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Ancient Philosophy and Personality Type

By: Ben Mester Click author's name for more of his/her articles

I've always been intrigued by the idea of personality types. Most of us have heard of them before: sanguine, melancholy, phlegmatic, and choleric. Simply put, they're kind of like sets of behaviors, how people of a certain type will act and react in given circumstances, what kinds of attitudes they have about life in general. I won't get into the details of what each means, I just wanted to mention them so as to talk about personality in general. As a young man, I was often bombarded with personality tests to help me determine what kind of man I was in the world. I generally scored mid-range, mundane I guess you could say. My personality was a mixture of sanguine and melancholy, which is just to say that I was both thoughtful and lively.

But taking a wide array of personality tests got me intrigued with the idea of personality types in general. In my studies of philosophy, I learned that it was an ancient philosopher, Hippocrates, who had first come up with the idea of temperaments. He was the man who gave us the interesting personality names. But what was a surprise to me was that although recent psychology has used the names of the different temperaments, they do not at all advocate the same method for refining our characters. Modern psychology would tell you that you need only to identify your temperament - its strengths and weaknesses - and then do your best to operate comfortably in it.

The ancient philosophers, however, had a different perspective on personality and temperament. The ancient philosophers often used as models of personality certain types of persons who had a remarkable opposition of temperament and personality. They include things like the Warrior-Poet, the Philosopher-King, the Ruler-Sage. The ancient philosophers had the interesting idea that human beings are only really ever satisfied and alive when they have a certain duality of temperament and personality about them.

The ancients advocated this kind of duality of personality, a pairing of opposite tendencies by creating archetypes of personalities for people to model their own lives after. I'll use the Warrior-Poet as the prime example. Even from just the name, you can already discern the dual, opposing nature of temperaments. According to most ancient philosophers, this personality type was considered to be the ultimate masculine model - a man confident and strong, but also thoughtful and wise. From our own experiences, we all know how rare such a person is.

For generally, when someone is confident and bold, he lacks thoughtfulness, and often speaks without thinking. Conversely, when a person is thoughtful and introspective, he's often shy and lacks the boldness to speak up for the good. Ancient philosophers realized this tendency, and created models for people to strive toward. Are you confident and strong, they would ask? A warrior? Then strive toward wisdom - study the deep and mysterious intricacies of life and humanity. Are you thoughtful and introspective? Then learn boldness. Learn how to fight for the good.

In a lot of ways, we find this still, this concept of duality dwelling in our subconscious. I've heard many times that a woman wants to find a man who's sensitive and also kind. That doesn't mean, conversely, that they want a man who lacks confidence and courage. They'd like to have the one as well as the other, courage and confidence, as well as sensitive thoughtfullness.

In truth, human beings still long for a duality of nature, though modern psychology has done them a disservice by not advocating it. They teach us to identify what we are - our strengths and weaknesses - but they don't give us a model to strive toward to better our temperaments. The ancients would tell you, whatever your strength be, strive toward its opposite. If you are bold, strive for thoughtfulness. Don't just say something without thinking. If you are a shy person, try and find courage or boldness - realize that your constant self-reflection is rare, that those around you will be changed for the better by your thoughts.

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