Philosophy, so taught Plato, means ‘love of wisdom’. And from the Buddha, to Kant and Einstein, there’s barely a thinker dead or alive who hasn’t extolled its virtues. But for a concept so omnipresent, there’s a surprising lack of clarity over what wisdom is and who might have it, argues Auguste Comte Chair in Social Epistemology, Steve Fuller. ‘Wisdom’ has a highly troubled past, is used to justify lazy prejudice, and should be taken off the pedestal that we’ve placed it on.