In the article below, an acquaintance of ours attempts to explain the basics of oppositional function pairs. Gerroir contributes with his personal understanding of the system. We at CelebrityTypes do not necessarily agree with Gerroir on every point, but we found his article an insightful read and will now share it with you.
Written by Jesse Gerroir – edited by the CT Admins for publication, and used with permission
The E/I split is a very important one. One that Jung spent most of his time talking about in Psychological Types and that pervades all of the functions.
However, one of the greatest misconceptions between extroversion and introversion is that it has anything to do with social ability. While there is often a correlation, the correlation is really a byproduct and not really the definition of the difference. Simply and concisely put, the extroverted functions and extroverts are orientated towards objects. While introverts are orientated towards the subjective impressions of objects. But what exactly does this mean?
Introverts need time to access their inner bank of stored impressions. Introversion is about recognizing similarities in impressions that have already been assimilated into consciousness. Whenever an introverted function encounters an object its concern is not really with examining the object but rather with accessing their storehouse of previously digested impressions. While this is true of all the introverted functions, it is most clearly seen in the irrational introverted functions (Si and Ni) which do not occupy themselves with judging the object, but which primarily seek to just soak up all impressions the object evokes.
A Rundown of the Introverted Functions
With Ti, we are concerned with stored thoughts, definitions, abstracted ideas, logical conclusions, and other such things that are ultimately abstracted from the impression of an object.
With Fi, we focus on stored emotional ideals, how does the object in question compare to its most ideal incarnation, to emotions felt by me in the past, and to concentrated ideals of the emotion?
With Si, it’s stored facts, physical sensations, what is reliable, stable, and agreeable to instinct. How the object compares to previously experienced objects of the same type.
And last but not least with Ni, we ask how does the impression compare to all the connections, associations, and patterns observed about the object largely revolving around the question from whence did it come and where is it going?
A Rundown of the Extroverted Functions
With the extroverted functions the person is not looking inward to access stored inner impressions. They are looking outward, and they are focused on the actual object.
With Te it wants to know how the object is organized, how discrete is it in its context, how it can be quantified, and what exactly it is, what common behavior it exhibits, and what amount of force sustains it in the outer world.
With Fe it wants to know the general feeling tone of the object (the object in this case generally being people), what context the object exists in, whether there is harmony among the object and its environment, the needs of the people, and different standard behavior and rituals among them.
With Ne it’s what the object could become, how it could be transformed, the innovative possibilities surrounding the object, what patterns the object exists in and how they can be manipulated, and how changes could be made.
With Se it’s direct physical awareness of the object. What it’s like, how it feels, how it will behave when manipulated, what it’s doing in the here and now and how it will behave in the here and now.
Considering the Difference
“There is no such thing as a pure extrovert or a pure introvert. Such a man would be in the lunatic asylum!” – C.G. Jung
Obviously, we all orient ourselves via both impressions derived from objects (I) and actual objects themselves (E). This is why it’s largely impossible to be entirely introverted or extroverted as Jung also famously said.
If a person was 100% introverted, the introvert would be approaching each new object entirely based upon previously gathered past impressions. But how could they even have such past impressions, if their approach was always to abstract from the object? If they always did that, they would never have experienced anything directly to begin with! They would have no impressions to use as a base. Without the help of their extroverted functions, their databank is empty.
Likewise, the extrovert would be approaching each new object entirely anew with no past memory of similar objects. They would never store the impressions of the object. There would be no databank at all.
This is why the extroverted functions are always paired up with introverted ones and vice-versa. The extroverted functions will bring in data about objects and things and the introverted functions form that data into a databank that can be used for future reference.
This is precisely what makes the introverted functions inherently subjective. Even Ti which at first seems so logical that people are tempted to deem it “objective” is actually a subjective function, when properly understood.
So in Conclusion
The extroverted functions will use the instance of the object to understand its ideal form.
The introverted functions will use the ideal form of the object to understand its actual instance.
This is a very nice article and completely faithful to the source material. It’s clearly written by a Jungian purist.
I am ENFP. indeed very Good article. Brief but very precise. still I believe inclusion of “Fear with object” should be taken into this.
I also have a qiestion…..and I believe need a separate article on “fear of Object” and “subjectivity” respective to C G Jung way. I believe these Two are probably separate. I you throw s small light to me I will be greatful. Thanks and God Bless you.
Great article!
Glad to find this. Extremely useful article. Good explanation.
INTJ here. Very useful article. So far I’ve always had a hard time understanding what introversion/extroversion really meant. Now it’s better :).
