I am no philosopher, but like all people, I delve into the medium and art of philosophy unavoidably as we all do. I am certain that philosophes could be bemused by my meanderings in their territory with my minimal training and understanding of such things. I am often bemused by people meandering into the realm of psychology, like the current days when seemingly everyone has at least one psychological diagnosis. So, granting my philosophical superiors much greater understanding of things philosophical, I will indulge myself by attempting to blend the philosophical concept of “truth” and its cognates with things that I do understand, namely the different characteristics of personality.
This blog has been brewing for several weeks in my mind but just the morning I received a request from a patient of mine that required me to delve into the matter of honesty. In this man’s case, he asked that I render some advice as to how he should handle a complex situation in his life that centered on a forthcoming funeral for his father. I did my best to help him migrate these murky waters but not without a good deal of thought and feeling. This matter of truth and its cognates, openness and honesty is no easy matter. I did my best with my patient, and I will do my best with this blog but admittedly I am not particularly skilled in the philosophical matters. It does occur to me that the very words, philosophy, derives from the Greek, namely philos, which means “love” and Sophia, which means wisdom; hence the love of wisdom. (Note that Philadelphia derives from philos and adelphos, which means brother; hence “the city of brotherly love). So, when we delve into philosophical matters, such as truth, we are seeking to “love wisdom,” perhaps thinking the wise thing or doing the wise thing,
In this blog I will dare to fuse the concepts of personality and philosophy with the grave danger of being simplistic or artificial. If you have followed me over these recent years, you have heard me speak of personality type and personality temperament among other elements of making what I call a “friendly diagnosis.” It is in this context that I wish to share with you some things about the whole business of truth and its cognates, openness and honesty. I originally thought of entitling this blog something like “different kinds of lying,” but then I listened to my own way of thinking about life and psychology and decided it would be better to look at how people of different personality stipes might face the matter of truth et al. Among the ways of understanding differences in personality, I often make use of the terms “personality type” and “temperament,”
And occasionally differences in personal development, cultural background, and differences in the various aspects of intelligence. Instead of examining all of these elements of human existence, I choose to focus on a couple of areas of personality, and examine how we could examine truth, or the lack thereof, within these boundaries, possibly leaving other ways of examination for a later exploration. Before I dare to dive into how differences of personality affect one’s approach to truth, we must consider the whole concept of truth itself.
Truth and consequences
Obviously, I borrow this title from the parlor game and the TV show that existed before most of you were born. I intend to render (perhaps my simplistic) distinctions between the terms honesty, truth, and openness because while they are second cousins these three terms represent somewhat different elements of the idea of being honest. My minimal understanding of these terms is as follows:
- Truth: something that is accurate or an accurate representation of something. Hence there are “truthful words that represent a feeling, a thought, or an action.
- Honesty: speaking the truth as one knows it. Perhaps also keeping silent so as to avoid agreeing with a statement made by another person that is felt/thought to be untrue. There is also the element of “being honest with yourself”…or not.
- Openness: the expression, or perhaps a personality tendency, to express one’s thoughts, feelings, and actions
As a result, we have the complex situations where:
- A person could be honest not actually be speaking the truth because s/he did not know the whole truth. It is even possible for someone to be speaking the truth as s/he sees it but it is not actually the truth. Children do this all the time and are false accused of “lying” when they actually “saw the ghost in the room.”
- A person who could be open in some expression but not necessarily be honest. I may openly espouse something that I don’t actually believe. This might be as the simple nod of the head when you hear something that you don’t agree with so as to avoid hurting your friend’s feelings.
- A person can speak the truth but not being open about certain matters that relate to the truth s/he is speaking. This is something like speaking some of the truth but not all of it. It is this element that I want to tackle next.
Different kinds of truth in personality characteristics
Here I choose to examine three elements (of the available four) that are the result of the Jungian concept of psychological type or as Myers-Briggs calls it, personality type. Here I note examples of how people engage the world of truth and its cognates differently.
Differences in perception: how we see the world
- I see the world objectively. Hence I see things as they are, not as they should be or the way I would like them to be. I tend to make statements rather than asking questions. I tend to be honest with what I see, but because I don’t see all that can be, I do not see the whole picture, namely something that could happen, or perhaps even should happen. This roughly falls into the category of being “honest but not necessarily speaking the truth.” Such people tend to get lost in the real world, perhaps the practical world but often miss the rest of life that is not real and objective. I can “lie” to other people without realizing that I am “lying” because I didn’t see all there was to see. Kierkegaard said of these people, “everything is real but nothing is meaningful.”
