Psychology of Philosophers

Mikie

Neitzsche touched on the physiology and general health of philosophers. He saw Kant as anemic, but admired the likes of Plato, and so forth. I like to think of myself (and others) in these terms sometimes.

I wonder what truly got me interested in what we call philosophy. The underlining psychological (and perhaps physiological and neurological) reasons are the same reasons that account for who my favorite thinkers are. I think my individual case says something about the point Neitzsche was making.

If I’m honest, I think a big part of my gravitation towards philosophy was not simply curiosity, but fear— fear of the unknown. Like a child afraid of the dark or of being alone, uncertainty can be scary. Added to this being told the story of a supernatural world where people go to either heaven or hell, and the stakes get awfully high—who wants to be punished forever simply because you made the wrong choice?

So fear of the unknown was a big factor, especially when the stories of a fundamentalist Christian uncle became less convincing and additional questions were asked. But where did the fear come from? It wasn’t only the thought of hell — after all, lots of kids get told that and aren’t particularly afraid of it — and certainly most don’t develop a love of philosophy.

I think the reason for my exceptional level of fear was my physical constitution. I was born with a nervous system that was more trigger-happy than most. In the past, “neurotic” would fit the bill. These days, the “highly sensitive person.”

Here we see the interaction of genes and nerves and environmental factors like culture and stories. I don’t remind myself of this often enough. It plays a huge role in my philosophy, my politics, my religious views— and therefore how I live my life (viz., what I do).

I look around and notice it with others too. We simply don’t realize that so much of what we think we know, who we listen to, the company we keep, the jobs we do, and how we generally live our lives, is determined by factors beyond our control — the time and place you are born, your genes, your parents and upbringing, your culture and peers, early life experiences, education, etc.

So we think and think, endlessly question things and attempt to solve puzzles. But the thinking and problem solving doesn’t take place in a vacuum — it takes place in the mind of a human being with a long and complex developmental history, psychological and physiological.

So I often wonder to what extent the stuff we read and write about is simply a product of our class, our parents class and education, and our upbringings. Fair enough. But I also wonder about the Neitzsche analysis: the levels of energy we possess; how strong our stomachs are; how anxious or stressed we are; whether we’re sleep deprived or not; if we carry with us much physical pain, etc.

Very different philosophies (and lives) can come out of such simple accidents.

Bottom line: It’s sometimes worth getting underneath thinking itself.

Jack Cummins

↪Mikie

I find your area of questioning interesting as I first began finding books in the philosophy section when I was about 12 or 13. I can remember getting a book out on 'The Mind' when I was 12 and I think it was probably as much connected to the issues of the philosophy of mind as much as the psychology. I can also remember engaging school friends in conversation about the nature of time and the existence of God. I think part of it came from being an only child and spending more time by myself and not liking playing sports.

My reading life grew through adolescence, especially when I became depressed in sixth form, and by the time I left school reading philosophy and related areas was an integral part of my life. It was partly sparked by the tension between religion and science too.

Generally, from interacting with others, it seems that it is those who for some reason need to question life in a slightly deeper way who are most drawn to philosophy. I have come across some interesting people in philosophy sections of libraries, often a bit 'on the edge'. However, that doesn't mean that all people who are interested in are 'troubled souls', but they usually have some reason to go beyond conventional common sense understanding. I have also come across a couple of people who did begin studying philosophy, who dropped out, because they didn't like all the questioning which it involved.

BC

Great post.

look around and notice it with others too. We simply don’t realize that so much of what we think we know, who we listen to, the company we keep, the jobs we do, and how we generally live our lives, is determined by factors beyond our control — the time and place you are born, your genes, your parents and upbringing, your culture and peers, early life experiences, education, etc. — Mikie

OR

I wonder to what extent the stuff we read and write about is simply a product of our class, our parents class and education, and our upbringings — but also by the levels of energy we possess, how strong our stomachs are, how anxious or stressed we are, whether we’re sleep deprived or not, if we carry with us much physical pain, etc. Very different philosophies (and lives) can come out of such simple things. — Mikie

Excellent! Either paragraph will do.

Our 'intellectual facilities' like to think they are above it all, not affected by all the good and bad stuff that compose our histories. Freud's point that "we are not masters of our own houses" is apropos here. It seems to take a long time for us to come to grips with all this.

I've been enjoying Peter Zeihan for the past few weeks, his speeches and hi book "The End of the World is just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization". It fits my pessimism, true, and it also does a nice job of explaining how advantages accrue or not to particular nations and regions. His thesis is that after WWII, the now-dominant USA offered to maintain peaceful world trade in exchange for cooperation (AKA, do what we tell you to do). The current regime of market globalization developed under this umbrella.

