Psychology, Philosophy

Published on Nov 23, 2025, filed under philosophy, misc. (Share this post, e.g. on Mastodon or on Bluesky.)

Ichiro Kishimi’s and Fumitake Koga’s The Courage to Be Disliked is one of a few interesting books I’ve read recently. (Quick side note: Check out my tips to read more and faster!)

One of the early points they’re making is that people’s happiness wouldn’t depend on etiology, but teleology:

This is the difference between etiology (the study of causation) and teleology (the study of the purpose of a given phenomenon, rather than its cause). Everything you [one of the protagonists] have been telling me is based in etiology. As long as we stay in etiology, we will not take a single step forward.

This resonates with me.

It resonates for many reasons, the main one being that I’m not a determinist.

The point I’d like to make, however, is a different one:

I’ve always felt that for any explanation of this world, of this reality, of this reality system, we need to turn to philosophy.

Philosophy is still the most important discipline.

How this links to psychology, I’d explain with a hypothesis:

If our view of the world—which is a philosophical view, no matter what we believe in—is accurate, we don’t need “psychology.”

What I mean by this is this:

If we have an accurate view of the world, we learn to navigate the world in a conscious, intentional manner in which we can and do take full responsibility for the state of that world. ^*

We understand the principles of the world enough so that we don’t feel like things are “happening” to us or that we feel disconnected from other beings and our environment.

The power of this understanding, the agency it affirms, the responsibility it solicits must dissolve feelings of disconnection, insufficiency, and unhappiness.

With that accurate world view, then, we also don’t need psychology anymore in a sense of trying to understand, let alone “cure,” ourselves.

Now, I can appreciate if a psychologist would now play the joker card and said, “but by understanding the mind, you understand the world.” That is a powerful card. I believe it’s also a valid card, that you could understand the world this way (very briefly, because we all represent the whole).

But here’s the formidable problem: The psychologist’s view of the world influences their view of the mind. A psychologist could understand the world just looking at the mind—if they either manage to make no assumptions of the world, or if their assumptions of the world are already accurate (something very few individuals have accomplished, and something we have not accomplished collectively).

This is why psychology could lead to the same result, but is much less likely to do so. I’d say that we are exceptionally bad at making no assumptions—and that we don’t have an accurate understanding and view of the world, which is exactly the point.

What do I want to say, then?

Only that philosophy holds the keys to our world. That’s all.

^* There’s more here, of course. Most notably, we may feel that psychology helps those whose mental state, from a very young age, has either been “abnormal” or such that they couldn’t learn about any accurate view of the world. The hypothesis must then look like we ignore these people, and that it’s therefore wrong. But I don’t believe so, and have some thoughts on the matter that I will not elaborate on in this post.

About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m a web developer, manager, and author. I’ve been working as a technical lead and engineering manager for companies you’ve never heard of and companies you use every day, I’m an occasional contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and I write and review books for O’Reilly and Frontend Dogma.

I love trying things, not only in web development and engineering management, but also in other areas like philosophy. Here on meiert.com I share some of my experiences and views. (I value you being critical, interpreting charitably, and giving feedback.)