Wisdom Across Philosophical Traditions A New Edited Volume By Giulia Bonasio
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Giulia Bonasio (Ed.), Perspectives on Wisdom. An Exploration in the History of Philosophy from West to East, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2025.
In her recently published edited volume, former Senior Fellow Giulia Bonasio brings together different perspectives on wisdom as an outcome of the workshop she convened during her senior fellowship at the Collegium Helveticum. Building on the discussions initiated there, the volume assembles contributions that trace the concept of wisdom across philosophical traditions from West to East, placing classical sources in dialogue with later interpretations and contemporary debates.
Bonasio’s newly published book is a wide-ranging and interdisciplinary examination of wisdom across time and cultural contexts. Long regarded as the defining trait of the philosopher, wisdom has been understood in diverse ways: as practical or theoretical, contemplative or action-guiding, pursued for its usefulness or valued for its own sake. Against the backdrop of contemporary calls for wise political leadership and collective judgment, the edited volume asks fundamental questions: Who are the wise? What kind of thinking do we call wisdom? What is its purpose?
Christoph Riedweg, Professor Emeritus of Classical Philology at the University of Zurich, was her associate fellow during her time at the Collegium. Their exchange, alongside discussions with other fellows and Zurich-based scholars, played an important role in shaping the intellectual trajectory of the project.
“The openness of the intellectual community at the Collegium and the breadth of perspectives fundamentally enabled me to rethink wisdom.”
“The interdisciplinary experience at the Collegium was fundamental for this book,” Bonasio reflects. “The openness of the intellectual community here and the breadth of perspectives fundamentally enabled me to rethink wisdom not as a fixed cultural inheritance, but as a dynamic and globally entangled concept.”
With Perspectives on Wisdom, Bonasio extends the conversations initiated at the Collegium beyond the Western canon, offering a comparative exploration of philosophical traditions from West to East, an approach deeply shaped by the interdisciplinary environment in which the project first took form.