Section 10: Discernment

Discernment, also, and discerning well, in virtue of which men are said to be men of discernment or who can discern well, are neither entirely the same as opinion or expert knowledge (for at that rate all men would have been men of discernment), nor are they one of the particular disciplines, such as medicine, the science of things connected with health, or geometry, the science of spatial magnitudes. For discernment is neither about things that are always and are unchangeable, nor about any and every one of the things that come into being, but about things which may become subjects of questioning and deliberation. Hence it is about the same objects as prudence; but discernment and prudence are not the same. For prudence issues commands, since its end is what ought to be done or not to be done; but discernment only judges. (Discernment is identical with discerning well, a person with discernment with someone who discerns well.) Now discernment is neither the having nor the acquiring of prudence; but as learning is called discernment when it means the exercise of the faculty of knowledge, so ‘discernment’ is applicable to the exercise of the faculty of opinion for the purpose of judging of what someone else says about matters with which prudence is concerned–and of judging soundly; for ‘well’ and ‘soundly’ are the same thing. And from this has come the use of the name ‘discernment’ in virtue of which people are said to be people who can ‘discern well’, viz. from the application of the word to the grasping of scientific truth; for we often call such grasping discernment.