A dialogue between Ryan (admin) and Aleksey (author of ‘Principles of Typology’):
Aleksey: Marx – When he did not hold a job and was supported by Engels led a very non-structured lifestyle and showed few if any tendencies towards an attempt to establish a clear-cut organized schedule. I’d say INTP, not INTJ.
Ryan: I think that dispassionate analysis is very much an INTP thing, whereas willful analysis is more of an INJ thing. (Schopenhauer’s ‘The Will’, Nietzsche’s ‘Will to Power’, Hegel’s ‘Will to the Absolute Idea’, Marx’s will to the destined Communist phase of history. The contrast is the dispassionate will-less analysis of the NTP.
INJs generally have a strong will and operate by waves and impulses whereas Ti (for NTPs) is more constant. As such, it is easier for Ti dominants, especially neurotic, schizoid/schizotypal INTPs, to adopt a certain regimentum in their daily lives whereas INTJs are liable to be governed by shifting moods.
Marx seems to be to be very Will-ful. Take, for example, his belief in his own historical prophecies: Marx prophetizes that captialistic society must collapse upon itself due to the unrestrained exploitation of the proletariat. This exploitation, he says, will only increase until the workers revolt and install a communist society.
Towards the end of his life, Marx saw that the exploitation of the workers was actually beginning to lessen. – Capitalist democracies have the power to slowly amend themselves. In Europe today, for example, there are very strict laws concerning minimum wages, maximum work hours and prohibitions of child labour.
The very thing Marx had thought impossible was beginning to happen, even in his own lifetime. But this did not lead him to accept that his theory was wrong as he was strong-willed, with no inclination for dispassionate analysis.
Aleksey: As a general rule, Ni does tend to be impulsive and Ti consistent for the reasons that you mentioned. However, your inquiry appears to overlook the distinction between external and internal world activity. Ni people tend to appear put together and organized because their leading extroverted function is much more similar to Ti than to Ni on the account that it is a judging faculty rather than a perceiving one.
You cite interesting biographical facts about Marx where he appeared to be guided more by steadfast amorphous hunches rather than by dispassionate analysis. Certainly nothing and no one was forcing him to behave in this way, hence, it would be a reasonable conjecture that he behaved in a way that was the most natural to him. I will concede the point here. INTJ.
UPDATE, JULY 2013:
The following comment was submitted by the user ‘Yuri’:
I think some people here are messing up things. INTJs are not necessarily ‘organized’. Our first function is Ni, which means when we are thinkers, our priority in life is not use Te to organize everything externally, but use Ni to bring to life knowledge through intuition. Of course there are some INTJs who are pretty realistic, but overall, when Ni is highly used, the external world is usually forgotten by us. The only important thing is our own thoughts. Nietzsche is the classic INTJ and you can see that he threw away everything for his work as a philosopher. Other thing: do you know any other philosopher who criticized so many people as Nietzsche? And I’m talking about dissecting logical inconsistencies, etc. It’s not just an INTP thing, believe me. Marx’s atacking style to Hegel, Feuerbach, capitalism, writing a book called “Misery of Philosophy”… Honestly, an INTP would never have this courage and “adversarial attitude towards the outer world”(inferior Se). INTJs are well known to question the whole system… I don’t like Marx, I hate socialism, but Marx’s apocaliptical view of capitalism screams Introverted Intuition. He is definitely INTJ. Also from my perspective his worry about production and efficiency seems Te. His philosophical position was MATERIALISM. Do you know anything more concrete than this? An INTP would never be so obsessed with worldy things and ‘praxis’…
To which we would add that Marx felt that same kinship to Heraclitus that Nietzsche did. Finally, a funny thing about Marx is that while he was obsessed with material conditions in the world, he would at the same time deny that he was an ontological materialist, though apparently for no good reason. This preoccupation with one’s own perception of one’s own ideas (as opposed to putting them on some impersonal formula) also suggests INTJ over INTP.
UPDATE JULY 2013: On that very same topic (INTJs not realizing how they warp ideas) see also Hayek’s statement on Keynes. Keynes moved further and further away from the ideas of individual and economic liberty (as defined by classical liberals), but still believed himself to be a liberal, through and through:
“Because Keynes believed that he was fundamentally still a classical English liberal and wasn’t quite aware of how far he had moved away from it. His basic ideas were still those of individual freedom. He did not think systematically enough to see the conflicts.” – Hayek, interviewed by Hazlett; may 1977, reproduced in ‘The Road from Serfdom’ 1992 ed.