Eclectic Anecdotes

William James writes that “The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.”[1] What he means is that philosophical beliefs that individuals are convinced as true stem from their own personal temperaments. The beliefs are not demonstrative in a way that demands universal assent. When a person comes to believe philosophical ideas, it is not because the arguments were proved as conclusively true, but it is rather that the ideas find a home with the person because of their temperament. Arguments may be of an ad hoc nature to justify what their temperament has already agreed with. James further writes, “Temperament is no conventionally recognized reason, so he urges impersonal reasons only for his conclusions. Yet his temperament really gives him a stronger bias than any of his more strictly objective premises.”[2]

To give an example of the influence of temperament, a compatibilist position on free will—the belief that determinism is compatible with free will—is more common among extraverts than introverts, the latter more likely to be indeterminists, who believe determinism cannot be reconciled with free will.[3]

When we recognize that temperament rather than disinterested reason is driving us towards a particular belief that cannot amount to universal assent, we are more likely to be able to take a step back and carefully conclude that it may be beneficial to not try and force ourselves to develop a strong conviction affirming or denying the proposition through further philosophizing. This opens the path for a therapeutic approach. As Ludwig Wittgenstein writes, “The solution of the problem you see in life is a way of living which makes what is problematic disappear.”[4]

To not waste our time philosophizing in a way that will not lead to a proof that could attain universal submission (if that is our intent), we need to distinguish between what Gabriel Marcel calls problems and mysteries. A problem is something that we are capable of solving, while a mystery is only contemplative, and no amount of philosophizing can solve it. Without this distinction, there is confusion about what philosophy can achieve.[5]

I think that many times these philosophical disagreements are when dealing with mysteries rather than problems to be solved, and temperament plays an influential role in what side of the debate a person tends towards regarding a mystery.

Another consequence of a dissolving approach to philosophy is that it minimizes or completely does away with metaphysics. Many times metaphysical claims result from linguistic confusion. Representational grammar may sometimes be unknowingly reified into an entity of some sort. Examples of this include Platonic forms or Aristotelian realms of act and potency. Wittgenstein writes,

We keep hearing the remark that philosophy really does not progress, that we are still occupied with the same philosophical problems as were the Greeks. Those who say this however don’t understand why it is so. It is because our language has remained the same & keeps seducing us into asking the same questions. As long as there is still a verb ‘to be’ that looks as though it functions in the same way as ‘to eat’ and ‘to drink’, as long as we still have the adjectives ‘identical’, ‘true’, ‘false’, ‘possible’, as long as we continue to talk of a river of time & an expanse of space, etc., etc., people will keep stumbling over the same cryptic difficulties & staring at something that no explanation seems capable of clearing up.[6]

The purpose of this dissolving approach, at least how I make use of it, is therapeutic. Since we are dealing with mysteries, a solution cannot be given, but various contemplative positions can be elucidated that may be better accepted by different temperaments. This means that for people who become stressed by thinking too much of mysteries that they find meaningful, such as the possibility of life after death, an approach to a form of life that minimizes or completely does away this anxiety can be explained, which may involve acting in a way that does away with philosophizing completely. Another person’s temperament may cohere well with deep and endless contemplation on the existence and nature of God, in which case a guide to thinking about God can be provided that will best bring them happiness and peace through what may be considered clear and rightfully guided thinking about God that doesn’t contradict our quotidian experiences.

[1] James, William. Pragmatism and Other Writings (Penguin Classics) (p. 8). Kindle Edition.

[2] James, William. Pragmatism and Other Writings (Penguin Classics) (pp. 8-9). Kindle Edition.

[3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18805023/

[4] Jareño-Alarcón, Joaquín. Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Meaning of Life (p. 123). Kindle Edition.

[5] “A mystery is a problem which encroaches upon its own data, invading them, as it were, and thereby transcending itself as a simple problem,”; “At the same time, it remains certain that, for as much as hope is a mystery, its mystery can be ignored or converted into a problem. Hope is then regarded as a desire which wraps itself up in illusory judgments to distort an objective reality which it is interested in disguising from itself,” in Marcel, Gabriel. The Philosophy of Existence, p. 18, 28. Kindle Edition.

[6] Jareño-Alarcón, Joaquín. Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Meaning of Life (p. 87). Kindle Edition.