Knowledge and Wisdom

By Lin Wei

As an idea people used to talk about but could hardly put over clearly, the relations between knowledge and wisdom are closely related to their daily life, such as in learning, education, science and technology and so on. 

Knowledge may be understood as systematized facts about the physical world that have so far been recognized. Wisdom, on the other hand, is hard to define precisely; the common definitions found in reference books are barely satisfactory, since they are often confused with those of capability or cleverness.

Unlike many others, I believe that knowledge underpins wisdom since it is hard to imagine a wise man who is ignorant. For example, the strategy of Zhuge Liang (an embodiment of wisdom in China's history) in harnessing the east wind to fire on his enemy was based on his profound knowledge of astronomy and geography. Likewise, the Old Man on the frontier (a legendary figure in Chinese folk tales) regained his stallion (plus an extra one) by knowing the habits of the horse very well. In a sense, Aristotle regarded wisdom as a kind of knowledge.

And yet, in no way can having knowledge be equated with having wisdom, because an illiterate may gain insight into a complicated issue while a professor of philosophy could do something quite stupid in some simple matters.

Confucius said, "Learning without thinking throws one into perplexity, while thinking without learning leads one into jeopardy". "Learning" and "thinking" could here be denoted respectively as acquiring knowledge and applying knowledge, with the latter being transformed into wisdom.

Knowledge can only be possessed and accumulated externally, while wisdom is brought into play and sublimed internally, as Lao Zi elaborated: "Acquiring knowledge results in daily personal growth, while pursuing Dao (the highest wisdom) results in daily contraction."

Learning, as a consistent objective, has to be categorized into different logically-connected disciplines for acquisition; wisdom, on the other hand, is applied holistically and creatively. There are no such things as good and evil in knowledge, which can only be induced and summarized, but they invade wisdom, which is manipulated quite differently by individuals.

In dealing with specific cases, capability needs to be guided by wisdom. Cleverness, in a narrow sense, may also be regarded as wisdom.

Wisdom, which also includes sentiments, character, ideas, virtue, temperament, mingling with various external factors and convenient conditions, is actually beyond words, culminating in great wisdom that looks like folly. To be precise, wisdom of this kind, excluding knowledge, capability and cleverness, can never be replaced by any artificial intelligence.