The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.
Interpretation
Philosophy often reflects the diverse personalities and emotional perspectives of its thinkers.
This quote by William James suggests that the development of philosophical ideas is not just an abstract pursuit of knowledge but is deeply intertwined with the unique temperaments and emotional dispositions of the philosophers themselves. The varying personalities of thinkers lead to different interpretations and conflicts in philosophical thought, showcasing how human emotions and character shape intellectual discourse.
In practice
During a lecture on philosophy, one might say, 'As William James noted, the history of philosophy reveals the interplay of diverse human temperaments.'
Many persons nowadays seem to think that any conclusion must be very scientific if the arguments in favor of it are derived from twitching of frogs' legs (especially if the frogs are decapitated) and that, on the other hand, any doctrine chiefly vouched for by the feelings of human beings (with heads on their shoulders) must be benighted and superstitious.
The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. Enjoying an intimate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn, he would naturally regard an abstract conception in which these were unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening.
All the higher, more penetrating ideals are revolutionary. They present themselves far less in the guise of effects of past experience than in that of probable causes of future experience, factors to which the environment and the lessons it has so far taught us must learn to bend.
The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact. Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
It is astonishing how many mental operations we can explain when we have once grasped the principles of association
As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-constrictors.
As animals, we walk the earth. As bearers of divine essence, we are among the stars. As human beings, we are caught in the middle, seeking to reconcile the paradox of how to make our way upon earth while striving for something more permanent and more profound.
Just watching an animal closely can take you out of your mind and bring you into the present moment, which is where the animal lives all the time - surrendered to life.
There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.
There's a safety in thinking in a diner. You can have your coffee or your milkshake, and you can go off into strange dark areas, and always come back to the safety of the diner.
A truth that is merely handed on, without being thought anew from its very foundations, has lost its vital power.
When a human being kills an animal for food, he is neglecting his own hunger for justice.
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