Until you know the “way of wisdom” yourself, how would you know that they haven’t? Certainly you are aware that you can only hear what propagates and thus what is propagated. What is propagated is a matter of what some wish others to believe, not at all necessarily that which is wise. To some, that which is called wisdom is, in reality, foolishness and vsvrsa. Those being philosophical in their searching and preaching are attempting to discern one from the other and/or attempting to promote one over the other irrespective of which is wisdom.
On the Planets of the Apes, in the Land of Lies, how would one know what wise men have done and what wisdom may rise? How would one even learn if not by pursuing wisdom to its pentacle. How would one know when it was found? Who would tell? More-over, who would listen?
Why doesn’t the professional basketball player simply shoot the basket every time he gets the ball? Why doesn’t the coach, obviously knowing more than the players, play and make the highest scores for his team?
Not everyone is as ideal as what they idealize. To try is all that can be asked or expected.
Try not to confuse a philosopher with one who studies or teaches philosophy.
Since the subject was “which is more important to philosophers”, by definition, wisdom is the highest goal. Wisdom is that which is best to believe, not necessarily that which is true. To always believe only the truth, is but one philosophy. Where would we be if every flower and plant attempting life pursued only what it knew to be truth?
Four thousand year old trees have never and will never know truth, yet who competes with their wisdom? Such trees inherently know to simply keep trying. Nothing can die until it fails to try. What “reasoning” would have made them wiser? How old are you going to be when you give up trying?
At the very least, yes, they swim in the same waters ~ for me at least. Actually, one can have ~ let’s qualify that ~ one can have the capacity for right reason or reasoning and wisdom and yet not adhere or tend toward them or put into practice what they have learned.
Am I wrong, insofar as you are concerned?
The trees did not try to be wise, knowing, or reasoning. They “accidentally” did what worked for them at the time. What could have been wiser for them to have done? You swim the waters that you “accidentally” began swimming. Perhaps they are the waters that flow to the ocean of wisdom. Perhaps they are the waters that merely temporarily moisten the desert or gradually sink deeper and deeper under ground. Water cannot choose its destiny nor its fate. It must merely act in accord with its nature and do whatever it does in the environment it is in.
There are only two factors in determining the destination of all efforts; the natural lean of the effort and the environment in which it flows. If one has the capacity to learn great wisdom and is also within the environment that leads to such acquisition, that one’s destiny is wisdom. He could not escape it. The great trees became great not by themselves, but by where they were when they tried. No man has ever, nor can ever, achieve anything greater than the destiny of his nature guided by his situation (“Man following God” … for those very few with understanding). And no one is guilty of anything less. Given where they are and how they started, they “adhere to” what they must and nothing else.
You might say that all people are “bound to” their own form of “rationality”. If that is what you intended to say, then no, insofar as I am concerned, you were not wrong.