Introduction to Wisdom

CONTEMPORARY BOOKS ON WISDOM
Today's authors present their views on wisdom and wise living

Works available for free downloading and online reading

The Scientific Approach to Wisdom, a doctoral dissertation by Richard Trowbridge. This is the complete dissertation in Microsoft Word format — a comprehensive review of the scholarly research on wisdom from 1980 to 2005, and a useful overview of the history of wisdom.

Education: From Conception to Graduation – A Systematic Integral Approach, a doctoral dissertation by Anne Adams concerning education for wisdom — integral education — education that purposefully develops and integrates the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual intelligences.

Raise Your Energies Book 2 (Book Excerpt) by Edward Tropes. The excert discussed the nature of wisdom, or spiritual growth and maturity, and how to achieve it. "How are spiritually mature persons able to greatly increase their overall energies? What have they done, felt, and thougt?"

The Tree of Philosophy by Stephen Palmquist. This book brings a wisdom focus back to philosophy. Available as a free online book or in print form.

EARTH VISION is inviting readers to download, free of charge, one of Josef Graf's five spiritual ecology eBooks. You get to choose which one.
Copthorne Macdonald's books in eBook format    Download free, screen-readable, eBook editions of Matters of Consequence (concerning personal and societal wisdom in the 21st century), Getting a Life (about practical, everyday-life wisdom), and Toward Wisdom (concerning big-picture, existential wisdom).

A selection of Cop's wisdom articles is also available, free, for use on your own website or blog  Check out the choice of articles, terms and conditions, and downloading instructions.

THE EXISTENCE GAME: Steps Toward a Scientific/Spiritual Paradigm and Wisdom-Based Culture
This book manuscript by Copthorne Macdonald (copyright 1988) was never published "as is" in print form. Large portions of it, however, found their way into his 1993 book Toward Wisdom and his 2004 book Matters of Consequence.

Paper-and-ink books. Find out more about them by clicking the links

From Knowledge to Wisdom, 2nd Edition by Nicholas Maxwell. With the first edition long out of print, we welcome this updated second edition of Maxwell's seminal work in which he calls for an academic revolution from knowledge acquisition for its own sake to knowledge acquisition in the service of greater human wisdom.

Living a Life of Value Subtitled A Unique Anthology of Essays on Values & Ethics by Contemporary Writers, this book presents the views of 75 writers.

Building a Life of Value by Jason Merchey. Merchey has divided wise values into 14 sets, and the 14 chapters of this book contain quotations that bear on living those values.

Values, Prosperity, and the Talmud by Larry Kahaner draws from the Talmud a wealth of ethical advice for business — advice that is highly relevant to today's concerns about corporate behavior.

Wisdom, Intuition, and Ethics by Trevor Curnow is a valuable resource for anyone wanting to explore the history of wisdom, its nature, and wisdom's relationship to ethics.

Wisdom: Its Nature, Origins, and Development, Robert J. Sternberg, Editor. This scholarly book's 14 chapters by 20 authors looks at wisdom from philosophical, psychological and folk perspectives.

Matters of Consequence by Copthorne Macdonald is a comprehensive map of the human situation that presents the vision of a 2050 world worth creating and discusses opportunities for personal action.

Toward Wisdom by Copthorne Macdonald explores the "Perennial Philosophy" variety of wisdom, impediments we face in our quest to become wise, and various ways and means of getting past them.

Getting a Life by Copthorne Macdonald is about the practical variety of wisdom. Its 21 chapters deal with different facets of everyday life and skillful and not-so-skillful ways of handling them.

5 books by Ken Wilber. When it comes to putting the big picture into words, Ken Wilber does a superb job. Here, read brief comments about five of his important books.

Barnett and Maxwell, Editors — Wisdom and the University