This was very enlightening and helpful. For the first time, I think that MBTI might just help me understand myself better, after all :-) After taking a few of the online personality tests out there and getting varied results, I took the certified, official MBTI and got the result of ESFP. I balked at this result initially, since most of the info out there online depicts ESFPs as partiers, hedonists, people who never read and only watch tv, etc., which is far from an even close description of me, but after reading the cognitive functions here of ESFP (as well as the cognitive functions of other types that I yielded from other unofficial online tests), ESFP is, from my best understanding, actually the best fit. Even going all the way back to my childhood, it seems to be the closest one to describe my personality. … As you may already know, some sites proudly disregard cognitive functions, altogether! Color me skeptical :-)
I think the article has apt points on introversion/extraversion, albeit it is a good alternative viewpoint to consider that the compensation of intro/extraversion comes not in alternating form, but rather as a grouping of conscious/unconscious functions (superior and inferior).
Which is the viewpoint subscribed to by many orthodox Jungians, something even lovers of the modern alternating paradigm such as John Beebe are happy to acknowledge.
Sometimes this non-alternating model is mistakenly tossed away due to the idea that, hey, there’s no pure introvert or extravert, right? Rather, that view forgets that compensation occurs for the superior perspective by the inferior one – that is, inferior extraversion in an introvert, or inferior sensation in an intuitive type.
A pure intuitive with no sensation to bring him or her back to reality would be as much a lunatic as someone influenced entirely by the subjective factor, who completely is estranged from factors existing without rather than within.
Jung’s original view was basically that there’s only an attitude of consciousness, and a compensatory attitude of the unconscious, not really an attitude to every last function in the stack. To the extent the secondary was developed, it served the attitude of consciousness, and to the extent not, it served that of the unconscious.
I think the idea of the original viewpoint is simple enough: that if the ego holds observing reality, and the subjective factor close, the objective factor and the world of possibilities hold only a relative importance. It’s not that they’re useless, but they operate in such a way heavily tinted by the preferred/conscious orientation.
Here, it’s important to note introversion is not the nullification of the object, but the relative predominance/prioritization of the subjective factor, meaning the objective factor is not ignored so much as it has no inherent significance.
I do wonder though if the more ambiverted character, which Jung thought there are many of, would often fit more of an alternating model.
I think in P.T. it’s obvious that Jung speaks of an inferior function opposite to the dominant. Ni <-> Se, for example. So that’s 1 and 4.
Elsewhere in P.T., he suggests that in the Ti type, the rest of their functions are extroverted. But it seems more like a conjecture than a definite model.
So yes, I’d say the dominant and inferior have directions, the rest is left unclear. Early Jungians then went EEII (for extroverts) or IIEE (for introverts). I’ve never seen Jung directly committing to this model, though he later said things that appear to indicate that he was thinking along those lines.
I’ve been considering the argument that the 2nd and 3rd function might not actually have much or any difference in usage, energy, consciousness, etc. Graphically they are usually represented as the 2nd being 20-50% larger than the 3rd, but this seems more of a concession to either the IIEE/EEII or IEIE/EIEI systems. To me they seem to work in a very harmonious, concerted and balanced manner, suggesting a model of equal or near equal activity. Thoughts?
The graphical representation is arbitrary, yeah. Von Franz said the 3rd was partly unconscious while the 2nd was typically completely conscious.
That is the funny thing – I nowadays think assigning an attitude to either auxiliary or tertiary, at least in a Jungian point of view, might not even be necessary or make sense: the conscious and unconscious personalities have attitudes, not the functions. Once someone’s functions become developed, their principle has by definition been adopted by the conscious personality as representative of itself. Hence, they obtain the peculiarities of the conscious attitude (I or E).
The closest thing to an attitude I think the auxiliary or tertiary has is then whether it groups with the conscious or the unconscious personality.
I think it is pretty clear Jung’s IEEE model is referring to someone with only one function differentiated. There is more than one place for instance Nietzsche is typed as having both introverted thinking and intuition (chapter 3, where his “introverted intellectual” side is discussed) and the somewhat confusing reference in chapter 10. So clearly he thought it is at least possible to have IIEE.
I should note though that Jung referred to an extensive middle group influenced about as much from within as without. It is entirely possible that some such may show a more Beebe-like model where the unconscious is based more on complementing and/or opposing the specific pattern/combination they made balancing I and E (like with Ne Ti). But I tend to remain convinced that the dogged introverts probably follow a more Jungian model.
1. The introverted and extroverted personalities as opposed to functions with orientations is closer to Jung around the writing of P.T., agreed. However, we don’t exactly agree with that. We find it too reminiscent of Jung’s personal struggles with “multiple selves” and wholeness. Others’ mileage may vary, of course. /infographic/different-approaches-to-type.php
2. I don’t agree that IEEE is only for something in special cases; more likely it seems like a loose conjecture on Jung’s part, where he didn’t seriously consider the context and implications, which is also my interpretation of Nietzsche being both Ni and Ti. He could easily have contradicted himself without thinking much about the consequences – he tended to do so a lot. And does it really say in chapter 3 that Nietzsche had Ti; doesn’t it simply say that he had T?
