What is Wisdom?

Religious perspectives

Ancient Near East

Hellenistic religion and Gnosticism

Wisdom in Christian theology

Wisdom in Islam

Hebrew Bible and Judaism

Wisdom in Buddhism

Wisdom in Hinduism

Directory Away Wisdom Education Experience

WISDOM: The Highest Aim of Life and Higher Education

Chinese religions

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Materialism

Materialism Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental aspects and consciousness, are results of material interactions. In Idealism, mind and consciousness are first-order realities to which matter is subject and secondary. In philosophical materialism the converse is true....

The law of love and the law of violence – By Lev Tolstoy

Tolstoy On The Law Of Love

Tolstoy On The Law Of Love This article covers Tolstoy On The Law Of Love. A Christian does not quarrel with any one, does not attack any one, nor use violence against one; on the contrary, he himself without murmuring bears violence; but by this very relation to violence he...

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy

Who Is Leo Tolstoy? Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (Лев Николаевич Толстой, tr. Lev Nikoláyevich Tolstóy; 9 September 1828 – 20 November 1910), usually referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian writer who is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time. He received multiple nominations for Nobel Prize in Literature...

Photo by Elliott & Fry, c.1860s

Thomas Carlyle

Who Is Thomas Carlyle? Thomas Carlyle (4 December 1795 – 5 February 1881) was a Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, translator, historian, mathematician, and teacher. Considered one of the most important social commentators of his time, he presented many lectures during his lifetime with certain acclaim in the Victorian era. One...

Zarathushtra or Zoroaster

Zarathushtra, Mani, And The Cathars

Zarathushtra, Mani, And The Cathars This article covers philosophers Zarathushtra, Mani, and The Cathars. The word that wounds is this: When a man speaks a word for the sake of the killing of a man or the killing of beasts or the killing of trees and the “Cross of Light,”...

Portrait of the Zoroastrian prophet Zarathustra

Zoroaster

Who is Zoroaster? Zoroaster also known as Zarathustra (Zarathushtra Spitama or Ashu Zarathushtra, زرتشت‎) was an ancient Iranian spiritual leader who founded what is now known as Zoroastrianism. His teachings challenged the existing traditions of the Indo-Iranian religion and inaugurated a movement that eventually became the dominant religion in Ancient Persia. He was...

Sir Francis Bacon, "Knowledge is Power"

Francis Bacon

Who Is Francis Bacon? Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban, PCQC (22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and as Lord Chancellor of England. His works are credited with developing the scientific method and remained influential through the scientific revolution. Bacon has been called the father of empiricism. His...

The philosopher Pyrrho of Elis, in an anecdote taken from Sextus Empiricus' Outlines of Pyrrhonism

Ancient Greek Philosophy

What Is Ancient Greek Philosophy? Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC and continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in which Greece and most Greek-inhabited lands were part of the Roman Empire. Philosophy was used to make sense out of the world in a non-religious way....

Mencius

Mencius

Who Is Mencius? Mencius or Mengzi (372–289 BC or 385–303 or 302BC) was a Chinese Confucian philosopher who has often been described as the “second Sage“, that is after only Confucius himself. Living during the Warring States period, he is said to have spent much of his life travelling around China offering...

Al-Tafsir al-Kabir li Imam al-Fakhr al-Razi

Fakhr al-Din al-Razi

Who Is Fakhr al-Din al-Razi? Fakhr al-Din al-Razi or Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī or Fakhruddin Razi (فخر الدين رازي‎) was an Iranian Sunni Muslim theologian and philosopher He was born in 1149 in Rey (in modern-day Iran), and died in 1209 in Herat (in modern-day Afghanistan). He also wrote on medicine, physics,...

Dove Stationary Background Wallpaper Pink Love

Peace Plans of Rousseau, Bentham, and Kant

Peace Plans of Rousseau, Bentham, and Kant This article covers The Peace Plans of Rousseau, Bentham, and Kant Conscience is the voice of the soul. Jean-Jacques Rousseau Firmly convinced as I am that nothing on this earth is worth purchase at the price of human blood, and that there is...

An early Pascaline on display at the Musée des Arts et Métiers, Paris

Blaise Pascal

Who Is Blaise Pascal? Blaise Pascal (19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic theologian. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. Pascal’s earliest work was in the natural and applied sciences where...

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Pragmatism

What Is Pragmatism? Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that began in the United States around 1870. Its origins are often attributed to the philosophers Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. Peirce later described it in his pragmatic maxim: “Consider the practical effects of the objects of your conception....

Empiricism

Empiricism

What Is Empiricism? In philosophy, empiricism is a theory that states that Empiricism comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It is one of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with empiricism, knowledge, epistemology, the study of human knowledge, rationalism, skepticism, empiricists, philosophy of science, empirical evidence, philosophy,...

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Instrumentalism

What Is Instrumentalism? In philosophy of science and in epistemology, instrumentalism is a methodological view that ideas are useful instruments, and that the worth of an idea is based on how effective it is in explaining and predicting phenomena. Instrumentalism is a pragmatic philosophy of John Dewey that thought is an...

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Medieval Philosophy

What Is Medieval Philosophy? Medieval philosophy is the philosophy that existed through the Middle Ages, the period roughly extending from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century to the Renaissance in the 15th century. Medieval philosophy, understood as a project of independent philosophical inquiry, began in Baghdad, in the middle of the 8th century, and...

The School of Athens (1509–1511), Raphael

Renaissance Philosophy

What Is Renaissance Philosophy? The designation “Renaissance philosophy” is used by scholars of intellectual history to refer to the thought of the period running in Europe roughly between 1355 and 1650 (the dates shift forward for central and northern Europe and for areas such as Spanish America, India, Japan, and China under...

Flying Over Istanbul and the Galata Tower on the Magic Carpet from the 1001 Nights, Turkish miniature, 19th C. Photo by Rex

Early Islamic Philosophy

What Is Early Islamic Philosophy? Early Islamic philosophy or classical Islamic philosophy is a period of intense philosophical development beginning in the 2nd century AH of the Islamic calendar (early 9th century CE) and lasting until the 6th century AH (late 12th century CE). The period is known as the Islamic Golden Age,...

Albert Camus

Albert Camus

Who Is Albert Camus? Albert Camus (7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French philosopher, author, and journalist. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44 in 1957, the second youngest recipient in history. His works include The Stranger, The Plague, The Myth of Sisyphus, The Fall, and The Rebel. Camus...

From the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

Omar Khayyam

Who Is Omar Khayyam? Omar Khayyam (عمر خیّام‎, 18 May 1048 – 4 December 1131) was a Persian polymath, mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and poet. He was born in Nishapur, in northeastern Iran, and spent most of his life near the court of the Karakhanid and Seljuq rulers in the period which witnessed the First Crusade....