Wisdom at Work: An Inquiry into Wealth Counseling as a Form of Practical Wisdom
Keith Whitaker
Short Definition
This Project seeks wisdom in a new field known as “wealth counseling”. Wealth counseling has grown up as a variant of the contemporary business of consulting
Summary Points
- The interviews in this study detail answers (of questions) within the field of wealth advising.
- This Project seeks wisdom in a new field known as “wealth counseling”
- Wealth counseling has grown up as a variant of the contemporary business of consulting
- This study hypothesizes that wealth counseling can act as an important form of practical wisdom. This Project will test its fundamental hypothesis in a number of ways(5)
- This project benefits this field and also broadly diverse intellectual enterprises.
- Pursuit of novel insights in a novel field while connecting it with the traditional sources of wisdom.
- produce results highly relevant to the understanding of wisdom in our contemporary world while also respecting and reflecting practical wisdom itself.
Text from Wisdom Institute
Scholars, business leaders, wealth-holders, philanthropists, advisors, and others have shown intense interest in our core questions: What is wise counsel? How can one find it? And how best can one give it? The interviews in this study (inspired by Aristotle’s vision of practical wisdom and Socrates’ manner of inquiry) detail answers within the field of wealth advising. The historical component of the research offers examples from literature, religion, and business. This study has also created a strong community, based at www.wisecounselresearch.org. In the future, this inquiry seeks to explore additional questions, including: What is the role of wisdom in the professions that give counsel? Can one speak about wisdom “professionally?” And what role does love, including love of wisdom, have within a profession?
Wisdom at Work: An Inquiry into Wealth Counseling as a Form of Practical Wisdom This Project seeks wisdom in a new field known as “wealth counseling,” which involves consulting to individuals and families around their experience and use of material riches in their lives. Wealth counseling has grown up as a variant of the distinctly contemporary business of consulting. Though consulting does not tend to make claims about wisdom, if it were to do so, its wisdom would most closely resemble the kind known to earlier traditions as “practical wisdom” or phronesis, which involves deliberating well about the human good with a view towards action. This study hypothesizes that wealth counseling can act as an important form of practical wisdom. This Project will test its fundamental hypothesis in a number of ways: (1) by surveying wealth counseling’s activities and some of its outcomes as expressed in its own literature and self-descriptions; (2) through soliciting input from practitioners through a website that will also update the field on the Project’s work and help foster community within this new practice; and (3) by studying wealth counseling’s intellectual roots, in psychology and in moral philosophy. It will result in the production of five essays: (1) “What is wealth counseling?”; (2) “What is its wisdom?”; (3) “What is the intellectual history of the wisdom of wealth?”; (4) “Does wealth counseling meet its own goals?”; (5) “Is it wisdom?”. While focused on wealth counseling, this Project will benefit not only this field (and its many practitioners and clients) but also broadly diverse intellectual enterprises such as psychology, philosophy, and wisdom research. It will pursue novel insights in a novel field while connecting it with the traditional sources of wisdom. It will employ methods as old as textual analysis and as new as online social networking. It will respect the complexity of this interdisciplinary subject while producing specific outcomes of relevance to specialists and generalists. By doing so, it will produce results highly relevant to the understanding of wisdom in our contemporary world while also respecting and reflecting practical wisdom itself.
https://wisdomcenter.uchicago.edu/about/project-1-defining-wisdom