Proceedings of the 1st Arts & Humanities Conference, Venice

THE ART OF WISDOM

BRYAN PRASIFKA

Abstract:

Who doesn’t want to be wise? Wisdom is a concept mentioned often throughout life but rarely do we have any inclination of what it is, where it comes from, or how to improve our own. In order to further understand what wisdom is and the role it plays in human society a more detailed exploration of what constitutes wisdom is necessary. Wisdom changes as we age, and a more careful examination of how the change occurs over time is required. Wisdom is often elusive and though to be absolute or rigid but research into Eastern and Western perspectives of wisdom, brain plasticity, personal human development, and human culture have revealed wisdom to be thoughtful, evolving, relative, and contextual. This paper aims to unearth and classify four elements composing wisdom, discuss the two major types of wisdom, and illustrate how the arts and humanities increase the quality of wisdom a culture produces.

Keywords: wisdom, arts, humanities, Hinduism, mindfulness, neuroplasticity, personal human development, personality, culture, psychology, decisions, adult development

DOI: 10.20472/AHC.2016.001.014

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