Knowledge or Wisdom?

If policy makers want to avoid constructing a savant economy instead of a humane society what else is needed, and is it a good idea to extend thinking beyond innovation and knowledge to also include wisdom? I argue that a primary goal of knowledge policy is not simply to accumulate large amounts of knowledge, expertise, and technology. Instead, the relational configuration of knowledge systems and how it leads to integration of ideas, values, and culture is more important in avoiding savantism. Finding ethical, workable, and dynamic balances between many variables is the real challenge. Wisdom is the ancient human quality that supports these goals. How this integration and inter-relating happens will be different in different communities of practice, and knowledge will fail businesses and communities that set tight limits on what is integrated into their discourse. Again, Enron serves as an example of this kind of failure. In this case, openness, diversity, and a democracy of ideas matter. Understanding the social dynamics of inter-relating ideas and values based on systems of trust and reciprocity (social  capital) is critical to managing knowledge systems for wise practice.

Policy professionals also need to understand other important theoretical issues related to wisdom and the limitations of knowledge. There are also cognitive limits to how much information people can remember and process, and people are boundedly (imperfectly) rational. All people therefore necessarily have imperfect knowledge of the world, even when inundated by information and knowledge. Wisdom and its attendant qualities like communication skill, experience, ethics, imagination, and judgement have much to do with successfully filling the gaps in knowledge and filling them despite what is often assumed to be ‘common sense’ or ‘received wisdom,’ but in reality are simply taken-for-granted assumptions of dubious validity. Wisdom is more than knowledge and brings a humane focus with it. The products of wisdom are badly needed and innovation policy should be under pinned by initiatives in various policy areas that promote the kinds of integrative processes in society that are characteristic of wisdom.

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