- I see the world subjectively. Hence, I see what could be, might be, or should be, but not necessarily what actually is. I tend to be honest about looking for things, and often ideas and tend to ask questions. I can be quite satisfied to ask questions without having complete answers. I want to speak the truth and often do so but I to be “dishonest” by getting lost is ideas, possibilities and questions. I tend to “lie to myself” in the constant finding new ideas and having new questions but not really doing anything real. Kierkegaard said of these people, “all things are possible but nothing is real.”
- I evaluate the world objectively: Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am.” If I evaluate objectively, I think objectively, feel objectively, and act objectively. What you see is what you get. I reason with logic and have a sense of the ultimate fairness in making a decision that is based on reason. I do the “right” thing…regardless of how anyone “feels” and even regardless of how I feel. I can get caught in being truthful to logic but not truthful to my feelings, much less anyone else’s feelings.
- I evaluate the world subjective. Descartes could have said, “I feel, therefore I am,” although many contemporary psychological writers have suggested that could be a way of looking at decisions. If I evaluate subjectively, I “feel,” whatever that means (read our book, please), and attend to my feelings and other people’s feelings. “Truth” is thus highly related to feelings and to relationships and cannot be explored, felt, or expressed apart from these elements. Thus, I can speak “truth” that is related mostly to how I feel or someone else feels, which may actually be truthful in the objective sense of the terms
- I am energized by being with people: I talk in order to be listened to and to be talked to. I tend to be “open” with my thoughts and/or feelings and expect other people to do the same. This openness, however, is not always exactly “true” because I can embellish, enlarge, or elaborate with colorful metaphors seeking to “communicate” what I feel or think. This amounts to being open but not entirely honest. I also can fall into not being honest with myself for the sake of communicating with someone. I tend to “lie” objectively, say something that is not factually true.
- I am energized by being alone or with one special person. I tend to keep my feelings entirely to myself and most of my thoughts to myself. I am honest with myself but not necessarily honest with people around me perhaps thinking, “It’s none of their business what I think or feel unless I want them to know.” I tend to lie subjectively, i.e. not saying something that is true.
Examples of “lying” by good people
You might enjoy reading my blog, “Why Good Men Lie,” which examines the tendency of men to lie to women. In the same blog I suggest that while men lie to their spouses, unfortunately, women tend to lie to themselves, also unfortunately.
I am reminded of an experience I had 30 years ago with a group of men who regularly attended a men’s group that I led. One night one fellow named Bill said to the group that he believed that some of the men didn’t like him, and proceeded to ask whether this was true. Each man responded to the question, and I remember one man saying to this man that he “flat out didn’t like him,” while another man said, “Sure, Bill, I like you.” I inquired with the second man privately why he said that he liked Bill given that I had heard that he most certainly didn’t like him at all. His response: “he is not important to me so I didn’t feel compelled to tell him the truth.” Some weeks later, Bill was speaking about some subject what seemed to go on without profit and one after another men left the group, seemingly bored or disinterested. This left one man yet in the room with Bill, the man who said that he “flat out didn’t like” him. Such a mix of truth and consequences, truth, honesty, and openness.
I have seen many courageous statements of truth despite the consequences:
- The man who speaks his mind and as a result is not allowed to graduate from a seminary because that “truth” didn’t seem to fit with the “truth” the seminary held
- The woman, in the company of his former husband, when the two of them were discussing the challenges of their son. She said that the reason that the two of them had been divorced was that she had been “unfaithful” and possibly caused their son harm because of it
- The child (actually, many children) who said, “I hate you” to his parents. He didn’t know it at the time but he had the permission to say such things because he lived in a loving home.
- A few politicians who are courageous enough to challenge the party line and take the consequences. Liz Cheney comes to mind as does John McCain.
I have seen many more examples of the lack of truth spoken…or not spoken:
- The several women who spring the “D” word on their husbands having evidently lived with someone they didn’t like for years…or decades
- The several men who have been unfaithful to their spouses, sometimes with their common friends or relatives
- The teenager who has simply not found the social maturity to be honest about whether he did, indeed, brush his teeth or take a shower
These are my current thoughts. But I must leave you with this, abridging the statement, “beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.” Perhaps truth is also in the eyes of the beholder. But I am also cognizant of Shakespeare’s statement, “When first we practice to deceive, oh what a tangled web we weave.” I am brought back to the patient I mentioned at the beginning who is trying to find a way to be wise, kind, loving, and honest with his family, girlfriend, and himself. He has a very tangled web that has been constructed by many people including himself.