This regime is going to end as the US backs away from its near 80 year guarantee of safe trade on the high seas. Demographics is also going to kill it. Because world population expanded a lot after WWII there were plenty of cheap workers everywhere. That is over. Many countries, whole regions, now have large older populations and much smaller younger populations. Fewer people means smaller and shrinking economies. As an economic powerhouse, China is near the end of the road.

Point is, I'm primed to like that sort of thing.

Nobody planned to end up with too many old people and not enough young people. It happened. Some regions -- North America, France, Turkey, Argentina, New Zealand, and a few others don't have this problem--not by design, just good fortune.

Zeihan has a bunch of YouTube lectures. He's a good speaker, easy to grasp.

Tom Storm

We simply don’t realize that so much of what we think we know, who we listen to, the company we keep, the jobs we do, and how we generally live our lives, is determined by factors beyond our control — the time and place you are born, your genes, your parents and upbringing, your culture and peers, early life experiences, education, etc. — Mikie

I was drawn to Marxism as a kid because it seemed obvious to me that the way society is organized rewards some people and debilitates and destroys others. This curated unfairness seems to some people to be a 'natural order' and even as an instantiation of freedom. For me everything else flows from this modest (social justice) insight. Humans believe things because they are born in particular zip codes and because they are socialized to accept particular values. We are all products of forces beyond our control - not just those of geopolitics and economics, but the ideas and very language we use to communicate. Trying to work out which parts to ditch; which parts are really you is the challenge.

One can see the attraction of mysticism and spirituality to the avant-garde set and counter culture movement which sought to break out of all this via transcendence, even if much of this project was theatrical, smug and had its own forms of elitism. I was connected to groups like this through the 1980's.

I wonder to what extent the stuff we read and write about is simply a product of our class, our parents class and education, and our upbringings — Mikie

Most of it I would have thought. Still, mustn't grumble. I'm not looking for transcendence or glimpses into the ultimate truth (surely a human construct) and would probably settle for a good cup of tea over all that.

Tom Storm

Neitzsche touched on the physiology and general health of philosophers. He saw Kant as anemic, but admired the likes of Plato. — Mikie

A dangerous project to begin with, especially for a lonely, sickly, unlucky in love, son of a pastor like Freddie. :razz:

Manuel

↪Mikie

It may now be a cliche, and these, we are told, should be avoided. Nonetheless, I think they apply to those of us who resonate with them. Although the quote mentions literature specifically, I think it can apply to philosophy as well:

"Fiction's job is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable." - David Foster Wallace

I think this applies to my fascination with the dark side of human nature - from a psychological perspective, and also to my obsession with the idea that there are things in themselves - an aspect of reality, which we know that we cannot know. At least it is for me.

I suspect both have a tenuous connection with (im)possibility. How could a human being possibly do something as abhorrent as that? And, How can it at all possible the world as it is, differs radically from the way it appears?

Both are frustrations at lack of understanding, and yet both show a fascination with the way people think about others and the world. A good philosopher or a good novel with a philosophical idea, will comfort me in the darkness, I suppose.

And I could be doing shit psychoanalysis. Does my social status and my environment contribute to how I think? To a large extent sure. But since I cannot live two lives in separate environments, I cannot say...

In any case, thanks for opening this thread and allowing me to type out loud, with no real point in mind...

fdrake

Good thread @Mikie. My "self narrative" on where my philosophical beliefs came from.

Left politics - being mocked by a school friend's family because my family couldn't afford a dish washing machine.
Something close to eliminative materialism - have suffered from people behaving incongruously with how they describe and motivate their actions. Minds are made for confabulating.
Methodological behaviourism - see above.
Collectivism - seeing people treat others like they were treated, "people are made of other people" kinda thing.

Philosophy in general - who knows. Threat modelling? Making sense of a world which doesn't make sense? Growing up in places where what intuitions are taught/expected to work don't work at all. Needing to think like this to survive.

frank

↪fdrake

That all sounds kind of cold and brutal.

Wayfarer

↪Mikie

I’m a Boomer, and my quest originated very much in the 1960’s. I had a few vivid epiphanies - at least that’s what it seemed - that hinted at some larger truth. Then, it being the 60’s, I was influenced by the counter-culture - not that I was really part of it - and the popular Eastern mystics of the day (remember Sgt Peppers?) and also what can be politely referred to as entheogens. At the time, there was a perceived division between hippies - we all wanted to be hippies - and the ‘straights’ (not in reference to sexual orientation). The straight world was the military-industrial complex, consumerism and materialism. ‘Hip’ had faintly gnostic overtones (actually Hipgnostic was a firm that designed album covers for many major 60’s pop acts). So my quest began with enlightenment, the Adyar Bookstore, and various minor sojourns to associated places and visiting speakers. Never really joined anything although flirted with a few movements.

