Sophia's world: episodes from the history of wisdom

Can wisdom be taught? Perhaps, in the cautionary words of Effi Briest’s father, ‘That is too big a subject’ (Fontane, 1967, p. 267). Nevertheless, this historical introduction will attempt to say something about how this ‘too big a subject’ was thought about and approached in the past. When the subject is wisdom, the past goes back a very long way, and in order to make the task manageable it has been necessary to restrict its scope in a variety of ways. Because non-western and modern approaches to wisdom are covered elsewhere in this book, I have limited myself to what can very loosely be called the Western history of wisdom, and shall have little to say about it after the modern period begins. I have further limited myself to a number of selected and illustrative episodes from this history, although I hope that they are sufficient to give some sense of continuity and coherence.