Karimov M.G., Epanchintseva G.A. The Phenomenon of Wisdom in the Historical-Philosophical and Psychological Discourses

Abstract: The subject of the research is the phenomenon of wisdom from the point of view of history and philosophy. The authors of the article attempt to trace back the features of the phenomenon in literary monuments of ancient times as well as to define the essence and role of wisdom in the life of people back in those times. For example, wisdom included rules of social life and practical recommendations, at the same time, it was closely related to these or those theological systems prevailing in the society. The authors point out that Plato and Aristotle were the first ones to try to split the term 'wisdom' and describe practical and theoretical aspects thereof. In the Middle Ages wisdom was thought to be a divine attribute that just couldn't be understood by man. At the ages of Renaissance and Enlightenment wisdom was again viewed as a human achievement due to the researches of P. Sharon, R. Descartes, I. Kant and others. A new round of studying wisdom was started with the appearance of psychological researches. The authors of the present article view several theoretical and methodological models of wisdom offered by P. Baltes, R. Ardelt, J. Webster, D. Krawczyk and etc. The authors study implicit theories of wisdom in order to clarify the content of these concepts in a particular language environment. According to the number of articles and researches, the most popular approach is the assessment of pragmatic displays of wisdom. Assessment of wisdom as a latent variable can be performed with the help of self-reports described in this article. According to the authors of the article, the most preferred paradigm for studying wisdom is the analysis of personal traits of wisdom nominees, i.e. people who are thought to be wise by others. The main research methods used by the authors include theoretical historical and philosophical analysis, theoretical comparative generalization and classification of associated concepts and categories. In their article the authors underline how important it is to take into account the historical and philosophical prospects in order to construct a valid theoretical and methodological model of the phenomenon of wisdom. The authors also show the dialectical continuity of the theories of wisdom throughout various historical periods. The authors emphasize that it is more beneficial to apply a less formal approach methods to studying personality of so called wisdom nominees. 

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