The best way to deal with a philosophical problem is not, at first, to even think of philosophy

Rational, educated, thinking is vitally important but in dealing with a philosophical problem, first simply looking in yourself, to the oracle within oneself as Josef Pieper called it, is more important, we can then follow up with using the analytical brain to evaluate what we have simply seen.

I think the best way to deal with a philosophical problem is not, at first, to even think of philosophy or of the history of philosophy, but to simply look in yourself, to that oracle within oneself, and let the problem flow where it wants to go. It will soon enough go to the reasoning part of the brain.

I think what we want is more of a balance between what the old philosopher's called ratio and intellectus, that is, a balance between abstracting and simply looking, or as moderns have called it, using both the left and right brain, which seems like a a duality of the mind but really isn't.

To first simply look in yourself, to the oracle within oneself, is not as easy as it sounds to educated moderns, we have all kinds of things we have learned in our cultures and in our schools where many of us, sadly, become intimated against thinking for ourselves by expert thinkers loaded with the history of rational thought.

The right and left brain brain don’t work independently of each other, but one side appears to be dominate in different people, and that's the way to think of the difference between abstracting and simply looking. I think simply looking at the philosophical problem creatively should be dominate over being analytical, even though they don’t work independently of each other.

But there is another thing that is just as important, or perhaps more important, in dealing with a philosophical problem which involves the courage of the thinker, which seems to involve the character of the thinker more than whether one is analytical or creative. Where does courage come from? First ask the oracle within oneself, then follow up by analytically evaluating the history of thinking regarding courage.