This is the quote from chapter 3: “The fact that it is just the psychological functions of intuition on the one hand, and of sensation and instinct on the other, that Nietzsche brings into relief, must be characteristic of his own personal psychology. He must surely be reckoned as an intuitive type with an inclination towards the side of introversion. As evidence of the former we have his pre-eminently intuitive, artistic manner of production, of which this very work The Birth of Tragedy is highly characteristic, while his master work Thus Spake Zarathustra is even more so. His aphoristic writings are expressive of his introverted intellectual side. These, in spite of a strong admixture of feeling, exhibit a pronounced critical intellectualism in the manner of the French intellectuals of the eighteenth century.”
I think you’re thinking of something like a quote in the chapter on philosophers, where he said something like with Schopenhauer and Hegel, intellect ranked below intuition, whereas for Nietzsche intuition ranked above.
This is the stranger reference from chapter 10:
“Just as Darwin might possibly represent the normal extraverted thinking type, so we might point to Kant as a counterexample of the normal introverted thinking type. The former speaks with facts; the latter appeals to the subjective factor. Darwin ranges over the wide fields of objective facts, while Kant restricts himself to a critique of knowledge in general. But suppose a Cuvier be contrasted with a Nietzsche: the antithesis becomes even sharper.”
It’s reasonably clear to me that it’s not a mistaken attribution of introverted thinking to Nietzsche.
You mention:
“I don’t agree that IEEE is only for something in special cases; more likely it seems like a loose conjecture on Jung’s part,”
He specifically qualifies that he was referring to *inferior* feeling, intuition and sensation:
“The relatively unconscious functions of feeling, intuition, and sensation, which counterbalance introverted thinking, are inferior in quality and have a primitive, extraverted character, to which all the troublesome objective influences this type is subject to must be ascribed.”
Sounds a lot like he’s suggesting the extraversion is present in those functions because they are associated to the unconscious psyche, and thus primitive and undeveloped. Troublesome objective influences and inferior character.
That suggests to me that, true to the spirit in general of his function-attitude type descriptions, he is trying to describe in somewhat exaggerated fashion types almost exclusively, which is why he is forced to make a clarifying remark at the end on the auxiliary generally existing in the real day to day types.
That should read “almost exclusively oriented by a single function” above.
And for more evidence on this point, note what he says about the irrational functions of rational types:
“he reasonableness that characterizes the conscious management of life in both these types, involves a conscious exclusion of the accidental and nonrational. Reasoning judgment, in such a psychology, represents a power that coerces the untidy and accidental things of life into definite forms; such at least is its aim. Thus, on the one hand, a definite choice is made among the possibilities of life, since only the rational choice is consciously accepted; but, on the other hand, the independence and influence of those psychic functions which perceive life’s happenings are essentially restricted. This limitation of sensation and intuition is, of course, not absolute. These functions exist, for they are universal; but their products are subject to the choice of the reasoning judgment. It is not the absolute strength of sensation, for instance, which turns the scales in the motivation of action, but judgment, Thus, in a certain sense, the perceiving-functions share the same fate as feeling in the case of the first type, or thinking in that of the second. They are relatively repressed, and therefore in an inferior state of differentiation. This circumstance gives a particular stamp to the unconscious of both our types; what such men do consciously and intentionally accords with reason (their reason of course), but what happens to them corresponds either with infantile, primitive sensations, or with similarly archaic intuitions.”
The same fate!
Definitely doesn’t sound like the same kind of thing Jung proposed when he characterized himself as having sensation *and* thinking conscious, rather than only thinking conscious, and sensation inferior.
I think all these remarks establish reasonably to my reading at least that in pre-auxiliary discussion Chapter 10, Jung is focusing on a portrait of characters oriented excessively by one function to illustrate the point of what he means by having a psychological type amply.
Not that Jung wasn’t vague or contradictory, but I’m trying to fish out what seem to be reasonably clear conclusions from that pile of vagueness.
I agree that the Nietzsche quote from Chapter 3 suggests Ni-Ti. I had read it differently at first.
Still, it’s odd how van der Hoop can write a book half the size of P.T. and be very clear about functions when Jung can’t.
With the Ti type, again I find the word inferior used in an unsystematic fashion (and I’m not the only one). Even on Jung’s own terms, there seems to be an ambiguity in his use of the term ‘inferior.’ (A) = Inferior to the dominant (B) = Inferior as in the lowermost function. Obviously, S/N cannot be (B) to a Ti type, as Jung says very clearly in P.T. as well.
