e. practical
wisdom, scientific knowledge, or philosophic wisdom), the remaining
alternative is that it is intuitive reason that grasps the first
principles.
7
Wisdom (1) in the arts we ascribe to their most finished
exponents, e.g. to Phidias as a sculptor and to Polyclitus as a
maker of portrait-statues, and here we mean nothing by wisdom except
excellence in art; but (2) we think that some people are wise in
general, not in some particular field or in any other limited respect,
as Homer says in the Margites,
Him did the gods make neither a digger nor yet a ploughman
Nor wise in anything else.
Therefore wisdom must plainly be the most finished of the forms of
knowledge. It follows that the wise man must not only know what
follows from the first principles, but must also possess truth about
the first principles. Therefore wisdom must be intuitive reason
combined with scientific knowledge-scientific knowledge of the highest
objects which has received as it were its proper completion.
Of the highest objects, we say; for it would be strange to think
that the art of politics, or practical wisdom, is the best
knowledge, since man is not the best thing in the world. Now if what
is healthy or good is different for men and for fishes, but what is
white or straight is always the same, any one would say that what is
wise is the same but what is practically wise is different; for it
is to that which observes well the various matters concerning itself
that one ascribes practical wisdom, and it is to this that one will
entrust such matters.
Pages:
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190