The six temperaments
Six ways a mind can lean.
Every answer in 2 Minds leans toward one or two of six philosophical temperaments. Answer enough and your leanings draw a shape, and the heaviest of them becomes the colour of the whole app.
No score, and no crowned axis. Tap a gem to wear it here.
1 of 6
Principle (FORM)
We hold what holds, not what happens.
You look for what holds regardless: of the outcome, of who’s watching, of whether it suits anyone. When a case gets hard, you don’t ask what happens next; you ask what’s true of it. This stance runs from Plato and the Stoics to Kant’s ethics of duty.
Where it comes from
Plato and the Stoics, through to Kant’s ethics of duty.
Across the domains
- Ethics
- The rule holds when it costs.
- Identity
- There’s a fact about whether it’s the same ship, and it isn’t up to us.
- Mind
- Behaving as if you understand isn’t understanding.
- Value
- Some things make a life better whether or not they’re wanted.
In the puzzles
Seven was prime before anyone counted, and counting only found that out.
Before Anyone Counted
A person can be worse off for becoming unjust, even when the wrongdoing brings them wealth and power.
Never Caught
Extra good in many lives does not make a place better overall when one person is kept in ruin to produce it.
The Room Below
2 of 6
Outcome (FUNCTION)
We ask what it does, not what it’s made of.
You judge by role and result. Origins, essences and labels are bookkeeping; a thing that behaves in every way like the real thing is the real thing. This is the ground of Bentham and Mill’s utilitarianism, and of functionalism in the philosophy of mind.
Where it comes from
Bentham and Mill’s utilitarianism, and functionalism in the philosophy of mind.
Across the domains
- Ethics
- What matters is what happens; count.
- Identity
- If it runs as you, it’s you; substrate is bookkeeping.
- Mind
- If it does everything understanding does, that’s what understanding is.
- Value
- The good is what produces good.
In the puzzles
What an event is worth is not settled until the later events it turns on have happened.
Ask Me Later
Everything there is to know about seeing a colour is what the eye and the brain do, so a person who knows all of that is missing no fact.
First Red
Wealth and power won by wrongdoing can be worth more to a person than whatever the wrongdoing cost them.
Never Caught
3 of 6
Question (DOUBT)
We look in the words, not the world.
You go after the question before the answer. Usually the difficulty is a word being pushed past where it was built to go, and the honest finding is sometimes that there’s nothing underneath to settle. This is the instinct of the ancient skeptics, and of Wittgenstein and the linguistic turn.
Where it comes from
The ancient skeptics, then Wittgenstein and the linguistic turn.
Across the domains
- Ethics
- The dilemma is an artefact of the framing.
- Identity
- The ship question is a question about the word “same”.
- Mind
- “Understand” has no sharp edge and never needed one.
- Value
- Stop asking what’s really good and ask what the asking is for.
In the puzzles
Facts about numbers are settled by the rules for the words, and there is nothing behind the rules to ask about.
Before Anyone Counted
Whether a ship now is the ship that sailed is not a fact about the ship but a matter of how the words are used.
Plank by Plank
4 of 6
Relation (BETWEEN)
We are made between us, not inside anyone.
You start with who else is in it. Obligations, meanings, even facts about who someone is get made in the space between people: by agreement, by being held to things, by depending on each other. This thread runs through the social contract, from Hobbes to Rawls, and the ethics of care.
Where it comes from
The social contract, from Hobbes to Rawls, and the ethics of care.
Across the domains
- Ethics
- What could we all agree to, not knowing who we’d be?
- Identity
- You are who you’re held to be.
- Mind
- Meaning is public; a private language wouldn’t be one.
- Value
- A life goes well in relation, or it doesn’t go well.
In the puzzles
Seven being prime came with the counting system people established together, not from something already there.
Before Anyone Counted
Most of what wealth and power are worth to a person is the standing they have among the people around them.
Never Caught
A community's unbroken relationship with a vessel it keeps can make calling it the same ship truthful, even with new wood and a new shape.
Plank by Plank
5 of 6
Choice (WILL)
We are chosen, not given.
You made yourself, and you’re not finished. A life is yours by having been chosen, and a good one you didn’t choose isn’t yours at all. This is the heart of existentialism, from Kierkegaard to Sartre and de Beauvoir.
Where it comes from
Existentialism, from Kierkegaard to Sartre and de Beauvoir.
Across the domains
- Ethics
- Whatever I do, I own it.
- Identity
- You are your commitments, and they’re revisable.
- Mind
- To be a subject is to originate, not to process.
- Value
- An unchosen good life is a contradiction.
In the puzzles
An endless life would eventually run out of things worth living for, and a life with nothing to live for is no good to the person living it.
Singing and Silence
The answer about a number is made by the work that settles it, and until that work is done there is nothing there to be right or wrong.
Before Anyone Counted
Deciding for yourself what kind of person you will be is worth more to you than anything you get by taking whatever is in front of you.
Never Caught
6 of 6
Experience (FELT)
We know how it was, not what happened.
You go to what it’s like. A complete account of what happened that leaves out how it was isn’t an account of anything; value lives in the having of it, not in the description. This is the ground of phenomenology, from Husserl to Merleau-Ponty, and of Nagel’s famous question: what is it like?
Where it comes from
Phenomenology, from Husserl to Merleau-Ponty, and Nagel’s question: what is it like?
Across the domains
- Ethics
- Suffering is bad because of how it is.
- Identity
- You are the stream of experience.
- Mind
- A complete physical account still leaves out what it’s like.
- Value
- A life goes well if it goes well from the inside.
In the puzzles
Seeing a colour for the first time can teach a person how it looks, and that is knowledge rather than only an experience or a skill.
First Red
A falseness that never reaches a life takes nothing from it.
Ask Me Later
Wrongdoing that never makes a single day worse to live has not made the life worse for the person living it.
Never Caught
The ceremony
When your leaning changes, so does the app.
Finish a puzzle and your answers can tip the balance. When a new temperament takes the lead, it tears through the old one from the gem outward, and the rest of the app follows. Each of the six arrives its own way.
- Principlean iris
- Outcomea clean cut
- Questiona bloom of light
- Relationa rift
- Choicean explosion of shards
- Experiencea paper burn
In the app, the reveals are drawn by ThemeReveal, a Compose Multiplatform library written for 2 Minds, which composes the screen twice and uncovers the new world over the old. Here on the web, a plain circle stands in for it. The film shows all six in motion.
Find out which one is yours.
Play a puzzle here and see where one route leans, or get the app and let every answer count.
