Philosopher's virtues

In no form of experience do reason and feeling operate independently. In order to form an understanding of something, reason and feeling are combined by the imagination. However, the ‘methods’ of reason and feeling are opposed and this presents an obstacle to the intellect in its search for knowledge. Reason discovers differences, analyses its object into distinct parts and qualities, above all it postpones judgement regarding the whole. Feeling originates in a judgement concerning the whole, invests its object with qualities and proceeds by fabricating similarities among the parts. Thus those who are intense and passionate are prone to error because they lack restraint and are incapable of deferring judgement, those who are cold and dispassionate because they are paralysed with fear of misplacing their feeling. The primary virtues of the man of knowledge (Philosopher’s virtues, if you will) are therefore self-control and courage. If as a man of knowledge the Philosopher is also a sceptic, he may well reserve suspicions regarding Virtue as such and his measure of these two qualities he will call his temperament.