Difference between wisdom and knowledge

Muhiuddin Alam
8 min readMar 25, 2020

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Difference between wisdom and knowledge. What exactly is knowledge? Wisdom is not equal to knowledge. Wisdom vs knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. What is knowledge? Defining it is not easy. This article attempts to define it as knowledge is the knowledge about the characteristics of things that are verified by people’s life practices and generally accepted.

Difference between wisdom and knowledge

Difference between wisdom and knowledge. This definition has three main points:

1. Knowledge is the crystallization of people’s living practice, the result of the long-term understanding of human beings, and has been repeatedly verified by people’s practice.

2. Knowledge is public, universal and widely recognized. 1 + 1 is equal to 2 and cannot be said to be equal to 3.

3. Knowledge reflects the explicit condition and internal nature of things and is the knowledge of the objective characteristics of things. The existing form of knowledge is a spiritual form, not a specific object. For example, knowledge is not equal to a table. Knowledge can only be about a table.

Generally speaking, knowledge can be divided into two categories: one is declarative knowledge and the other is essential knowledge. The former is the recognition of the phenomenon form and existence attributes of things, and it faces the material attributes of things exposed, which can be directly perceived by people. The latter is the understanding of the essential form and internal connection of things, and it faces the essential attributes of things, which cannot be directly perceived by people.

For example, this rose is red, this rose is black, this rose is barbed, etc. Such a sentence belongs to a declarative sentence, which reflects declarative knowledge. Because whether it is red or black, we can perceive it. Regarding the laws of the growth and cultivation of roses and other plants, we cannot directly perceive them, so they belong to the latter knowledge, that is, essential knowledge. The knowledge of a person’s external appearance is declarative knowledge, and the understanding of its inner essence (essential good, evil, beauty, ugliness, etc.) belongs to the latter type of knowledge.

Difference between wisdom and knowledge

A remarkable feature of knowledge is that it can be tested by people’s experience and life, so it can be universally recognized, especially the knowledge about natural sciences. It is often said that natural science has no class character because class attributes cannot influence its existence. For example, the growth of a tree is independent of the values ​​of the researcher. Some people like red roses and some people like black roses, but the color of roses does not change because of people’s likes and dislikes.

But philosophy and social sciences are different. The values ​​of their researchers will directly affect the objects they study. The explanation is interpretation, and interpretation is transformation. When you demonstrate the proposition that “political, economic, and cultural activities are regular,” you are actually intervening and transforming the world. Even when you are reading, you also intentionally and unintentionally participate in this intervention and reformation Go in.

What is wisdom?

Difference between wisdom and knowledge

So what exactly is wisdom? Here, share two points:

1. Wisdom is a universal and general method of obtaining knowledge, For example, dialectics and systems theory are such methods. No matter what we know, whether you are engaged in natural science research or social science research, there is no escape from this method. Therefore, it is a universally applicable fundamental method of acquiring knowledge.

2. Wisdom is the ability to acquire knowledge.

① This ability is not single, but comprehensive

It contains multiple elements. The first element is heredity. It should be acknowledged that the human brain is different. A person’s ability and achievement depend, of course, on the efforts of the day after tomorrow, but there are also acquired genes at work.

The second element is physiology. Some people have better genetics and are hardworking, but they have physical problems, such as a tumor in their brain, memory loss, and long-term insomnia, which will undoubtedly affect people’s ability.

The third element is psychology. It includes intuition, memory, rationality, emotion, acceptance, comprehension, morality, and aesthetics. Some people have a keen sense of intuition. You can know what you are thinking of looking at things. Public security personnel sometimes rely on intuition to help solve the case. Husserl’s phenomenology emphasizes the important role of intuition in understanding the nature of things.

Difference between wisdom and knowledge

In fact, people’s understanding of things cannot be separated from intuition, because the nature of things is invisible and intangible. Even if you have analyzed all the phenomena of things, the nature of things will not emerge automatically. This requires a comprehensive judgment of all phenomena analysis, and there is intuition in comprehensive judgment. Through intuition, the interruption of the analysis process, “look directly” at the essence of things. This is the charm of intuition. In addition, there are many psychological factors such as memory, reason, emotion, acceptance, comprehension, morality, and aesthetics, which play an important role in human ability.

Therefore, a person’s intellectual ability is a combination of multiple factors. But these elements are not a mechanical addition, but an organic fusion. If these elements are better integrated, the person’s intellectual ability is stronger; otherwise, it is weaker. It can be seen that wisdom ability is an inherent temperamental thing, a comprehensive quality.

