The lives of the philosophers: recommending philosophical biographies

"In graduate school I was taught to carefully ignore the personalities that gave rise to philosophical arguments. But this was almost impossible when it came to American philosophy.” John Kaag

The question of philosophers' biographies and the connection between their lives and their ideas came up yesterday in our discussion of Schopenhauer. What made him such a pessimist? What, for that matter, makes anyone's temperament -- and hence their philosophy, says William James -- what it is?

The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments... Of whatever temperament a professional philosopher is, he tries when philosophizing to sink the fact of his temperament. Temperament is no conventionally recognized reason, so he urges impersonal reasons only for his conclusions. Yet his temperament really gives him a stronger bias than any of his more strictly objective premises. It loads the evidence for him one way or the other, making for a more sentimental or a more hard-hearted view of the universe... There arises thus a certain insincerity in our philosophic discussions: the potentest of all our premises is never mentioned. Pragmatism, lecture 1

There's no simple answer to that question, except to say that our early experiences definitely play a big part in shaping who we become. The fact that Schopenhauer lost his father early to (probably) suicide, and that his mother was cold and un-nurturing, cannot help but suggest one of the roots of his mature philosophy. As Kaag says of American philosophers generally, that's not easy to ignore. Nor should we ignore it. We just need to resist reducing anyone's philosophy to their life-experiences. 

So, what are some good philosophical biographies? Starting with James, I recommend Robert Richardson's William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism... Google recommends... Leiter... g'r... alibris... quora... best reviews...