Summary Of On Wisdom By Godlovitch

In his essay “On Wisdom,” Godlovitch discusses the notion of wisdom in a philosophical and cultural context. He begins his essay by defining philosophy as “the love of wisdom” as he was taught early in his studies, and by introducing the traditional Socratic definition of wisdom: “a humble admission of ignorance.” Godlovitch, unsatisfied with this definition, explores it further with his essay, going so far as to suggest that wisdom has little to do with philosophy to explain why philosophers seem so disinterested in such an interesting concept. His essay looks at wisdom as a social concept, using common phrases and cultural practices to build of a set of identifying features of a wise person. Knowing cultural ideas of wisdom, he is then able to relate it to philosophical concepts such as knowledge, morality, and virtue. Godlovitch begins with the notion of the “wise thing to do,” referring to how we may refer to people’s actions as being rational or otherwise.
He observes that the wise are often old, yet age alone cannot constitute wisdom. One possibility is that wisdom has less to do with age than experience. This makes some sense, because it explains that even though the young can learn from the past experiences of the elderly, they cannot be said to have gained wisdom because they did not experience the struggle that goes with it themselves. By this line of thinking, our elders are wise because they have experienced the most in their time and, at their age, had close to the maximum amount of experiences possible given human mortality. However, these experiences must also be worthwhile to contribute to wisdom- quality over quantity. Godlovitch suggests one more aspect of wisdom in old age: reflection. He offers that what truly sets apart the young from the old is the time to reflect on the past, appreciate it, and even form regrets. So perhaps this is another piece of what constitutes