Facets of Wisdom: A Theoretical Synthesis

Review of the past decade of literature reveals numerous attempts to construct a workable definition of wisdom. Some researchers bypass definition and opt for factor analytical studies of common opinions about attributes of the ‘wise person’. Such factors as age, experience, intelligence, knowledge, intuition, common sense, and personality variables consistently emerge from the data, but no one has attempted to link these factors to construct a unified definition of wisdom. This article compares and synthesizes the various studies and concludes that they can be unified theoretically if we view wisdom as the recognition of and response to human limitation.

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