Abstract

With a few exceptions, much of epistemology in the last century has been dominated by discussions centered on knowledge, and in particular propositional knowledge (along with associated concepts such as justification, the reliability of cognitive processes, etc.). Recently, attention has been given to other cognitive states such as understanding and wisdom, due in some part to the resurgence of theorizing about intellectual virtues. As with typical epistemic concepts such as justification and knowledge, offering an analysis of wisdom has been difficult. In this paper, I critique a recent attempt to analyze wisdom as risk-taking, and after gleaning from the insights of Thomas Aquinas, I defend a particular version of the wisdom-as-understanding approach.