The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

principle from which what is
scientifically known follows cannot be an object of scientific
knowledge, of art, or of practical wisdom; for that which can be
scientifically known can be demonstrated, and art and practical
wisdom deal with things that are variable. Nor are these first
principles the objects of philosophic wisdom, for it is a mark of
the philosopher to have demonstration about some things. If, then,
the states of mind by which we have truth and are never deceived
about things invariable or even variable are scientific
knowlededge, practical wisdom, philosophic wisdom, and intuitive
reason, and it cannot be any of the three (i.e. practical wisdom,
scientific knowledge, or philosophic wisdom), the remaining
alternative is that it is intuitive reason that grasps the first
principles.
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7
    Wisdom (1) in the arts we ascribe to their most finished
exponents, e.g. to Phidias as a sculptor and to Polyclitus as a
maker of portrait-statues, and here we mean nothing by wisdom
except excellence in art; but (2) we think that some people are
wise in general, not in some particular field or in any other
limited respect, as Homer says in the Margites,
Him did the gods make neither a digger nor yet a ploughman
Nor wise in anything else.
    Therefore wisdom must plainly be the most finished of the forms
of knowledge. It follows that the wise man must not only know what
follows from the first principles, but must also possess truth
about the first principles. Therefore wisdom must be intuitive
reason combined with scientific knowledge-scientific knowledge of
the highest objects which has received as it were its proper
completion.
    Of the highest objects, we say; for it would be strange to think
that the art of politics, or practical wisdom, is the best
knowledge, since man is not the best thing in the world. Now if
what is healthy or good is different for men and for fishes, but
what is white or straight is always the same, any one would say
that what is wise is the same but what is practically wise is
different; for it is to that which observes well the various
matters concerning itself that one ascribes practical wisdom, and
it is to this that one will entrust such matters. This is why we
say that some even of the lower animals have practical wisdom, viz.
those which are found to have a power of foresight with regard to
their own life. It is evident also that philosophic wisdom and the
art of politics cannot be the same; for if the state of mind
concerned with a man’s own interests is to be called philosophic
wisdom, there will be many philosophic wisdoms; there will not be
one concerned with the good of all animals (any more than there is
one art of medicine for all existing things), but a different
philosophic wisdom about the good of each species.
    But if the argument be that man is the best of the animals, this
makes no difference; for there are other things much more divine in
their nature even than man, e.g., most conspicuously, the bodies of
which the heavens are framed. From what has been said it is plain,
then, that philosophic wisdom is scientific knowledge, combined
with intuitive reason, of the things that are highest by nature.
This is why we say Anaxagoras, Thales, and men like them have
philosophic but not practical wisdom, when we see them ignorant of
what is to their own advantage, and why we say that they know
things that are remarkable, admirable, difficult, and divine, but
useless; viz. because it is not human goods that they seek.
    Practical wisdom on the other hand is concerned with things
human and things about which it is possible to deliberate; for we
say this is above all the work of the man of practical wisdom, to
deliberate well, but no one deliberates about things invariable,
nor about things which have not an end, and that a good that can be
brought about by action. The man who is without qualification good
at deliberating is the man who is capable of aiming in accordance
with calculation at the best for man of things attainable by
action. Nor is practical wisdom concerned with universals only-it
must also recognize the particulars; for it is practical, and
practice is concerned with particulars. This is why some who do not
know, and especially those who have experience, are more practical
than others who know; for if a man knew that light meats are
digestible and wholesome, but did not know which sorts of meat are
light, he would not produce health, but the