Of course in the many years since I’ve seen how much of my behaviour then was not wanting to accept the responsibility of adulthood (although I eventually did, marriage and children, now adults). After school I tried ‘dropping out’ but immediately learned that meant doing drudgeries for not much money. I was kind of adrift for a long while, fancied myself a musician although without the flash to make anything from it. So when I enrolled (as a late-entry student) I set about studying what I considered enlightenment, through history, psychology (no joy there!), philosophy, religious studies and anthropology. The latter two proved the most fruitful for my quest (although they never bore fruit career-wise. )

In the years since, I’ve come to realise that maybe a lot of my quest was motivated by the ‘God-shaped hole’ that was left when I declined Anglican confirmation. I realise a lot of what I write is very much shaped by Christian Platonism, which I seem to have acquired somewhere (sometimes I think in a past life). It’s possibly also because I tried to follow a curriculum of mindfulness meditation for many years and it surfaces certain kinds of ‘samskara’ (in yogic terminology) which can be like thought-formations shaped by one’s culture of birth. I did quite a bit of awareness training in my late 20s and 30s which overall has had a beneficial influence.

I suppose the philosophical conviction that now animates me is along the lines of there being a forgotten wisdom (e.g. Huston Smith, Pierre Hadot) - that the West really does have its own wisdom tradition but it sits uneasily alongside the predominant scientific secularism of today’s culture. Harking back to my youth, I think there really is something in the ‘age of Aquarius’ and ‘the greening of culture’ - a real and fundamental shift in the collective consciousness, which is happening even despite all the dreadful things that are going on in the world.

fdrake

↪frank

Nah.

frank

Nah — fdrake

It does sound that way to me. I take it you don't experience it that way.

fdrake

It does sound that way to me. I take it you don't experience it that way. — frank

Why does it sound that way to you?

frank

Why does it sound that way to you? — fdrake

Eliminative materialism and methodological behaviorism? It's a kind of nihilism, isn't it?

fdrake

↪frank

I don't think so. But that's off topic. So I'll leave it.

T Clark

I think a big part was not simply curiosity, but fear — Mikie

For me, I think it was primarily curiosity. I just want to know how it all fits together. What happens next. It's fun, play.

I look around and notice it with others too. We simply don’t realize that so much of what we think we know, who we listen to, the company we keep, the jobs we do, and how we generally live our lives, is determined by factors beyond our control — the time and place you are born, your genes, your parents and upbringing, your culture and peers, early life experiences, education, etc. — Mikie

That's one of the main points of philosophy - to get beyond those cultural, social, and historical factors to the extent possible.

frank

don't think so. But that's off topic. So I'll leave it. — fdrake

Eliminative materialism is obviously a kind of nihilism. It's psychologically precarious. That appears to me to be on topic, but I agree we should leave it. :grimace:

Mikie

My reading life grew through adolescence, especially when I became depressed in sixth form, and by the time I left school reading philosophy and related areas was an integral part of my life. It was partly sparked by the tension between religion and science too. — Jack Cummins

Appreciate you sharing this. It’s interesting to hear what leads some people to philosophy and others to have nearly no interest.

However, that doesn't mean that all people who are interested in are 'troubled souls', but they usually have some reason to go beyond conventional common sense understanding. — Jack Cummins

Yes, definitely, and that’s my point. This stuff doesn’t happen in “objective space.” Neither does science. Neither does mathematics.

Our 'intellectual facilities' like to think they are above it all, not affected by all the good and bad stuff that compose our histories. — BC

Yes indeed. And I appreciate the kind comments.

We are all products of forces beyond our control - not just those of geopolitics and economics, but the ideas and very language we use to communicate. — Tom Storm

language is an excellent example, of course. We simply can’t cut off our heads and start thinking.

Does my social status and my environment contribute to how I think? To a large extent sure. But since I cannot live two lives in separate environments, I cannot say... — Manuel

Right — although you can try, it’s nearly impossible to imagine the ways your life could have gone had you been born into a different family or time, up to and including all your values and beliefs.

We all have an interest in philosophy— otherwise we wouldn’t be on this site. There are reasons we have an interest, just as there’s reasons we take the positions we do and why some thinkers are more appealing to us than others. An obvious (cliched) point, yes, but I thought worth reminding myself of in a public way.

