Sophia also appears in the ancient world as a goddess or femine spirit. So in this (rather poetic) interpretation, 'love~wisdom' is erotic, in the Platonist sense (i.e. not carnally erotic) - the love of wisdom personified as sophia.

In Gnostic cosmology, Sophia becomes a demigod. 'As a member of the Pleroma Sophia (Greek for "wisdom") represents the means of gnosis. By refusing to procreate, humans assist in restoring Sophia's divine sparks to their rightful place. In some gnostic myths a partner, Christos, was created for Sophia and that partnership is an aid to humans. Sophia is thus simultaneously part of patriarchal myths that devalue women (she is the cosmic "fall" just as Eve is the material "fall") and represents liberation from them. (More here.)

Are wisdom and knowledge equivalents?

Not now, but at the time of the ancient Greeks, there was less specialization, so a great deal more fell into the domain of philosophy to explain. Most commonly it is observed there was not the separation between 'science' and 'philosophy,' but many other skills fell in the same camp including rhetoric, politics, law, and to some extent medicine, all of which were taught by one and the same person, and the idea 'friend of knowledge' derives from that. 'philos' more accurately is described as friendship than love.

Philosophy is a form of critical thinking, or perhaps critical thinking is a form of philosophy. Any time someone has to do some kind of intense thinking or due diligence in any field it has the capacity of touching on philosophical topics. Critical thinking has also been described as "thinking about thinking", which is also true of certain aspects philosophy.

I don't know exactly where simple/mundane thinking stops and philosophy/critical thinking begin, but I believe as long as there are situations where people have to think for themselves, use 'critical thinking', have to 'think about thinking', etc there will be a need for philosophy. Hence it is a given that the idea of "philosophy is dead" is a bit premature given that there has never been a time in history where people use (as well as misuse) critical thinking and the aspects of philosophy that need to be understood to process such thoughts.


That is IMHO at least. :D

First of all I think this thread should be the most important for everyone who is interested in Philosophy. Unfortunately the last input is 4 years ago!

So here is the descriptive definition of what Philosophy is .
Philosophy is the intellectual endeavor by which we construct Wise statements about the world that can be used to expand our understanding and knowledge.
The way is done is through Theoretical frameworks.

Being a Greek I can inform this thread that "sophia"(σοφία) is the "ability/mastery" to combine acquired knowledge with experience, reasoning and innate understanding.
It is the sagacious and logical application of knowledge in Theoretical frameworks.

Aristotle was the first one who understood that and the one who defined the basic steps of the Philosophical Method which are the following.
We start by studying:
1. Epistemology (understand the Accepted Knowledge, what we know and how we know it).
2. Physika (Science. Evaluate our current knowledge and produce new one)
3. Metaphysics( Philosophical reflection on what this new knowledge means for our frameworks)
4. Aesthetics ( Applications of our freshly informed frameworks on real life questions and problems)
5. Ethics -//-
6.Politics -//-
The produced frameworks inform our Epistemology and the process restarts again.

No they are not. In order for a statement to be wise, it needs to be founded on knowledge. A wise claim can produce further knowledge but that is only possible when the initial wise claim is based on verified knowledge.