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The Shawnee, a native American tribe, tells a tale of brother crow and brother buffalo which imparts the wisdom of balance: to only hunt the buffalo when it is necessary for food and skins, but to remember that each creature is our brother and sister too. Tales like this one are not uncommon in many indigenous cultures around the world. 

Through an illustrative story set in nature, they transmit the ethical, epistemological, and metaphysical beliefs of the tribe from one generation to the next on topics such as virtue and vice, creation and purpose, life, death, and what comes after. Yet the collective body of knowledge and beliefs of such tribes are not considered philosophy, but are rather placed in an adjacent and loosely defined category called “wisdom traditions.” And this label is hardly reserved for indigenous knowledge systems. Buddhism, Humanism, Taoism, Transcendentalism, Confucianism and Quakerism have all been called wisdom traditions by some. 

In what way do wisdom traditions differ from philosophy? Are they considered “lesser than” or are they on equal ground but utilize different ways of knowing? Is the term subversively pejorative? Or does its separate status identify something uniquely different and profoundly important?

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