Left politics - being mocked by a school friend's family because my family couldn't afford a dish washing machine. — fdrake

Interesting, but I can’t say I fully see the connection. Was it that being mocked made you more aware of your class position?

Something close to eliminative materialism - have suffered from people behaving incongruously with how they describe and motivate their actions. Minds are made for confabulating. — fdrake

I’m completely confused by this one! The fault could very likely be mine alone.

Philosophy in general - who knows. Threat modelling? Making sense of a world which doesn't make sense? Growing up in places where what intuitions are taught/expected to work don't work at all. Needing to think like this to survive. — fdrake

You needed to think philosophically to survive in a relatively unstable environment— does that sum it up? If so, if you’re willing to flush that out a little more I’d be interested to see how it connects. As I mentioned, I think my own interest was because I didn’t like the uncertainty of death, and this came from a story told to me as a child regarding an afterlife of heaven and hell. Also my trying to wrap my little head around God and nothingness. I also had way too much time on my hands and was way too sensitive to changes (and time). I was nostalgic for 6 when I was 8, etc.

It’s all speculations, and I’m probably either wrong or only shedding light on a small fraction of causes— but the main point is to at least think about it. Which itself is philosophical, in the sense of questioning things.

In the years since, I’ve come to realise that maybe a lot of my quest was motivated by the ‘God-shaped hole’ that was left when I declined Anglican confirmation. — Wayfarer

I suspect philosophy and early religious upbringing are often closely associated due to their questions. Thanks for your thoughtful post — never knew you were a boomer and former (or current?) hippie!

For me, I think it was primarily curiosity. I just want to know how it all fits together. What happens next. It's fun, play. — T Clark

That’s the motivation I’d love to instill in children. Questioning and discovery for its own sake. Alas, I can only partly make the same claim. Too much religious indoctrination, and too neurotic.

That's one of the main points of philosophy - to get beyond those cultural, social, and historical factors to the extent possible. — T Clark

And that may be a fool’s errand. I think that’s Neitzsche’s point anyway. I tend to agree. But you did say “to the extent possible,” so I take your point.

180 Proof

↪Mikie

Interesting OP.

A. What had 'motivated' my interest in philosophy?

Suffering; then later, that stupidity is somehow related to suffering.

B. Which aspects of my biography 'determine' my philosophical commitments?

Born into an urban, working class family; an ethnic minority male (older sibling); raised in a loving, secure home by a single immigrant mother, daily threats of street / gang crime & police violence (but never any domestic abuse); disciplined parochial schooling K-12; all of my closest friends also came from close, polyglot, immigrant families; early love of science fiction & (electric) Blues ... then @16 I lost 'my religion' (I'd realized I did not 'believe in' Catholicism or the God of the Bible) and then @17 had my first philosophy class (textbook – From Socrates to Sartre).

Forty-odd years later, my (macro) philosophical commitments are (more or less, still): fallibilsm, secularism & naturalism.:death::flower: The bolded above, I suspect, may be (implicitly) 'axiomatic' to my philosophizing.

fdrake

I’m completely confused by this one! The fault could very likely be mine alone. — Mikie

Minds working like bizarre machines that don't connect to the body's movements. Rather than distrusting bodies, which did things, I distrusted stories about bodies, which came from minds. Since it seemed like the body did things consistently and minds had no idea what was going on, minds seemed a lot less trustworthy. As a social thing. And as a concept.

Edit: Rereading some SEP, this is a "folk psychology radically misrepresents mind workings and none of the concepts in it work like they're intended" thesis rather than a "minds don't exist in any sense" thesis. AFAIK the former still counts as eliminativism.

You needed to think philosophically to survive in a relatively unstable environment— does that sum it up? — Mikie

Yeah! I grew up with a lot of outright weird shit. Fringe religious polycule. It tried hard not to behave like one, but would usually fail to do so.

Interesting, but I can’t say I fully see the connection. Was it that being mocked made you more aware of your class position? — Mikie

Social status being tied to family wealth. I can remember wondering why can some people afford dish washers and others can't. And wondering why it would be a cause for mockery. I felt ashamed, and realised that there was a shame in my family being poor. That had to have come from somewhere.

