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By Ryan Smith “Every serious man in dealing with really serious subjects carefully avoids writing.” – Plato: Seventh Letter §344c When we last left the question of Plato’s Unwritten Doctrine, we had seen that Plato had been confronted with the Third Man Argument during the late part of his career. We had also seen that[…] Continue Reading

By Ryan Smith With regards to Nietzsche’s aesthetics, you probably already know his opposition between the Dionysian and the Apollonian, as featured in The Birth of Tragedy. (Jung examines this same opposition in Psychological Types, identifying the Dionysian with inferior Se, bound up with tertiary Feeling [§235], while the Apollonian is “a state of introspection[…] Continue Reading

By Ryan Smith “[I have meditated] on Plato’s secrecy and sphinx-like nature.” – Friedrich Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil §28 As far as we know, Plato never told us anything directly. Rather he wrote a series of dialogues from which a certain philosophy and temperament can be noticed by the person who endeavors to read[…] Continue Reading

“No one before Plato [nor anyone] since has managed the extremely difficult art of dramatic debate on philosophic topics with such … fascinating art, aided by the union of dialectical subtlety with mystical yearnings, a subtlety which seems to give a hope to mysticism, and a warrant to transcendentalism.” – G.H. Lewes: Aristotle, Smith, Elder[…] Continue Reading

By Ryan Smith “Einstein … [has] already showed the success in physics of a method which does not proceed from a knowledge of what things are in and by themselves. Einstein has repeatedly shown us that the physicist must learn to swim in a boundless sea of ideas. … [Ideas] which cannot be deduced from[…] Continue Reading

By Eva Gregersen One of the current trends in Jungian typology is “face reading,” that is, the idea that people’s types can be determined by either their physical appearance or their eye movements or facial gestures. At CelebrityTypes, we have been roundly critical of “face reading” (here, here, here, and here). However, we have perhaps[…] Continue Reading

By Ryan Smith, Eva Gregersen, and Sigurd Arild A number of common critiques of Jungian typology and the MBTI are often voiced in no uncertain terms by people who have comparatively little knowledge about these fields. In this article we purport to answer the most common of these critiques. CRITICISMS OF THE MBTI THAT ARE[…] Continue Reading

By Ryan Smith and Sigurd Arild The current state of Jungian typology is such that Jungian concepts that do not directly relate to type are sometimes thrown around to spice up people’s experience and presentation of typology. In particular, Jung’s idea of archetypes is often mentioned in order to complement people’s understanding of type. However,[…] Continue Reading

By Eva Gregersen “It is chiefly extraverts who resent being called extraverts, as if it were a derogatory designation. I even know of a case where a famous extravert, having been called an extravert, challenged his opponent to a duel!” – C.G. Jung in a personal letter to R.L. Kroon While it is a fairly[…] Continue Reading

By Ryan Smith and Sigurd Arild This article requires Greek characters to be displayed on your screen. In 2012, the classical Jungian and former professor of political science V.W. Odajnyk published the book Archetype and Character (see our review here). In this book, Odajnyk proposes a new typology of four basic archetypes: Power, Love, Spirit,[…] Continue Reading