sapient

Human beings certainly like to think they're wise, and, in fact, the term "Homo sapiens" ("humankind") comes in part from the Latin word sapiens, meaning "wise" or "intelligent." "Sapiens" in turn comes from the verb "sapere," which means "to be wise" (and which also gave us "sage" and "savant"). "Sapiens" and "sapere" are also ancestors of our adjective "sapient," of course. "Sapient" came to us from Latin by way of Middle French and has been used in English to mean "wise" since the 15th century. In recent times it also has been used in anthropological contexts to mean "characteristic of modern humans."