I am going to try to capture some elusive concepts that require me to reach into philosophy and sociology, which are areas outside of my professional specialization. Caveat emptor. If you recognize a mistake or misunderstanding in my arguments, please let me know in the comments or over email.
I have been mulling over the idea that every D&D player knows the difference between Intelligence and Wisdom but few consider that they are engaged in classical epistemology. Aristotle wrote about the distinction between the intellect and the will, although I came across this by way of Thomas Aquinas. Thomas described how the intellect apprehends and abstracts while the will chooses. This is essentially the distinction in D&D and related tabletop roleplaying games.
It's a fascinating case where players learn philosophy without knowing that they are doing so. I hypothesize that this has a real impact on their lives as well, that when people come to think of the powers of the mind in terms of Intelligence and Wisdom (or intellect and will, or intellectus and voluntas), it gives them a lens to think about life outside the game. If my observations and hypotheses are correct, then if D&D can do it, so can other games.
Yesterday, I listened to a podcast that gave me a different perspective on the matter. In the Conversations podcast, Mark Bauerlein interviewed Molly Worthen about her work on charisma and leadership. She caught my attention when she pointed out that sociologist Max Weber secularized the word "charisma." The word had traditionally only been used in the New Testament sense, where the Pauline epistles refer to spiritual gifts. As I understand it, Weber took this idea and turned it to refer to extraordinary (but not supernatural) leadership capabilities.
This forced me to recognize that I had never really considered the two definitions of "charisma" despite being familiar with both. It was a revelation to me to hear that it was a scholar's intentional appropriation of a term, not a gradual evolution of a concept. It also made me recognize that D&D players would only ever recognize Weber's concept, not Paul's. Here is a case in contrast to Intelligence and Wisdom, where a player comes to understand only half a concept while presuming to understand a whole.
To me, it is a cautionary tale about learning from games, that a designer must choose words carefully. I do not know whether Gygax or Arneson dove into the etymology of the terms they used to describe player characters in D&D. I suspect, like most designers, they simply chose the words that evoked the right sensibility for what their game was trying to communicate. If I am right about this, then this means that they were clearly established in a classical epistemology and a modern secular sociology. That itself is a fascinating thought, for if they were, then what about us?