a.k.a. insight
Complementary virtues¶
- curiosity
- inquisitiveness
- phrónēsis
- scholarship / research
- wisdom
- wonder
Contrasting vices¶
- impracticality (vice of excess)
- lost-in-the-clouds (vice of excess)
- small-mindedness
Virtues possibly in tension¶
TBD
How to acquire or strengthen it¶
TBD
Notes and links¶
TBD
Mentioned elsewhere¶
- Wisdom & philosophy are among the virtues in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, see: this summary and this one.
Inspirational quotes¶
- “It is the bounty of nature that we live; but of philosophy that we live well. Not but that philosophy is also the gift of heaven, so far as to the faculty, but not to the science; for that must be the business of industry. No man is born wise; but wisdom and virtue require a tutor, though we can easily learn to be vicious without a master.” ―Seneca
- “Philosophy isn’t a parlor game or made for show. It’s not concerned with words, but with facts. It’s not employed for some pleasure before the day is spent, or to relieve the uneasiness of our leisure. It shapes and builds up the soul, it gives order to life, guides action, shows what should and shouldn’t be done — it sits at the rudder steering our course as we vacillate in uncertainties. Without it, no one can live without fear or free from care. Countless things happen every hour that require advice, and such advice is to be sought out in philosophy.” —Seneca, Moral Letters 16.3
- “The title wise is, for the most part, falsely applied. How can one be a wise man, if he does not know any better how to live than other men? — if he is only more cunning and intellectually subtle?” ―Thoreau
- “One must not pretend to philosophize, but philosophize in reality. For we do not need the semblance of health but true health.” (from the Vatican collection of Epicurian sayings)