Your interpretation of IEEE may be correct, but since he doesn’t really make the overall scheme of his system out clearly, it’s very open to interpretation. Von Franz says somewhere that Jung was “struggling in the dark” and didn’t understand types in full when he wrote the book. There are also the 1916 letters with Schmid-Guisan that reveal many of the otherwise unintuitive terminology of P.T. used in its original context. So on the IEEE point, I agree that you are making a good case for your interpretation of the EEE stemming from a too one-sided Ti type. However, the absence of a definite function-schema à la van der Hoop, the ambiguity of Jung’s own terms, and the looseness with which he presents the conjecture leave the matter open to speculation as was in some sense also Jung’s intention in his technical writing. Less charitable souls might say that he was hedging his bets.
On this point, I think Jung wrote P.T. over a long period of time and his terminology and focus changed from chapter to chapter without him going back and updating the terminology to fit the new implications.
Indeed, as we also cover on the site, he also says that Socrates represses “N as far as possible” even while saying that Socrates is a T/F type. This is very different from the later, post-P.T. Jung who tends to name two functions when identifying someone’s type.
So summing up, I think it’s probable that:
1. The EIII was written on a whim and thought only to apply to unbalanced Ti types.
2. The IIEE/EEII was hinted at, but not committed to, in P.T.
3. Jung eventually broadened his model to speak of two uppermost functions. His followers suggested IIEE/IIEE, but I’ve never seen him commit to it at all.
4. Nietzsche was in all likelihood identified as an Ni-Ti-Fe-Se type in Chapter 3. I’ll edit the relevant post on the site to reflect this. Sent you an email concerning that at the address you provided.
“Obviously, S/N cannot be (B) to a Ti type, as Jung says very clearly in P.T. as well.”
Well it depends – I recall an exchange on your site you had on the issue where I think Socrates was claimed to have repressed intuition to the highest degree *by virtue of his rationality*.
That seems the same spirit as the Chapter X quote I brought up there on sensation+intuition sharing the “same fate” as feeling in a thinking type, and so forth.
And also, I do think it was common for the non-auxiliary third function to be referred to as “inferior” and not differentiated (unless it was developed, in which case it became a second auxiliary, according to von Franz).
For me, the most plausible resolution of all this is simply looking outside of Jung, to the remarks of other Jungians, noting that there are some with more exclusive reliance on a single function, and some with more balanced reliance. Like Jolande Jacobi writes, as you quote in this site, Kant was probably a relatively pure thinking type. Others were more of a blend, and Jung seems to have been more of a blend of intuition and reason.
The relatively pure intuitive would be more akin to the prophet who just sees visions and at most translates them vaguely into language. The intuitive thinker (or if you must, feeler) like Jung had many intuitive visions, but built rational philosophies to encapsulate many of his ideas.
Basically, irrationality can pair with rationality but doesn’t always end up doing so harmoniously – for instance, some thinkers who have spent their lives looking for pure logical foundations to truth might be argued “purer” thinking types, because they simply cannot accept the intervention of intuition or sensation; others accept the intervention and build intuitive or sensation based logical ideas.
I think we had an instance of “synchronicity” on the Socrates thing.
I’d say it is easy enough to demonstrate Ni, Ti, Fe, and Se for Jung, but of course far harder to demonstrate the order of T and F.
In Jung’s own conception, he might be thought an aux-T type because he constructed intellectual analyses of the phenomena that came under his scrutiny. This makes him peg Schopenhauer as an INTP too. However, I think Jung was being too simplistic and that they were both simply what we’d call intellectual INFJs. The property of Feeling in Jung could be argued to be present in the way he ambiguously feels into the object (his own early formulation) and describes its nature almost always from two or more sides. The people who met Jung also frequently described him as very genial, cosy, and warm (when not in one of his rages) and not as a cold character at all.
I do think what counts as thinking and what counts as feeling is indeed an issue for further reflection. For that matter, what counts as intuition, too. I get the sense what your site is doing is saying that intellectualism (associated to N) and feeling are not really directly opposed so much as different.
Regarding Jung’s warmth, which I’ve read of too, it might be of interest to note that most modern psychometric instruments like MBTI, Big 5, seem to peg that as a mix of the E+F, rather than F alone, and more associated to E overall. Which goes well with Jung’s note that, in fact, introverted feeling types exhibited a lack of warmth often that pretty much made you wonder if there was any feeling.
I think one might make a case that Jung’s warmth is extraversion of feeling rather than pointing to higher differentiation of feeling.
So I find myself in the funny position where I agree Jung’s thinking/feeling distinction may be simplistic, but also have some doubt if he really had what can be called differentiated extraverted feeling. This quote comes to mind:
“The introverted ,intellectual, whom Gross clearly has here in mind, though outwardly showing as little feeling as possible, manifests logically correct views and actions, not least because in the first place he has a natural distaste for any parade of feeling, and secondly because he is fearful lest by incorrect behaviour he should excite disturbing stimuli, i.e. the affects of his fellow-men. He is fearful of disagreeable affects in others, because he credits others with his own sensitiveness; furthermore, he has always been distressed by the quickness and apparent fitfulness of the extravert. He represses his feeling; hence in his inner depths it occasionally swells to passion, when only too clearly he perceives it. His tormenting emotions are well known to him. He compares them with the feelings shown by others, principally, of course, with those of the extraverted feeling type, and he finds that his “feelings” are quite different from those of other men. Hence he embraces the idea that his “feelings” (or, more correctly, emotions) are unique, i.e. individual.
It is natural that they should differ from the feelings of the extraverted feeling type, since the latter are a differentiated instrument of adaptation, and are wanting, therefore in the “genuine passionateness” which characterizes the deeper feelings of the introverted thinking type. But passion, as an elemental, instinctive force, possesses little that is individual — rather is it common to all men. Only what is differentiated can be individual. Hence, in the deepest affects, the distinctions of type are at once obliterated in favour of the universal “all too human”. In my view, the extraverted feeling type has really the chief claim to individualized feeling, because his feelings are differentiated; but where his thinking is concerned, he falls into a similar delusion. He has thoughts which torment him. He compares them with the ideas expressed in the world about him, i.e. ideas largely derived in the first place from the introverted thinking type”
In other words, I get the sense his extraverted feeling might have been elemental/instinctive in this sense rather than discriminating and individual. Albeit perhaps I’d compromise and say if it was function 3, perhaps it could have been moderately more expressive/controlled than what von Franz seems to have emphasized was her pretty out of control extraverted feeling.
I suppose I’m curious how your site distinguishes the thinking function from intuition, redefining it/mixing/matching from Jung’s original definitions. I don’t deny there could be valid reasons for such redefining.
In fact, just in general, for all 4 functions, might be interesting to just do a philosophical “why should this function be defined in such and such fashion” clarification.
I’ve read an article where Beebe for instance alludes to abstractness being associated to intuition, which is parallel with the MBTI-N point of view. I don’t really think that’s how Jung thought of it.
For instance, I don’t think he’d say an introverted thinking dominant who represses intuition mostly would necessarily be not abstraction oriented, and might well be mind-bogglingly abstract.
At the same time, while I’m fine reordering things, I don’t think perceiving flashes from the unconscious and abstraction are quite the same category either conceptually or in terms of how they realistically show up in people (compare an abstract theoretical physicist with someone who can intuitively predict someone’s poker game or the stock market).
So I think Jung was right in making two separate categories, but sometimes think the reality is there’s three dichotomies at work: conscious/unconscious, ideational/mental vs tangible, and experiential-associational vs logical that nobody is quite able to smash together.
And it’s complicated, too. Sensation involves a conscious stimulus but the process of perception is less conscious than the process of reflecting.
One other little thought: you’d said sometime back
“However, we don’t exactly agree with that. We find it too reminiscent of Jung’s personal struggles with “multiple selves” and wholeness.”
regarding viewing I/E as belonging to the conscious and unconscious personalities, rather than to functions themselves.
I guess, is your meaning that you don’t make a conscious/unconscious divide the theoretical basis for the formation of types around function-axes?
I would wonder if you would instead subscribe to a similar principle, if say, we were to assume the dominant function corresponds to the orienting principle of the ego and simply said the inferior is the principle that is most rejected by the ego (this avoids reference to an unconscious and phrases everything in terms of the person’s conscious psychology).
Either way, I find that treating I/E as a legitimate feature of one’s conscious psychology standing on its own vs treating it as nonexistent by itself, and more or less defining Te, Ti and Fe, Fi and so forth separately sometimes leads to significantly different views of the function-attitudes.
I’ll get back to these comments, I just have some things to do. :)
No, we mean:
1st & 2nd: Conscious
3rd: On the threshold of Conscious/Unconscious
4th: Unconscious
Von Franz also said something like this.
So actually, if I understand your question correctly, our approach is more like this: The conscious personality has both E and I elements, as does the unconscious. In e.g. an INTP, Ti, Ne and (say) 50% of Si is conscious, while 50% of Si and 100% of Fe is unconscious. So E and I elements both above and below consciousness.
I agree about the need for better function definitions written by people knowledgeable about philosophy. We actually have a pile of manuscripts lying around that could become a new Psychological Types, i.e. series of function definitions with philosophical and meta-representative underpinnings. But unlike Jung, we don’t have wealthy sponsors.
We don’t like Beebe’s theoretical works at all. He seems like a nice person though.
When Jung set forth his theory, he was immediately criticized because the unconscious is both in the 4th function and in the N function. An easier way to think of it would be to say that the unconscious is the 4th and 50% of the 3rd function. There is more of an unconscious element in Ni and Ne than in other functions, but ultimately, it seems to me that there are unconscious elements in the operation of all functions, no matter where in the psyche they are placed.
