Temperments

I accidentally re-created the four temperaments in my own self-analysis, which inclines me to think that there is some conceptual use to them.

Here's the chart I was making about myself back then, that I've since adapted for general philosophical use:

Reply to Pfhorrest

Interesting! Teilhard wrote "In its origin to arrangements of a single initial corpuscular type is the beacon of light that lights the history of the universe to our eyes."

DNA is now in a form of 4. There are 4 dimensions in the universe. 4 temperaments makes sense to me

Have you guys looked at personal construct theory at all. It's a bit meta, in that it supposes that everyone has some kind of classification scheme by which they understand their fellows, and sets out to discover how simple or complex, how vague or precise, consistent, how many dimensions it has and so on. In short, it's a psychology of man the psychologist.

This is just pop psychology. You can find this in horoscopes and psychic readings all around the world.

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Kant worked these into his aesthetics and a theory of national character in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime. That's an earlier work not quite 20 years before the critique.

I feel like I should add that my use of the four temperaments above is not so much as character types, as they are moods. I found myself cycling through high and low energy / positive and negative affect moods, and graphed that in prep for talking to a therapist, then later realized the four corners of that mood spectrum are basically the four temperaments.

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Modern psychology can't prove most of its claims. If someone cares to give some examples of things psychology has proven, let's discuss them

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Reply to tim wood

Yes, some of it is sound. But much of it is cultural interpretation. They also assume people act themselves while in a study

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Reply to tim wood

I get your point. People on other threads got mad a me for using Jungian psychology of their religious beliefs. I've never claimed a piece of land as my definite position on anything. I am here to learn. I've had many debates in person with my own therapists. They are often confused by my philosophical explanations that counter their interpretations. I am bipolar. Meds I have found are useful. But psychiatry experiments of people. If you give someone (like me) an antipsychotic (Rexulti) and a mood stabilizer (say lithium), you have created a a new drug called Rexulti-Lithium. Which has not been approved in studies by the FDA. Hey, the medication cocktail works for me, and many other people. I don't know why though. I don't know the science well enough. But I know that combining several psychoactive substances is basically having a novel prescription which has not been studied in clinical trials. Much of psychiatry and psychology is not rigorous for me. So I simply proposed the belief of an ancestors a hypothesis that might yield fruit

Reply to Gregory I find it annoying when people dismiss psychology out of hand (as it has existed since the late 19th century). Granted, there is a substantial pile of crap in the social sciences but it isn't all garbage.

For instance, the studies of perception, learning, memory, and so on hold up pretty well. Of course personality theories are culturally bound--even individually bound. The Greeks didn't transcend their culture, just as we do not. We can objectively analyze reaction time; it might not be possible for us to objectively analyze "who", "what", and "how" we are as persons. We can try to assay our individual personalities, but when we make the attempt culture, behavior, personal preferences, ego, and so forth crowd their way in and what we would prefer--clarity--becomes cloudy. That is true now, and it has likely always been true.

I note that many of the words you use to explain the four humors...

1) Sanguine: socialiable, extroverted, charismatic, risky
2) Cloleric: goal-oriented, extroverted, short tempered
3) Meloncholic: analytical, detail-oriented, deep feeling, reserved
4) Plegmatic: [i]easy going, quiet, caring[/I]

...come out of the modern field of psychology (though some of those words again go back to the Greek -- like "kharisma" (which entered English mid 17th century (in charisma (sense 2)): via ecclesiastical Latin from Greek kharisma, from kharis ‘favor, grace’).

Reply to Bitter Crank

I think those terms are translations from the past. Scientists have to have something in mind that they already think is true and look for stats to back it up. You can't throw out old studies as "outdated". You have to correlate all the studies ever done on the subject. Not should they assume people act normally in a study, nor should they reject common knowledge as anecdotal

Quoting Gregory

Much of psychiatry and psychology is not rigorous for me. So I simply proposed the belief of an ancestors a hypothesis that might yield fruit

Well -- it won't get rigorous in the way some sciences have become BECAUSE the kind of experiments that yield rigor are unacceptable from a human rights POV. It's a good thing that Rexulti and lithium are effective for you. I'm not bipolar, but I'm pretty familiar with it. I take a low dose of an antidepressant for chronic depression. We are our own lab rats, not just for psychotropic medications -- but for a lot of medicines.

That medicinal compounds are discovered, patented, tried out on a small group, backed up by a relatively small amount of research, then put on the market is less a problem of science and more (much more) a problem of capitalism. Selling drugs in the US (especially) is just too profitable to screw around with fussy, time consuming research.

Quoting Gregory

I think those terms are translations from the past.

Sure they are. A lot of words were added to English in the 16th and 17th centuries as intellectual types found Middle and Early Modern English inadequate to express what they were thinking. So thousands of words like "alienate" or "charismatic" were coined, based on the store of words in Latin and Greek, secular and ecclesiastical writing, and French (in particular because of its links to Latin and the number of people who--at the time--spoke, read, and wrote French).

The rest of what you say is generally sensible. "People who get bitten by dogs often fear dogs, and fear getting bitten again." may be entirely anecdotal without being any less true.

Quoting Gregory

You have to correlate all the studies ever done on the subject

Up to a point, but CORRELATE ALL THE STUDIES EVER DONE seems like a very tall order

Quoting Bitter Crank

Up to a point, but CORRELATE ALL THE STUDIES EVER DONE seems like a very tall order

There are those with an archivist bent (I know this from the music industry). Reviewing old studies can be productive, especially in developing health care for the elderly. Those studies are from their generation, their moment of evolution