How Wisdom Engages the Possible

Abstract

Wisdom has been a central theme in the philosophical inquiry of the human experience for centuries, with the earliest written teachings dating back to the ancient Egyptian vizier, Ptahhotep 25-24 century BCE. The virtue of wisdom has been attributed to the great deities of various cultures and mythologies (e.g., Anahit of Armenia, Athena of Greece), and a quality humankind is encouraged to embody millennia later. In more recent decades, psychological scientists have begun to study the concept of wisdom, exploring characteristics of a wise person as well as meta-cognitive processes and moral aspirations involved in wise decision making. At the core of wisdom is the recognition and acceptance that for any given issue there are different possible perspectives, interests, contexts, and outcomes, as well as the willingness to consider and take into account these different possibilities when working through the issue. This chapter reviews the psychological study of wisdom, with a focus on the conceptual and empirical construct of wisdom as it relates to the possible.