I see; well as far as I’m aware, Jung (after Psychological Types) decided the same thing as von Franz did (and to be quite honest my impression is she was pretty orthodox, and not likely to deviate from Jung – not because she’s not a great mind of her own, but because she tended to see eye to eye with Jung).
That is, that there are 3 possibilities:
1. one function differentiated, mostly pure, repression of 3
2. the very common 2 conscious/2 unconscious
3. the one you suggest, roughly, i.e. good potential to develop a second auxiliary
I tend to hold to this possibility of 3 myself in my own analyses of types. Jung and von Franz seem to have suggested they were possibilities 2/3 mostly.
Why do I like the 3 possibilities? Because, like various have written, I think Sharp says explicitly, Jung’s functions fit on a compass. While there is some kind of fantasy that all intuitive dominants are “the same type,” Jung himself says in characterizing the introverted intuitive that even a slight differentiation of judgment leads to immensely different characteristics.
And I also tend to see significant conflicts between the model 1 types and the model 2 types at times.
As for the function definitions, well even a short statement (should you feel inclined and/or have the time) would be great, short of a treatise and P.T. Part 2. I think the devil’s in the definitions quite often, and a lot of bashing heads over type diagnoses differing really amounts to those definitions.
There were some typos in my comments, they are being fixed now. Jacobi said something about the 3rd function not being accessible to the common man but only to highly intelligent people. We don’t think that’s true at all. But we don’t think that the 3rd can rid itself of the unconscious either.
Von Franz actually says one time that Jung was an Ni type, while Jung always said he was a Ti type, so… I think Jung lost interest in type and the model, and left it to people like von Franz and van der Hoop to figure out the specifics.
Yeah, our site follows Hoop in saying that Fs can easily be just as intellectuals as Ts. But there’s typically a tendency towards synthesis or holism (Fe) or denial of obvious reservations (Fi). So the intellectual imagery that might arise in the psyche is the same, but the T functions are far more critical or reductionist in their treatment of it. They miss the nuance and ambiance of the “visions” but their logic is tighter.
“Warmth” isn’t the best argument to show that Jung had Fe, and it’s a decidedly bad argument to show where in the psyche it was. An easier way might be to ask how Jung could have had Te then. If he hadn’t, then he’d have some Fe — 2nd, 3rd, or 4th placed, but Fe nonetheless.
I think with the differentiation of Feeling you have a bit of a paradox. Feeling is a comparative over-development or heightened development of sentiment. That might in itself be very natural and immediate and not something to suggest itself to the term “differentiated.” But by virtue of its cognitive prominence, activity, and ability to grasp feeling moods that non-feeling types might miss, the function itself might still be said to be more prominent. At any rate, if differentiation is the measure of a function’s placement, and thinking is in any way tied to logic, then Jung’s Ti wasn’t especially differentiated either.
The quote you provide is pertinent. Jung always said that it was his inferior Fe that caused him trouble; caused him to rage, caused him to kick Jolande Jacobi down a flight of stairs, and other such things. But to us, that sounds more like a problem of personality styles than types. The things von Franz describe as stemming from her inferior Fe — not knowing how to congratulate people, not knowing what to say at funerals, etc. — *that’s* inferior Fe as we understand it.
I find it’s a little bit of a downhill struggle what they mean by accessible. I mean, Jung does make the cryptic remark that the contents of a function can be conscious without the function being conscious, i.e. its principle being absolute for the orientation of consciousness.
I get what this is saying on, say, a purely rational-logical level, in the sense that I can talk consistently about the idea. But I cannot say I know the precise meaning Jung had in mind, because I get the sense it has to do with having an intimate understanding of what it really means for a happening to be more the product of the unconscious than the conscious.
Jungians literally purported to *read* the unconscious from dreams and the like. So it’s as if they could go and say whoa, that wasn’t the conscious ego, it was the unconscious there.
Jung was an excellent sculptor/painter and so forth according to von Franz, and it seems a lot of these things have been attributed to sensation/feeling at some point or another, which are supposedly “unconscious”…
So when you say “we don’t think that’s true at all,” I’m curious – how do you view the distinction between when the conscious/unconscious is at work, vs how Jung does? I only personally claim to have a coherent sense of whether someone has a willful agenda they can develop about a function, and don’t claim to know when someone’s functioning is unconsciously motivated rather than consciously, aside from when it seems motivated more by instinct than conscious deliberation. Which is a subset of Jung’s ideas but quite likely not all, on this matter.
