Wisdom after Metaphysics?

By Professor  Markus Wörner

Abstract

The paper begins with a common-sense approach to the notion of wisdom, drawing on results of Positive Psychology. Wisdom is to be understood as a mode of being in the world based on sapiential competence informed by a general attitude of openness to (practical and theoretical) truth rather than on specialized capacities of an intellectual, moral or religious elite. It is within the competence of Homo sapiens as such. Its acquisition results in a trustworthy and adequate co-ordination of cognitive, emotional and characterological habits (intellectual and ethical virtues) which are suited to confront fundamental, existential questions concerning human reality. Wisdom comes in degrees and may increase with experience.

Biographical Note:

Markus H. Wörner is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy and former Head of Department at the National University of Ireland, Galway (1986–2009). After his Lektorat in theology at the Dominican Studium Generale in Germany in 1973 and postgraduate studies in Oxford as DAAD student he completed his studies in philosophy and theology at the University of Bonn with the degree of Dr. phil. (1975). He taught fundamental theology and medieval philosophy at the Free University of Berlin (FU) while finishing his Habilitation in Philosophy (1985). He has taught as Visiting Professor at Boston College (1990) and FU Berlin (2000). His major book publications are Performative und Sprachliches Handeln (1978), Das Ethische in der Rhetorik des Aristoteles (1990), Glückendes Leben (2000), Verstehen an der Grenze (2003), and Thomas von Aquin, Summa Contra Gentiles IV (1996). He also edited four Latin/German editions of the complete Summa Contra Gentiles. His recent research focuses on rhetorical argumentation and wisdom. He is a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.