ABSTRACT
Although by no means mainstream, there has been a growing interest in wisdom studies amongst Western scholars in recent decades. 1 This is an encouraging development in light of the general neglect of the concept, if not its outright eschewal, on the part of sciences and humanities which have been largely preoccupied with rational explanation and cognitive representation of human conduct in the post-Enlightenment period. Indeed, in the core discipline of philosophy, any serious inquiry into the practical dimension of wisdom, that is, study that extends beyond mere historical interest in the term, has largely been abandoned. This state of affairs is perhaps typified by John Kekes’ terse essay on ‘philosophy’ in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy and his observation:
Although wisdom is what philosophy is meant to be a love of, little attention has been paid to this essential component of good lives in post-classical Western philosophy. It is perhaps for this reason that those in search of it often turn to the obscurities of oriental religions for enlightenment. (Honderich 1995: 912)
