Philosophers: Which temperament do you belong: tender-minded or tough-minded?

Question

Thanks to all your answers. Have a great day!

Answer 1

Hi Third P.

I'm usually quite tender. I believe in being gentle with people & kind. Usually, even if someone is mean I will remain calm & speak quietly to them. That often works because they expect a fight, so they do not know how to react to someone being kind.

In a way, you could say that I am also tough-minded. I am tough, if you mean strong in character & convictions & beliefs. Yet at the same time, because of my beliefs, I come across as very tender-minded, very peaceful & gentle, which I am.

I believe in peace & tranquility, not getting all worked up over minor things. Yet, once in a while, a situation may come up where one must be strong & determined, basically tough-minded.

However, I can be tough while remaining gentle. It is a good psychological ploy, as I mentioned a bit earlier. When people want to give you a hard time, they expect you to get all ticked off & yell back at them. They are taken aback when you speak to them in a quiet manner. They don't know how to fight that.

I used to send my laundry out to be dried. Once, all the clothing was burnt up. I brought it back & the guy just shrugged his head — he just worked there. So, I got the owner's name & address. Their license was expired, & the owner was a lawyer. That was kind of strange — who ever heard of a lawyer who ran laundry stores on the side — maybe to launder money??

So, I found out first how much I should expect to get back. It took several months, but I won. This guy tried to engage me in fights constantly. I remained calm & peaceful, yet strong. He did not know how to fight me. I won.

So, it is good to be tender-minded, even when you need to be strong. It is too easy to end up yelling at each other, and nothing gets accomplished. When you remain at peace & quiet, your strength has even more power.

Peace.

Answer 2

A good, but loaded, question. Ha ha

The main function of our mind in this universe is to try to reconcile, harmonize and further unite Spirit with Matter. (Religion with Science by Philosophy) On infinite Paradise, where Spirit and (super-) Matter is One; there is no mind needed as we have here.

The best human mind, here in our universe, to try to personally unite Spirit and Matter would be neither "tough" nor "tender"; it would have no subjective emotional baggage to overcome; it would be fully objective.

Since I have very conservative social moral Values; most here would perceive me as a rigid, authoritarian dictator or worse. Tough love ! Sincerely, "Ayatolyah So !" LOL If you are a tough-minded type, adding humor helps.

Could a human be both tough-minded and tender-souled and still be a well-unified personality ? Good question ! I would ask that, if it didn't cost me my precious 5 points ! Bummer !

Peace and progress,
Brother Dave, a Jesusonian Christian Truthist
http://www.PureChristians.org/ Gospel enlarging website,
proclaiming worldwide the True Religion
OF JESUS and ABOUT JESUS and IN JESUS
Come and share !

Answer 3

Hi Third P~It's not at all difficult to understand what you're asking, or necessary to rephrase it. I'm probably 50-50, depending on the circumstances. Wait a minute! More tender-minded, but sometimes have to be tough-minded!

Answer 4

I am tough-minded, since I am alway doing exercises to develop my mental toughness, but I do meditation that makes me more intuitive. But my focus is on solving the tough issues of our day spiritually, and I do not have a lot of patience, with those with less of a serious focus. People with serious problems, I like to help emotionally. So you might say I have a targeted tenderness.

Answer 5

I think the ideal case is to be tough minded with oneself and tender minded towards others. Being tough minded with oneself brings discipline and tender minded towards others brings goodwill..... self-discipline and acclaimed goodwill are the two essential ingredients for great success!!

In so far as I am concerned (so also with a lot of people, I must say), the case is right opposite......... and I do keep wondering how I still manage to grab a few successes!!

Thanks for a novel question!!

Answer 6

Why can't a person be both?? Normally I am very tender hearted, I generally get very upset when I see people being teased, ridiculed and other wise made to feel uncomfortable. I particularly hate when it happens to children. On the other hand as a mother I've had to be very tough minded to get what I needed for my children and for my self and to make sure that no one tries to take advantage of us or our circumstances. You can be be both in the same person depending on the circumstances.

Answer 7

First I do not think that all the people who answer on yahoo answers are philosophers. A true philosopher does not waste time on the Internet. So naming everybody a philosopher is childish, have a little respect for those who really are.

A true philosopher is balanced. Not always "tender-minded", and not always "tough-minded".

Imagine a scene where a man is lying on the street, beaten, are you "tough-minded" in this situation? now imagine a scene where you are attacked, "are you tender-minded"?

Well tender-minded and tough-minded are words that I do not like to use. You should have said: "What temperament do you have?"

I then would have answered: I have dramatic swings in emotions and I am passionate about subjects that interest me - I have a melancholic temperament and sometimes depressive.

(There are 4 types of temperaments.)

Bye.

edit: ha ha 6 thumbs down :)) for a good answer.

Read people what temperament really means!

Anyway I did answer your question.

Answer 8

I am of tough-minded kind of personality.

However I put conscious efforts to become tender-minded when it is required and is appropriate and many a times I successfully exhibit this acquired quality of mine of being tender-minded in many situations that demand it.

Since I know it is important to be able to get along with myself.
It is equally important to get along with others too.

Answer 9

Mostly tough minded, but I can be tender minded when it's called for.

Answer 10

I should hope correctly comprehensive minded.


'We see how subjectivity and objectivity, spirituality and materiality, activity and suffering, lose their antithetical character, and – thus their existence as such antitheses only within the framework of society;
We see how the history of industry and the established objective existence of industry are the open book of man’s essential powers, the perceptibly existing human psychology. Hitherto this was not conceived in its connection with man’s essential being, but only in an external relation of utility, because, moving in the realm of estrangement, people could only think of man’s general mode of being – religion or history in its abstract – general character as politics, art, literature, etc. – as the reality of man’s essential powers and man’s species-activity. We have before us the objectified essential powers of man in the form of sensuous, alien, useful objects, in the form of estrangement, displayed in ordinary material industry (which can be conceived either as a part of that general movement, or that movement can be conceived as a particular part of industry, since all human activity hitherto has been labour – that is, industry – activity estranged from itself.)

A psychology for which this book, the part of history existing in the most perceptible and accessible form, remains a closed book, cannot become a genuine, comprehensive and real science. What indeed are we to think of a science which airily abstracts from this large part of human labour and which fails to feel its own incompleteness, while such a wealth of human endeavour, unfolded before it, means nothing more to it than, perhaps, what can be expressed in one word – “need”, “vulgar need”? '

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm