Comments on Rollo Handy's “Personality Factors and Intellectual Production”

Extract

Rollo Handy's recent discussion of “Personality Factors and Intellectual Production” is interesting and timely. It seems to me that one of the things he is saying is that, since we lack objective criteria for the evaluation of the various philosophies, we may be forced, reluctantly, to judge them, at least partially, on the basis of what type of person produced them. “But since we do not have generally accepted criteria for the worth of philosophic endeavors … we should at least become aware of the possible personality determinants of one's attitude toward philosophy. If certain distinguished philosophers, appearing in a psychological clinic, would be diagnosed as having severe personality disturbances, this is something we should know. The psychologists may be wrong, but then again they may be right. To say that this has no relevance at all to the worth of the philosopher's views seems ostrich-like.”