The great concern of the week for many families was about the results of the Ordinary, Intermediate and Advanced Level examinations. There were no signs of philosophy losing the height of popularity with students that it has been steadily gaining over the past few years. Don’t you think this is something of a paradox? On one hand thousands must have heard you explain that philosophy in Greek means ‘Love of Wisdom’. On the other, many teenagers, if asked what wisdom meant to them, would answer: ‘out-of-date’, ‘decrepit’.

Let us begin with the Biblical concept of wisdom. I was most moved at the fu­neral Mass of Mary Fenech Adami by the first reading from the last chapter (31) from the Book of Proverbs.

It is a poem, each verse of which begins with a letter of the alphabet, and therefore belongs to the play-pray tradition. It picks up the image of wisdom personified as a woman that had been introduced in Chapter 9.

There, wisdom is presented as a young woman seeking lovers ready to accept her gift of herself.

In Chapter 31 wisdom as woman is presented as having settled down in a home of her own but it would not be quite accurate to describe her as domesticated. In fact, although the woman seems to be a paragon at home economics she is more impressively portrayed at out-of-doors activities.

She is a tycoon-business woman who spots and buys a field at a bargain price. She is also said to have made a packet out of managing it as a vineyard.

The general picture given of her suggests that if she were running a wine shop, she would also have a supply of Alka Seltzer on her shelves.

The husband is only depicted marginally as a foil to his super wife. Yet there are evident traces of the patriarchal culture prevalent at the time of writing.

The President-Emeritus, while reading the biblical text as if it were autobiography, by pure instinct made these traces sound like touches of humour.

So, if the Biblical portrait of wisdom as woman of many parts really resembled Mrs Fenech Adami, then the media had been giving far too simplified a picture of her. The wisdom-woman of the Old Testament, besides being a workaholic, is most highly praised for her speaking abilities.

This quality, like all the many others she had, is exercised in every day practical, not theoretical or academic contexts.

In this connection, the dictates of diplomatic protocol, which have always remained deep mysteries to me, placed me not infrequently between Mrs Fenech Adami and the wives of visiting presidents or prime ministers at official dinners, and I invariably noted that while the distinguished lady guests tended to ask questions related to local cuisine and what I would have impolitely described as gossip, Mrs Fenech Adami asked them questions about politics in their countries.

The nature of the questions was always such that implied the conviction that politics is always about people and their everyday lives. I was reminded of the opinion of Thomas Aquinas that wisdom was a condition of goodness and that stupidity (or foolishness) excluded it.

I take it that your answer is that the Biblical concept of wisdom does not correspond to the common understanding of the word by many today. However, do you think that in the present Information Age and with the Open Source systems you favour so much, wisdom, even in the Biblical sense of the word, is still something to be desired and loved?

Wisdom has been most frequently defined by philosophers as being the ability to make the best use of knowledge. Nicholas Maxwell, a philosopher who has organised a sort of crusade to get universities to declare their objective to increase not knowledge but wisdom, has defined wisdom as “being the capacity to realise what is of value in life”.

History shows that the need of wisdom comes to be acutely felt in periods when some sort of revolutionary change is occurring in the sphere of values. That was the cases when the figure of the wisdom-woman was developed when the traditional values of Hebrew culture were being radically shaken through the impact upon it of Greek culture.

Another similar period was that so sensitively and ironically described in Jane Austen’s novels. Instead of the word ‘wisdom’ (which Aquinas had closely linked to Prudentia), the novelist uses ‘good sense’.

In her time the values of the aristocratic Aristotelian tradition that had prevailed among the English upper classes were being challenged by those of the rising bourgeoisie, such as the profit motive.

Austen shows clearly that both a mindless adherence to the old values and throwing them away for the sake of embracing the new Capitalist ethos led to unhappiness, the inevitable consequence of all brands of foolishness. Our situation today is evidently similar.

The bulk of young men and women cannot help feeling that the system of values that prevailed until the advent of the electronic revolution and globalisation are in dire need of revision. The more intelligent among them feel equally the same sort of need as was adverted to by Maxwell.

They are being drowned under a flood of scientific knowledge, and they want to have criteria that enable them to sift the information and retain just that which is of real value.

Is there a difference between secular and religious wisdom?

There is certainly a difference between cunning and wisdom. The first is concerned with what seems good, while the latter is concerned with what is in fact good.

Practical reasoning is enough to make the right option between them. But the fullness of human wisdom can only be attained through submission to Divine guidance.

Fr Peter Serracino Inglott was talking to Miriam Vincenti.