Education Commons^™

Why Wisdom?, Dr. Richard Ashcroft

Journal of Critical Issues in Educational Practice

To be wise I think it is important for educators to at least have some conceptualization of the roles both gnosis and episteme have played in human history and further consider a wisdom context broad enough to contain both. Current definitions of wisdom range from advanced practical “know how” (Sternberg, 1990) to “cosmic enlightenment” (Alexander & Langer, 1990). I suggest that to have a deep understanding of “wisdom” (or for that matter, any field of study) it is “wise” to define the “space” bracketed by its contrastingly extreme positions. This dialectic process could establish a context within which wisdom might …