② Wisdom is the ability to find out the roots, the ability to reach the deepest essence of things

Lenin once pointed out that things have a first-class nature, a second-class essence, a third-class essence, a fourth-class essence, a fifth-class essence … and we can trace it infinitely. Therefore, we can never exhaust our knowledge of a grain of sand. Russell gave an example of a table. What exactly is the surface of this table? Actually, we don’t know. The table in front of me now has a rough surface and a dark yellow color. So, is the shape of the table surface what I see? Not necessarily.

Russell said that when I used a microscope to observe the table, the color and texture of the table surface were very different. Then, I used a thousand-degree microscope to see that the shape of the surface of the table was different. The power of a microscope can be infinitely increased, so what exactly is the surface of this table? We never know.

However, philosophy has to propose such a task, which is to try to grasp the ultimate nature of things and provide an ultimate system of interpretation about the entire universe world to meet people’s ultimate care. But this system of interpretation is actually not empirical, because it is impossible for us to move the entire universe to the laboratory to prove it.

Therefore, philosophy has actually become a conception of philosophers. However, this concept must be justified and well-founded. It must be based on the achievements of the natural sciences, social sciences, and thinking sciences, and must constantly accept the experience of life practice. Empirical science is impossible for this task, but philosophy must come forward. It will tell you what the nature of this table is.

Berkeley proposed that “existence is perceived”, Mach proposed that “things are the combination of sensations”, Feuerbach proposed that objects are “perceptual beings”, and Lenin proposed that objects are objective reality, A philosophical answer to the ultimate nature of things. In fact, this answer may not be a definite conclusion, but it guides you on how to correctly seek the knowledge of the ultimate nature of things.

③ Wisdom is a creative thinking ability to seek the opposite sex

It highlights the unique insights that can be expressed on each issue. Whether a person is philosophically created depends mainly on his way of thinking. A person with a truly philosophical way of thinking is bound to be able to express independent and original opinions on every issue without blindly following the trend. All well-known thinkers have a common feature, that is, creative thinking with the opposite sex.

Of course, philosophers don’t just make threats and go against others. Philosophers also agree with other people’s views, but this kind of approval is a rational reflection, not a random agreement. Therefore, this kind of approval is often conditional; it is a kind of approval that contains differences. “. The vitality of philosophy lies in the thinking of seeking the opposite sex and creative thinking. Without this kind of thinking, the wisdom of philosophy will turn into dogma and theology.

④ Wisdom is a comprehensive ability

It includes not only the ability to correctly acquire knowledge but also the ability to understand society and life, that is, the ability to establish a reasonable outlook on life and values. The ability to acquire knowledge is important, but so is the ability to understand social history and the meaning of life. The wisdom of philosophy is a combination of these two capabilities.

Why do we need wisdom?

We all know that knowledge can be acquired through learning. With the development of human knowledge, we have a better understanding of our existing world. Then, we ushered in the 200 years of the rapid development of science and technology, which is just the past 200 years. We have more knowledge than ever before and know where to find it.

As I said before, in the past 10000 years, human beings have not become more intelligent. However, there are some changes in human beings. For example, the vision of human beings has become worse. The visual distance of modern people is one-tenth of that of our old ancestors. Hearing is also degraded because our living environment is too noisy. Of course, these changes are because we no longer rely on the naked eye and ears to capture information, and large-scale information is pushed to our eyes through words, images, videos and so on.

When we learn through the knowledge summarized by others, we mainly rely on the thinking ability of the brain, that is, our general intelligence [4]. This ability includes the following points: understanding, judgment, problem-solving, abstract thinking, expression of ideas and the ability of language and learning. Learning more knowledge seems to have more advantages, so learning knowledge has become so important that a person has to spend more than a quarter of his life full-time learning, and now some people advocate lifelong learning.

Why do people need wisdom? Very simply, our daily life depends on our body and our senses. We live in a society full of people. Every time we meet each other, every greeting, every communication, meeting, dinner party, entertainment, intimate activities We know that “impulse is the devil”. We can make a choice to regret every time. There are so many problems in the adult world that no amount of reading can solve them.

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Muhiuddin Alam
Muhiuddin Alam

Written by Muhiuddin Alam

Book recommendations and reviews of fiction, novels, and nonfiction books. web: readingandthinking.com / geekbookreviews.com/

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