Abstract: What distinguishes wise people from the masses? The wise person has an impressive grasp on the issues that really matter in life. But what really matters? And what exactly is this impressive grasp? Is the impressive epistemic state of wisdom best categorized as a form of knowledge? If so, then a wise person is someone who is knowledgeable on the things that really matter in life. I will very briefly make a few claims about the subject matter of wisdom. The remainder of the discussion will focus on the epistemic state of wisdom.

I will offer for discussion, several interesting arguments against the view that the epistemic state of wisdom is knowledge. I will argue that some of these arguments are successful, and therefore it is not true that wise people are those who have knowledge about the things that really matter in life. I will wrap up this presentation arguing that the epistemic state of wisdom is a form of understanding that is not reducible to knowledge.