WISDOM

• Expertise and knowledge in the fundamental pragmatics of

life (life planning, life management, and life review).

• Wisdom cardinal virtues

• Enhances personal functioning and communal good

• Wisdom and courage constructs often confused as similar.

 The Wizard of Oz (Haley & Fleming, 1939), in which the Wizard says to
the Cowardly Lion, “As for you, my fine friend, you are a victim of
disorganized thinking. You are under the unfortunate delusion that, simply
because you run away from danger, you have no courage. You’re confusing
courage with wisdom.”
• Western classical dialogues revealed three distinct conceptualizations of
wisdom:

• (1) that found in persons seeking a contemplative life (the Greek term
sophia);

• (2) that of a practical nature, as displayed by great statesmen (phronesis);

and

• (3) scientific understanding (episteme)

 Whether wisdom is a form of
excellence in living as displayed by
ordinary people?

Or is more aptly seen as a fuzzy

philosophical quality possessed only by
sages?
Theories of wisdom
• IMPLICIT THEORIES - (folk theories of a construct that describe its
basic elements)

• EXPLICIT THEORIES - (theories detailing the observable

manifestations of a construct)
IMPLICIT THEORY
• Clayton (1975)
• 3 dimensions of wisdom:
• Affective
• Reflective
• cognitive
 MINDFULNESS
• A state of mind
• Attending nonjudgmentally to all stimuli in the internal &
external environments.