I have thoughts about “loneliness”, a related concept:
There are many kinds of social interaction that you can want, need, or benefit from. (If we need to distinguish a “want” from a “need”, I’d say a “need” is something that causes more negative effects than simple frustration if it’s not satisfied.)
Interaction types that probably register as a “need” to at least some people: seeing human faces; having fun with friends; discussing your problems with someone; intellectual stimulation; sexual and romantic activities; probably more.
I’m sure there is wide individual variation on how much people need these things.
“Loneliness” is when there’s at least one type of interaction that you’re getting less of than you need.
It follows that you can be lonely despite spending hours a day surrounded by people, if those people aren’t giving you the type of interaction you need. (I came up with this definition to explain precisely this situation.)
“Solitude” naively means being physically alone; related to “solitary”. If you want a more sophisticated definition, then in the above context I would say it means the state where there is some interaction type the person isn’t getting. “Solitude” also carries a nonnegative and maybe-positive connotation, implying that the person didn’t need the interaction, or possibly that leaving the need unsatisfied brings benefits that exceed the negatives.
It seems like you, or at least Cal Newport, are picking a subset of the above list of social interactions and declaring that to be what “solitude” refers to. I am inclined to frown upon this, and recommend picking a more specific term, like “intellectual solitude”. Like, for each of them, you could imagine cases in which it’s good to self-isolate at least temporarily, but I think the benefits, the reasons for the benefits, and the situations in which they’re net beneficial are pretty different for e.g. romantic solitude vs “seeing human faces” solitude vs “solving my own problems” solitude vs “coming up with my own intellectual ideas and research directions” solitude vs “feeling secure and happy by myself” solitude; the cases may rhyme somewhat with each other, and that may be worth noting, but most of the discussion should be about the specific kinds of solitude.
Hm. On the one hand, I agree that there are distinct things at play here and share the instinct that it’d be appropriate to have different words for these different things. But on the other hand, I’m not sure if the different words should fall under the umbrella of solitude, like “romantic solitude” and “seeing human faces solitude”.
I dunno, maybe it should. After all, it seems that in different conceptualizations of solitude, it’s about being isolated from something (others’ minds, others’ physical presence).
Ultimately, I’m trusting Newport here. I think highly of him and know that he’s read a lot of relevant literature. At the same time, I still wouldn’t argue too confidently that his preferred definition is the most useful one.
I have thoughts about “loneliness”, a related concept:
There are many kinds of social interaction that you can want, need, or benefit from. (If we need to distinguish a “want” from a “need”, I’d say a “need” is something that causes more negative effects than simple frustration if it’s not satisfied.)
Interaction types that probably register as a “need” to at least some people: seeing human faces; having fun with friends; discussing your problems with someone; intellectual stimulation; sexual and romantic activities; probably more.
I’m sure there is wide individual variation on how much people need these things.
“Loneliness” is when there’s at least one type of interaction that you’re getting less of than you need.
It follows that you can be lonely despite spending hours a day surrounded by people, if those people aren’t giving you the type of interaction you need. (I came up with this definition to explain precisely this situation.)
“Solitude” naively means being physically alone; related to “solitary”. If you want a more sophisticated definition, then in the above context I would say it means the state where there is some interaction type the person isn’t getting. “Solitude” also carries a nonnegative and maybe-positive connotation, implying that the person didn’t need the interaction, or possibly that leaving the need unsatisfied brings benefits that exceed the negatives.
It seems like you, or at least Cal Newport, are picking a subset of the above list of social interactions and declaring that to be what “solitude” refers to. I am inclined to frown upon this, and recommend picking a more specific term, like “intellectual solitude”. Like, for each of them, you could imagine cases in which it’s good to self-isolate at least temporarily, but I think the benefits, the reasons for the benefits, and the situations in which they’re net beneficial are pretty different for e.g. romantic solitude vs “seeing human faces” solitude vs “solving my own problems” solitude vs “coming up with my own intellectual ideas and research directions” solitude vs “feeling secure and happy by myself” solitude; the cases may rhyme somewhat with each other, and that may be worth noting, but most of the discussion should be about the specific kinds of solitude.
Hm. On the one hand, I agree that there are distinct things at play here and share the instinct that it’d be appropriate to have different words for these different things. But on the other hand, I’m not sure if the different words should fall under the umbrella of solitude, like “romantic solitude” and “seeing human faces solitude”.
I dunno, maybe it should. After all, it seems that in different conceptualizations of solitude, it’s about being isolated from something (others’ minds, others’ physical presence).
Ultimately, I’m trusting Newport here. I think highly of him and know that he’s read a lot of relevant literature. At the same time, I still wouldn’t argue too confidently that his preferred definition is the most useful one.