How do we gain insight and understanding — understanding of life, of human behavior, of the world around us? How do we figure out how to solve a problem or navigate a difficult situation? How do we acquire both knowledge and experience?
Or, as the Book of Job asks: “Whence cometh wisdom?”
It’s an important question — one of the most crucial and consequential questions we can ask. There are, of course, a number of answers. For our purposes here in this post, the more limited, salient question is, “What does language teach us about the nature of wisdom and knowledge?” Etymologies are a window into the riches of human thought, part of the inheritance of the ages. So what do the etymologies of words for wisdom and knowledge — including words still in common use to this day — reveal to us about the nature of these things, and how we acquire them? When those who came before us — long, long ago — found themselves having to describe sagacity, insight, understanding, and so forth, how did they do so?
Shedding Light on the Subject
One repeated trend throughout the world’s languages, past and present, is to metaphorically describe wisdom as a kind of brightness — wisdom as clear light or sharp vision. So, for example, the English word perspicacity literally means “the ability to see through” something (it shares the same Latin root as the words spectator and spectacles). A perspicacious person is wise and discerning because they see the situation clearly and truly.
To use another, non-Western example: Japanese sōmei (聡明) and Chinese cōngmíng (聰明) both mean “wisdom, intelligence, sagacity”; tellingly, the written forms of these words use the symbol 明, which signifies “brightness, light, clarity.” The symbol ultimately originates from a depiction of the moon and sun shining together (and dates back to Ancient China’s oldest inscriptions) — we might compare the English expression “It dawned on me” to denote a sudden understanding or realization of something.
English is, in fact, full of metaphors describing knowledge and understanding and wisdom in terms of brightness and sight. When we suddenly comprehend something we say that “the light bulb has gone off” in our heads. A discerning and informative explanation is illuminating — it “sheds light” on the topic. Someone who learns quickly and easily is bright. A person with knowledge and understanding is said to have insight; a person with a smart and perceptive solution to a problem is said to have vision.
Of course, all of this tells us something about what wisdom is — what qualities it possesses — but not where wisdom comes from. A wise and knowledgeable person will see as if standing in a clear light, undimmed by the shadows of error or confusion. They see truly. But the question remains: how does one become a person who sees thus?
The Wisdom of Time
One stark answer to the question “How does one become wise?” is simply: time. You must go through something — experience it, know it — before you can truly understand it. As the saying goes, “Experience is the best teacher.”
That idea is reflected in many of the world’s words for wisdom or knowledge. The Latin term sapiēns meant “discerning, wise, judicious” — it is from this that English derives the adjective sapient, meaning the same thing, as well as the name for the human species, Homo sapiens — but the Latin itself goes even further back to an ancient Indo-European root meaning “to taste, to try.” You become wise — “sapient” — through experiencing things, tasting them, learning about them.
Not only by experiencing things, either; wisdom, according to various languages, emerges from ruminating on what you’ve learned, contemplating your experiences and what those experiences mean. Consider a common Chinese word for wisdom, zhìhuì. The word originates from two separate elements put together, zhì (智), roughly meaning “knowledge,” and huì (慧) meaning “intelligent”; etymologically and semantically, the concept of zhìhuì reflects the discernment gained from the skillful application of knowledge, wisdom derived from contemplating what you’ve learned — a teaching going at least as far back as Confucius. Again, you must learn about the world before you can be wise; experience precedes and leads to wisdom.
Ultimately, it is learning life’s lessons through first-hand experience that teaches wisdom. The idea that sagacity, comprehension, and deep understanding emanate from enduring the passage of time can be found in the world’s oldest civilizations. For instance, the Old Babylonian word nēmequm could simultaneously denote “wisdom,” “skill,” and “experience”: all are wound up together. One is reminded of the ancient Mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh. An absolutely central theme of this tale is that of the eponymous hero growing into a wise king — and a just king — only after his long quest has forced him to acquire a deep understanding of human nature, human mortality. It is the quest that imparts this wisdom to him.
Worth noting, too, is the fact that the quest is a failure, at least from the point of view of the hero’s original aims and goals. Gilgamesh does not succeed in what he set out to do; but that, too, is part of the acquisition of wisdom. The quest, the story of our experiences — both the triumphs and the failures, the successes and the confusions — is the teacher of philosophy for each of us.
“Winters in the world”
In a sense, all of this seems too obvious to need mentioning. Of course experience with something imparts knowledge. Of course wisdom derives from learning life’s lessons first-hand. Nevertheless, it is a theme that redounds throughout the world’s wisest teachings and profoundest literature, across time and in varying civilizational contexts; small wonder this theme is latent in the very words used to describe wisdom and knowledge.
And though the point may seem obvious, it continues to be powerfully needful. We live in an era impatient to form opinions, quick to propose solutions or offer interpretations. People weigh in — often passionately — on subjects of which they have little knowledge, and pressure others to do the same, demanding they take a side and declare an allegiance. This sounds most obvious pertaining to social media, but plenty of books and articles are published on the basis of relatively cursory evaluations, rather than as the result of a deeply contemplated reflection emerging from a long, protracted contemplation or study of the subject.
The idea that real wisdom, deep insight, often emerges slowly and messily, shaped over the course of time by false starts and missteps as much as by contemplation and deep study — all of this is anathema to whole swathes of modern society. But there are no short cuts to sound learning and true wisdom, no getting around the fact that these things typically emerge gradually and cumulatively.
The Old English poem The Wanderer, dating from some time before the tenth century, puts the matter both poignantly and bluntly: ne mæg weorthan wis wer ær he age / wintra dæl in woruldrice, “a man cannot become wise until he possess his share of winters in the world.” This idea lies near the heart of the early English sensibility; indeed, one of the most common Old English words for “wise” is frōd, which simultaneously also means “old.” You must endure your share of winters in the world before becoming wise. (Readers of The Lord of the Rings may muse on the relevance of this dual meaning to the character of the aptly-named Frodo Baggins.)
Next Time…
Having said all this, are there no intentional, deliberate steps one can take towards cultivating wisdom? No edifying practices or healthy habits of thought? Yes, there are — and these too are reflected in many of the world’s words for wisdom and knowledge. We’ll look at some of those words, and what they teach us, next time.