledge as a way of trying to control the chaos that is life. To gain knowledge can be seen as part of our efforts to make sense of things. In many instances, it is knowledge that we search for when looking for deliverance from our human predicament. We have the hope that knowledge will give us clear answers to existential questions. Frequently, however, knowledge can also be used to mask our biases and to disguise our value judgments. Sadly enough, much of the knowledge we acquire may be misleading, irrelevant, and inaccurate. In the end, it may prove incapable of helping us make sense of whatever difficult challenges we have to deal with. Moreover, the world we live in is now full of factoids or alternative facts that are often presented as knowledge – in other words, ‘knowledge’ that turns out to blatantly false. We may also have discovered that making wise decisions in the ‘real world’ necessitates often something more than just possessing raw knowledge. As the Roman poet Horace would point out, ‘wisdom is not wisdom when it is derived from books alone.’ To be wise implies having the ability to interpret and act on complex situations, aided by whatever knowledge we have acquired. Unfortunately, resorting merely to knowledge does not necessarily make for wise decisions and actions.
Switching from the concept of knowledge to that of intelligence, we are faced with a similar conundrum. All too often, highly intelligent people can be seen acting in remarkably unintelligent ways. What this tells us is that mere intelligence – like knowledge – may not be enough to decipher the puzzle that is wisdom. As the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky once said, ‘Intelligence alone is not nearly enough when it comes to acting wisely.’
Perhaps a better way of looking at the wisdom conundrum is to define it more as the appropriate, more discerned application of whatever knowledge we possess – the ability to judge complex problems correctly and to subsequently follow the best course of action based on the knowledge that we have available. In other words, having wisdom also includes the anticipation of consequences of our actions – it being a reflection of how well we are dealing with a specific situation.
Actually, taking a somewhat more ‘rational’, scientific approach, we could define wisdom as being an advanced cognitive and emotional developmental state that is experience driven and, when applied, always takes the common good into consideration. Although this definition may sound forbidding, what I am suggesting is that wisdom seems to be composed of three structural components: a talent in cognitive and emotional integration that helps to solve complex issues, the ability to take the appropriate actions, and the concern that whatever actions are taken will have a positive effect on others and also ourselves.
Hopefully, a better understanding of what wisdom is all about is beginning to materialize. I imagine, however, that there is still somewhat of a confusion given our tendency – at least in general discourse – to use the terms being knowledgeable, being intelligent, and having wisdom, somewhat interchangeably. Thus, it does not always make it easy to distinguish one from the other. Far too often, knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom seem to be intertwined.
In an attempt to further unravel this conundrum, I should add that you are not born with knowledge. On the contrary, you acquire knowledge. In other words, being knowledgeable is an experiential phenomenon, meaning that knowledge is what you know. You should view it as the sum of everything that you have learned over the years. Clearly, knowledge will grow and change along with you.
In contrast, intelligence can be described as a measure of how much you understand. It refers to your intellectual or mental capacity. In other words, if you are intelligent, it will be relatively easy to learn new skills, solve problems effectively, as well as comprehend complex ideas. Thus, a large part of intelligence (being really smart) is the result of genetics. I should add, however, that intelligence also has a developmental component. The kind of learning experiences provided to you while growing up also plays a role. How well you use your intelligence very much depends on the interplay of nature and nurture. To recapitulate, in making a comparison between intelligence and knowledge, it is important to note that you can be very intelligent and still not know very much, while you can be very knowledgeable and still be mostly unintelligent.
Wisdom, by contrast, is a very different entity. Though related to knowledge and intelligence, it is more abstract and subjective. While knowledge and intelligence can be measured to some extent, wisdom is not really quantifiable. It has more of a qualitative nature. It pertains to a subjective measure of the quality of your insights.
What I am also suggesting is that mere knowledge onto itself can be a very sterile proposition. Furthermore, having acquired much knowledge because you happen to be intelligent does not necessarily make you wise. In comparison, it is wisdom that will bring you into a very different orbit. As the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead puts it quite nicely: ‘Knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows.' Wisdom pertains to other ways of knowing or other ways of being intelligent. Unlike knowledge, which is acquired, wisdom comes from within. With the danger of sounding overly simplistic: wisdom has to do with using your common sense to an uncommon degree. It has to do with your talent in judging appropriately the truth and the validity of your accumulated knowledge.
Wisdom implies that you have the power of discernment, that you can judge properly as to what are the right or wrong things to do. It pertains to your ability to pair your accumulated knowledge and synthesize this knowledge using your moral understanding of the situation. Furthermore, wisdom is knowing what to do with your knowledge – how to use your understanding wisely – as well as recognizing the limits of your knowledge. Thus, another way to define wisdom is the ability to see into the future the consequences of your choices in the present – to know when to take action and when it is useless even to try. It makes knowledge the child of (frequently difficult) experiences.
