Thomas Jefferson referred to the concept of collective wisdom when he made his statement, "A Nation's best defense is an educated citizenry".
Émile Durkheim argues in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912) that society by definition constitutes a higher intelligence because it transcends the individual over space and time, thereby achieving collective wisdom.
Fechner also referred to the work of Jesuit Priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, whose concept of the noosphere was a precursor to the term collective intelligence.
[1] He also discussed the collective mind within the context of social movements in Asia in a book Development Communication Praxis.
[2] Dave Pollard's restatement of Collective wisdom: "Many cognitive, coordination and cooperation problems are best solved by canvassing groups (the larger the better) of reasonably informed, unbiased, engaged people.
In this, six stances or principles, which support the power of collective wisdom are presented: deep listening, suspension of certainty, seeing whole systems/seeking diverse perspectives, respect for other/group discernment, welcoming all that is arising, and trust in the transcendent.
According to Alan Briskin, wisdom requires systematic reflection on the inner self and the outer states of social order.