I argue that a necessary condition for being wise is understanding how to live well. The condition, by requiring understanding rather than a wide variety of justified beliefs or knowledge, as Ryan and Whitcomb respectively require, yields the desirable result that being wise is compatible with having some false beliefs but not just any false beliefs about how to live well – regardless of whether those beliefs are justified or not. In arguing for understanding how to live well as a necessary condition for wisdom I reject the view, proposed by both Ryan and Whitcomb, that subjects such as chemistry lie within the domain of wisdom. I show that the argued for condition yields the desirable result that being wise is not a common achievement but that it is not something that can only plausibly be achieved in the modern era.

Philosophy Seminar Series
Date: Thursday, 29 Oct 2015
Time: 2pm – 4pm
Venue: AS3 #05-23
Speaker: Shane Ryan, Soochow University, Taipei
Moderator: Dr. Eric Thomas Kerr

About the Speaker:

Shane Ryan is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Soochow University in Taipei. His Taiwanese Ministry of Science and Technology funded research project is on the topic of wisdom. In 2013 he was awarded his PhD from the University of Edinburgh for his thesis examining a virtue theoretic account of the nature and value of knowledge. He has published papers on epistemology and moral philosophy in journals such as Grazer Philosophische Studien and Utilitas. A number of his articles on epistemology and philosophy of education are forthcoming in edited volumes.