So fear of the unknown was a big factor, especially when the stories of a fundamentalist Christian uncle became less convincing and additional questions were asked. But where did the fear come from? It wasn’t only the thought of hell — after all, lots of kids get told that and aren’t particularly afraid of it — and certainly most don’t develop a love of philosophy. — Mikie

I find this instructive. It seems like there'll never be a sufficient explanation for how we all ended up loving this bizarre hobby.

how strong our stomachs — Mikie

Also instructive. I feel there's a connection between philosophy and a willingness to look analytically at things which hurt the eyes. Do you?

fdrake

That appears to me to be on topic, but I agree we should leave it. :grimace: — frank

Just out of curiosity - is this some kind of accusation that I'm "cold and uncaring" because I "don't believe in minds" and "don't care how individuals are treated"?

unenlightened

↪Mikie

At some stage in this confessional thread one might start to see a pattern; so far the obvious pattern is that philosophers like to display their examined lives, and think it serious and worthwhile to do so. And who am I to disagree? Everybody's looking for something. Sweet dreams are made of these.

Family: youngest of 5, and only boy: an accident at the end of the family, father ex-Wee-Free, ex communist, mother ex-military. hence the contradictions of middle-class socialism backed by determinist authoritarian Colonial Victorian morality.

Me therefore, more like an only child of many mothers, both spoilt and neglected. Physically, slow to develop, poor coordination, rather poor memory, but some talent for pattern recognition. Therefore, good at mathematics, where writing is minimal and understanding is king.

At age 11, expelled from the womb of the ultra-feminine family, into the harsh world of an all male boarding school. Became psychologically homeless and politically revolutionary. Therefore rejected the natural path from Maths Physics and Chemistry A-levels to a science or engineering degree, and resorted to philosophy and psychology knowing nothing of their content. Found philosophy congenial.

TL:DR Contrarian falls into snake-pit of philosophy, cannot be bothered to climb out.

fdrake

↪unenlightened

Have always wondered about your origin story! Thanks for sharing!

Jamal

Left politics - being mocked by a school friend's family because my family couldn't afford a dish washing machine. — fdrake

I used to tell a similar story, but now I think maybe it’s just a small part of it. Or who knows, maybe it is the deep psychological cause and I just haven’t faced up to it. Anyway…my lower middle-class parents got into money problems and we had our house repossessed and we were struggling for a long time after that. It was about that time that I declared I was a communist.

But there was more to it than that. The contrarian element was strong in me. My Dad had been a kind of socialist. He was on the side of the miners in the eighties and I used to repeat his opinions among my friends, many of whom were the children of pro-Thatcher parents. I was just nine years old and didn’t know what I was talking about, but I was sure I was right.

He also used to talk sympathetically about the Soviet Union, and I was attracted to this, knowing it was a non-standard view. So I began with similar sympathy for the Soviet Union, but luckily ended up going the Trotskyist route. The fact that I became left-wing via wrong opinions isn’t a problem, just the way things go. (Sympathy for the USSR was the wrong opinion, not sympathy for the miners, btw)

I remember the excitement of the weird ideas more than I remember the feelings of injustice or the misery of eating cheap generic supermarket-brand fish-fingers every day.

Jamal

Oh, I should have said: dishwasher? We didn’t even have dishes.

fdrake

Oh, I should have said: dishwasher? We didn’t even have dishes. — Jamal

Hot gravel?

Jamal

↪fdrake

Luxury!

frank

Just out of curiosity - is this some kind of accusation that I'm "cold and uncaring" because I "don't believe in minds" and "don't care how individuals are treated"? — fdrake

Not at all. It was an invitation to talk about the psychological dimensions of eliminativism. The way you reacted struck me as defensive, as if you're emotionally unstable. Or maybe we don't understand one another at all.

fdrake

Or maybe we don't understand one another at all. — frank

Likely. I will generally interpret someone telling me my perspective is "cold and brutal", without invitation or further comment, negatively. Perhaps if you used more words, I would have understood you.

unenlightened

maybe we don't understand one another at all. — frank

Have you said something about yourself and I missed it?

frank

Have you said something about yourself and I missed it? — unenlightened

I didn't. I had a dreamlike childhood during which I saw the sights and sounds around me as a kind of veil with something more real behind it.

I think this was probably a childish translation of the beliefs of the Jehovah's Witnesses I grew up around. They rejected this world and expected it to all be replaced by a perfect world. To me, my only access to the real world was down in the woods playing in the creek. Unfortunately, I couldn't stay there and I became suicidal in my teens.

It's like a gorge opened up between the real me and the me who deals with the world of people and the dramas they create. For me, philosophy is part of my quest to find the bottom.

frank

Likely. I will generally interpret someone telling me my perspective is "cold and brutal", without invitation or further comment, negatively. Perhaps if you used more words, I would have understood you. — fdrake

I've been practicing that lately. I find myself saying the same thing over and over in different ways, hoping that the meaning will get through somehow.

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