Reading for Wisdom Today

Portions of this post first appeared in Inside Higher Ed and are reprinted here with permission

Photo: Love Books Review

Cultivating intellectual humility initiates a virtuous circle, the result of which is a greater capacity for wisdom in all its dimensions.  

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Rethinking Liberal Education

Photo: Raphael, The School of Athens (detail), antigonejournal.com

Narrative imagination is an essential preparation for moral interaction. Habits of empathy and conjecture conduce to a certain type of citizenship and a certain form of community: one that cultivates a sympathetic responsiveness to another’s needs, and understands the way circumstances shape those needs, while respecting separateness and privacy.

Martha Nussbaum, Cultivating Humanity

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What is Wisdom?

Photo: News Medical

Wisdom as I understand it is a capacity for sound judgment with a view to pragmatic action.  Wise judgment is attuned to cognitive complexities in the world and to the ways in which historical and cultural contexts inform diverse systems of value.  Whatever their domain of action, wise practitioners evince high degrees of intellectual humility and empathy, together with a thoroughgoing commitment to fostering the well-being of both one’s self and one’s community.

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