Edit: That's not fair. I'll give you a partial response.
You say keep saying that when there's an ambiguity, we just have dug deep enough. But using Occam's Razor, tell me: what's more likely, that people have some essence that no one has ever seen and there is no evidence for, which is contradicted by simple observations that people exhibit inconsistent and varying behavior, or that there simply IS no such essence, only a collection of variable stimuli/responses (traits)?
To be clear, I'm not saying there is NO PATTERN to these responses. What I'm saying is that typology is not it. The pattern of responses is much much more complicated and more elusive that 8 cognitive processes, and, that these cognitive processes have no real correlates in reality because they are abstractions.
In summary, your argument is as follows.
1)People do have static essences.
2)However, we do not clearly know what such an essence as people often display contradictory behaviors. It is therefore difficult for us to clearly identified the patterns in which our mind functions.
3)Typology does not depict one of such patterns because it is too simple.
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I would agree that typology does not explain many important things about the human mind. It only explains some things. One of such things is the fact that some of our cognitive dispositions are solidified.
Despite the fact that the human mind is very complicated and it is difficult for us to discern specifically how it works, we seem to know enough about it to establish that some of our dispositions are solidified and we can know some of such dispositions.
So, I do not disagree with most of what you said, as you simply stated that typology does not describe a lot of important things about the human mind. However, you have not argued that the claims typology makes with regard to how human mind works are false.
[that these cognitive processes have no real correlates in reality because they are abstractions.
Abstractions depict in some vague sense how things of reality work. That is what typology accomplishes. The chief criticism applicable to this system is that it simply is incomplete, yet no coherent and a thorough argument has yet been made to prove that the claims it makes are false.
But using Occam's Razor, tell me: what's more likely, that people have some essence that no one has ever seen and there is no evidence for,.
This essence can be seen and has been seen through careful investigation of the biography of individuals. This is the task that has been performed by Carl Jung in the Psychological Types.
Occam's razor is irrelevant to this discourse. It is an epistemic technique used to replace a complicated theory for a simpler one under the circumstance of the more complicated theory lacking explanatory power that the simpler theory does not have. At this point we have not found a theory that explains everything Jungian typology does, yet does so in a simpler manner.Hence, by virtue of Occam's Razor, it cannot be abrogated.
which is contradicted by simple observations that people exhibit inconsistent and varying behavior.
The fact that people behave in an inconsistent manner does not contradict one of the claims of typology. The system maintains that people have many types (a temperament is an aggreggate of types, so in your case there is an Ne type as a dominant and Ti as auxiliary for example). There will be some contradictory behaviors noticed as both types are prominent. Some circumstances of your life will even force you to rely on the less prominent of types more than on those that you're in natural affinity with. (Such as Fe and Si)
In order to show that typology is false, a careful study of the person's biography must evince that he consistently engages in all functions to an equal degree or frequently how much he engages in each radically changes. Simple observations of behavior do not suffice to prove this.
