Thursday, December 14, 2006

Knowledge and Wisdom

In Malone's class, we've been really trying to delve into the knowledge issues of Lanuage. I think that a huge part of Language is all of the different connotations that are attached with each word. In past week, I've been rereading The Giver, and a passage that really stood out to me was when the characters were talking about the "acquisition of wisdom." Meanwhile, in TOKland, Mr. Malone has been asking us to look at Language as an "acquisition of knowledge". Then I was thikning about why are these two words, knowledge and wisdom, have such different connotations? What do you think of when you hear or read the word knowledge, and likewise with wisdom? While these two words share a close meaning, what are the differing perceptions that you have for these two words? What can we learn about Language from these different connotations?

1 comment:

Greg Nelson said...

These differences in definitions sprout from the fact that this is what we are taught. As a child, I was told that wisdom is better than knowledge, since one can have massive amounts of knowledge and still be very foolish. I agree completely that if you said you were wise, it would give me an entirely different impression of you than if you said you were knowledgeable. Wisdom makes me think of old men with grey hair and long beards, so if you were "wise" I would likely consider you to be much older mentally than the average teen.