For the sake of this thread of comments/this particular page, let me remark that the most compelling thing to me to consider in the alternate models to the standard one EIEI/IEIE is that Myers seemed to give a special place to E/I as needing to both be differentiated in consciousness, but didn’t seem to place the same degree of emphasis on the function-axes (i.e. sure a thinker needed feeling, intuitives needed sensation, but she hardly advocated that they both be strong, and seemed to treat it as more of a secondary thing to work on than a life necessity).
““Warmth” isn’t the best argument to show that Jung had Fe, and it’s a decidedly bad argument to show where in the psyche it was.”
While I agree with you on this, I guess I’ve seen references to Jung not having inferior feeling on this site with this mentioned as a hint – both in this comments thread and in one of the pages, and while it’s true, there’s a sense that I think, if we attributed it to anything, it would be E+F (as studied by some combo of the MBTI instrument/the Five Factor model). If you defined Fe to be E+F then your argument might have something to it – now of course F=/= Jungian feeling just as N=/= Jungian intuition, but you guys are redefining things, so I was just throwing that out there.
Do you happen to have a quote for this: “Yeah, our site follows Hoop in saying that Fs can easily be just as intellectuals as Ts”
I’ve not read Conscious Orientation as yet, but have read one of Hoop’s other renditions of the topic of types.
Anyway moving on to your remarks on feeling: so do you not go with the idea that feeling function~axiological discernments (value assignments)? In other words, do you have a definition of what the feeling function apprehends/describes? Or do you attribute it more to a cluster of tendencies than one definition of what it exactly does? So far I see feeling types ~ greater sentiment awareness and greater holism.
From what I know, Jung attributed reductionism to concretist thinking, e.g. Freud. Not surprisingly I guess you have him as ST.
Basically on reductionism I get the sense this is the whole thing about Jung’s association of introverts to being the ones oriented by the subjective factor, which to him entailed an orientation by the idea. Because, in a sense, to him taking the idea and breaking it into its parts destroys how it appears subjectively to the mind’s eye. To the point where he even hinted introverted thinking/feeling may stray outside logical realms – presumably because logic is just the projection of the idea onto a static framework which cuts it up into demonstrable pieces.
Keirsey might even say Jung’s concept of introvert is closer to a NF take, as he said the interest in pure ideas, and so forth, is more of an idealist thing (and indeed Jung does attribute idealism more to the introvert).
Sorry for the choppy comments. Just enjoy your site and it would be great to get what you view each of the type categories as, as distinguished from others. Sometimes the meaning is the same and the words are just different.
To be clear, “warmth” was my argument, and subsequently, I was knocking my own argument; calling it out as subpar for a sustained discussion.
Did you get my Nietzsche email?
Fair enough; got back to your e-mail just now. The thing with “warmth” and “Fe” is it largely depends how philosophical one wants to get on the meaning. Philosophically there are many ways to define outward orientation, feeling orientation, and so forth. As far as the standard semi-scientific data gathering mechanisms like Big 5, I think E+F and “warmth” go pretty great together, in that both dimensions of personality contribute to warmth.
Some definitions of Te, Fe, etc have almost nothing to do with the extraversion/introversion talked of in FFM/MBTI the instrument. Which is fine, just I keep track of these things as it got very confusing otherwise to objectively compare different theorists.
Also just happened to notice the whole synthesis/holism applied to Fe, not Fi. While I acknowledge your skeletal model matches von Franz’s, I daresay I think some of your definitions of the functions likely don’t, albeit I certainly am openminded to any set of definitions that gets at the subject insightfully.
I think von Franz pretty much went with Jung on the definitions, and was pretty much similar to Jung on most points I can tell. Her model of 2 auxiliaries or 1 or none is acknowledged elsewhere to come from Jung’s later thoughts on the matter, I think. And from all looks of it, her diagnosis of Jung was *as much of a developed thinking function user as herself* albeit, like she said, two people can both be intuitive-thinkers of some kind, and one can diagnose the inferior function to tell which is dominant. Her blatant inferiority with the Fe stuff you mention, not a superiorly developed thinking function, seems to have been her reason for seemingly diagnosing Jung differently from herself…albeit she didn’t offer much on his inferior sensation.
As she said, often it is hard to impossible to really tell based solely on the development of 2 functions which is dominant.
I don’t know. We were talking about Fe in intellectuals, von Franz talks about Fe in general (and IIRC never about Fe in intellectuals). Outside of intellectuals, I’d say we are pretty similar.
Von Franz’s thoughts on Jung are strange. In one place, she says inferior S. In another, she says that they are the same type. In that kind of way (the multiple twists in the treatment of the model itself) we’re not like Jung and von Franz. But on the functions, I’d say we are practically the same as Hoop and Franz.
Interesting; well I was referring to how it seemed at least unambiguous as it gets that von Franz thought Jung was a thinking type (albeit yes, it seems she said inferior sensation so intuitive dominant)!
