Wisdom Its Structure and Function in Regulating Successful Life Span Development

Abstract In the history of the humanities and the social sciences, questions of perfection and optimality in human behavior and human development always have been part of the intellectual agenda. Fueled by philosophers and theologists, many proponents participated in the search for truth criteria of perfection and optimality (Brandtsta ¨dter & Schneewind, 1977; Lerner, 1986; Tetens, 1777). Since the times of secularization and subsequently the advent of evolutionary biology, however, the answers to questions of perfection and optimality became more and more relative and uncertain.