James and Waismann on Temperament in Philosophy

Abstract

For William James, philosophy is inextricably linked to what he calls temperament. In the first of his Pragmatism lectures, he claims that “the history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments” (Pragmatism 11), while conceding that this will strike many philosophers as “undignified.” In a similar vein, he elsewhere writes that philosophy seeks “by hard reasoning for results emotionally valuable” (Some Problems of Philosophy 11). It’s not hard to see a connection between these two claims: whether a philosophical conclusion is “emotionally valuable” will presumably depend, at least in part, on the reader’s temperament. A philosophical work will leave some readers cold while resonating with others; some philosophy will engage one’s interest and energy, while other philosophy will seem not so much mistaken as alien, remote from what one might ever find useful, interesting, or enlightening. James’s meta-philosophical claim—his philosophy of philosophy—has received surprisingly little attention. Much of the literature has focused instead on what he meant by “temperament” in the context of nineteenthand early twentieth-century theories of psychology and brain science. Much less attention has been paid to whether he is right and what the consequences would be if he is right.1 I aim to address this gap by first raising some fundamental issues with James’s position. To see better what he should have said, I will then turn to some later but surprisingly similar remarks by the Anglo-Austrian philosopher and mathematician Friedrich Waismann, before turning to a more recent account of philosophical methodology defended by Timothy Williamson.