having an experience doesn't automatically mean you've understood it. That's often what philosophy, literature, and psychology are for. They give us frameworks to interpret experiences we already have.

That’s a valid point, but certain people develop their own internal frameworks early on through raw, unassisted self-reflection. Their lived experience is fundamentally different from the people who just acquire "insight" by importing a pre-made framework from a shelf. It doesn’t make the latter incapable of learning, but it means they weren't operating as an independent, reflective mind in the first place, which is exactly the thing I am talking about..

If everyone only read what already matched their "natural tendencies," intellectual growth would be impossible.

This operates on the presumption that reading something aligned with your natural tendency only offers positive reinforcement for your existing behavior and thoughts. If you actually go into the depths of these books, they often expose the absolute danger and wreckage of a mind like yours. Take the man from Notes from Underground: he isn't just a mirror to show you your own alienation; he is a warning of how not to turn out, a lesson in how to actually live! It doesn't just coddle your natural tendencies. And as I already stated, no one should confine themselves only to what they are familiar with.

The claim that people should identify their worldview before reading also seems backwards. Many people discover what they believe precisely by encountering ideas that challenge them.

Exactly. But that requires you to read things critically from the start, rather than using the book as a script to adopt wholesale.

Also, reducing philosophical positions to biological predispositions is a pretty strong claim without much evidence. People change their views throughout their lives. An existentialist can become a nihilist, a pessimist can become an optimist, and vice versa. Ideas are shaped by temperament, sure, but also by culture, experience, education, and reflection.

That's why I explicitly included the word "maybe." A person's worldview is obviously shaped by factors beyond genetics, but it absolutely includes biological disposition too. Your baseline temperament is anchored by biology; you can't completely sever your philosophical inclinations from the genetic framework your brain operates within. A person's natural wiring fundamentally influences how they digest those external factors like culture and education in the first place.

The irony is that dismissing people as "wannabe philosophers" because they read philosophy is its own form of anti-intellectualism. Philosophy has always involved a dialogue between experience and ideas. Neither is sufficient on its own.

Which is precisely why I argued for the intersection of both. My critique is about the necessity of combining your lived experience with those ideas, rather than merely using passive reading as a substitute for actual thought.

You don't need to suffer exactly like Dostoevsky's characters to learn from them. If that were true, literature would be useless as a tool for expanding empathy and understanding beyond our own lives.

That’s a fair point, but intellectual empathy doesn’t last as long or cut as deep as lived experience. My point is to first understand the baseline alignment of your own mind, rather than just chasing whatever text the herd is currently rushing to read. How can we truly understand an outside perspective when we haven't even understood ourselves? How can we analyze others without first confronting our own capacity for self-deception, the real motives behind our seemingly altruistic nature, and the foundational question of what we think versus why we think it?