I do think she associated intellectual thinking strongly with the thinking function for instance (no less than did Jung, as far as I can tell), which you clearly do not do. It’s possible you are somewhat closer to van der Hoop than von Franz, albeit with some adjustments (such as for introverted sensation).
I will have to look up the place van der Hoop talks of feeling types and intellectualism. I think van der Hoop’s take on intuition is probably the closest among the fairly old time writers to come to the modern concept we seem to use…and he seemed to diverge from Jung on making intuition mostly about perceiving the unconscious. Seemed more compatible with being utilizable by an intellectual, for instance.
Just as a small hint of that, when she calls Jung a thinking type in one book (which I apologize, I forget which one – perhaps you already know of it), she refers to his keen scientific inclinations (which Daryl Sharp also refers to in diagnosing Jung as a dominant thinker, albeit doing so somewhat cautiously, suggesting his inferior function wasn’t that clear). And in Lectures on Jung’s typology, her explanation of inferior thinking in a feeling type revolves largely around things like being unable to write an essay (or even thinking in thinking types who have started work on their inferior functions).
And, in her interview, in which she diagnoses herself and Jung as “the same type,” she says too much “intellectual thinking” goes against feeling, if I recall exactly those words – “intellectual thinking.”
Can you give me the reference for Sharp? I haven’t read that.
Right here: http://www.innercitybooks.net/pdf/books/personalitytypes.pdf
Main points I would note are pages 36-37 where Sharp
a) diagnoses himself as introverted sensation dominant with auxiliary thinking (which is also supported in his in memoriam to von Franz available by googling)
b) diagnoses Jung as probably being thinking dominant with auxiliary sensation and intuition, both well developed, albeit with not noticeably inferior feeling like you in your site say!
c) Sharp takes a definite take on the idea that types are not static, suggesting different functions were dominant in him at different times, and where he even behaved in an extraverted way at one point in life.
Well pages 35-6 in the “hard copy” and 36-7 in the pdf.
Sharp also says it’s very safe to say Jung is an introvert, but that’s not a terribly interesting point perhaps.
Whoops, on a) I should say, just the sensation part is supported. Suggesting his sense of being oriented by sensation perhaps holds much of the time, despite his statements regarding holding different dominants at different points.
Why not just fish it out while I’m at it (not exactly relevant to the claim on Jung, but it also has Sharp as having sensation>intuition):
http://www.innercitybooks.net/vonfranz.html
I’ll look into it, thanks. I don’t understand this remark of yours: “albeit with not noticeably inferior feeling like you in your site say!” ?
Just saying Sharp suggests Jung’s feeling was not noticeably inferior (parallel to what you suggest on your site). Of course, he still says thinking seems dominant despite this.
“I find it’s a little bit of a downhill struggle what they mean by accessible. I mean, Jung does make the cryptic remark that the contents of a function can be conscious without the function being conscious, i.e. its principle being absolute for the orientation of consciousness.”
I find this to be a good distillation of Ni, actually. The actual operation of the function – information intake, pattern-matching, and much of the actual work of forming the characteristic synthesis is unconscious, and it’s mostly the end product that’s brought into consciousness. In this way you can kind of guess what it’s doing behind the scenes in a rough way, but writing a step by step description for it is probably impossible.
Just finished reading the lengthy discussion, my naked intuition is that Jung had a strong element of introverted thinking in him. I’ve only seen a few photos of Jung, but the ones I have seen when he is genial: the smile———I instantly recognize it as a somewhat repressed extroverted feeling function.
As for the further reflection of introverted intuition and introverted feeling, the fundamental difference is still that no moral implications can be derived from the former. The latter, however, generates personal signification for the psyche. That’s why whether it be extroverted feeling or introverted feeling, it doesn’t have anything to do with feeling or emotion.
As for the unconscious involvement in extroverted intuition and introverted intuition, I think it’s not that the unconscious actively influences the two, but that the egos of the subjects of the two functions seek content from the unconscious for processing, thus prompting a response from it. It only seems like the unconscious is influencing the two types on a greater level than other types but in fact it is only that the very nature of the two is intuitive. It’s hard to explain but what I am really trying to say is that the images, associations, ideas, and circles of illuminations for both types have their content in the conscious, not the unconscious. When Jung said introverted intuition is a function of the unconscious by way of intermediate links, what he really meant was that the substance that fills the gaps are from the unconscious, but once the substance has presented itself in the form of any kind of intuition, it has risen above the waters of the unconscious. Thus, Jung was referring to both types as pryers of the unconscious and recipients of the psychic factor that produces the intuitions. Both types are passive just like any other types in receiving content from the unconscious.
Not sure what the letters ESTP and INFJ represent on my “result” graph of percentages on each side of the middle line. I think the E and I represent introvert and extrovert, but not sure of the remaining letters and their meaning. Please explain.