Aristotle offers some helpful terminology. Sophia (roughly translated as “theoretical knowledge”), he says, grasps universal truths, whereas phronesis (roughly, “good practical judgment”) is required to apply these truths properly to particular instances.

“Philosophy.” “Really?” she asked. “Really.” “Has that been”—trying not to laugh—“helpful to you?” “Inasmuch as it’s a study of how people ought to live, in theory, not at all,” I said. “But it’s useful in thinking about how people actually do behave, and why. Whether we really know what we think we know. How our minds trick us into forging false c

On the practical side (dealing with matters that can be otherwise, hence are suitable for deliberation) he draws an important distinction between ‘making’—the province of art (i.e. expertise in producing some outcome)—and ‘doing’, where no outcome beyond the doing itself is aimed at (VI.5). Practical wisdom (phronēsis) is the intellectual virtue co