Fi is self-centered.

[Oaky]

Thank you for making this thread Dee.
Fi is the function that allows an individual to empathise. It is the empathising function. With empathy, the individual who uses Fi compares different standings of other entities to their own and therefore feels what the other individual feels. But it is always a comparison to themselves and with such, it really is always caring about the self; and so it is self-centered. Fi users will take the stand to being a being of greater value and so they improve in whatever areas they feel would make them better as a human being. The maintaining of one's dignity and standpoint will disallow more Fi users to bring themselves to self-embarrassing situations in difference to the non-Fi users. Certainly far more self-conscious is such.

 

[Stanton Moore]

In a manner of speaking Fi is self-centered, because the only thing one can perceive is one's own emotions, and so empathy is exhibited as an intellectual exercise of 'how would that make me feel'. So this system of empathy is not really related to the feelings of others but the projection of the self's feelings on others; which can be described as self-centered, however I think you'll find Fi users are far more accommodating and sympathetic than Fe users, as the saying goes, Do for others as you would have done unto you- is characteristic of Fi and not Fe.

Is there another way top experience empathy?

 

[Oaky]

Goodness... Never knew zang wrote what I wrote.

 

[Eric B]

I think I said this in the Fe thread, but the more negative side of the function, such as "self-centeredness" or "fakeness" is more likely to appear in the tertiary or inferior (or lower) manifestation of the function. The person is really a Thinking type, and Feeling is a more vulnerable area, so it comes off like that.

When it is preferred, it is (hopefully) more mature, so that both attitudes can achieve pretty much the same things, which will be focused on people (self and others) either way. They just go about it in different ways.

The whole "Fi=self-centered" sentiment seems to hail largely from one circle in type theory, which seems to include NTJ's (with one posing as an NFJ, and making much of how self-involved and "irritating" to a supposed Fe perspective Fi is) who project their own experience of Fi onto the whole function.
Nardi (INTJ) might be an example of this (have to check his book again), and I don't know what type the Hartzlers are, but I know their numbered function trait descriptions/exercises generally portray Fi as having such a strong wall of defense against influence of others. (This had seemed to contradict other descriptions I had seen of FP types).

I realized that this was more the way Fi manifests in TJ's (Thus actually supporting their ever-so-directive and structure focused Te), and it will likely only manifest that way for an FP, when a really important value is really at stake. Or perhaps, if they are really pushed too far.
Those descriptions are tending to overgeneralize this side of it. Otherwise, it tends to make them more acquiescent to others, at least at times. (Likewise, the FP's Te supports this by making them more likely to yield to others' Te).

 

[Zangetshumody]

Is there another way top experience empathy?

The definition of empathy as I understand it, is appreciating or relating to the emotion another is feeling. Fi users are empathetic as to the scenario, which allows them to induce feelings from themselves which only might correspond to the person undergoing the particular scenario. Fi users track the cause of the emotional state and understand it would make themselves feel a particular way, only if the two people are similarly constituted will true empathy be achieved. Fe users are in a much better position of understanding the emotions they would then have to only relate to, in order to achieve empathy.

 

[Stanton Moore]

The definition of empathy as I understand it, is appreciating or relating to the emotion another is feeling. Fi users are empathetic as to the scenario, which allows them to induce feelings from themselves which only might correspond to the person undergoing the particular scenario. Fi users track the cause of the emotional state and understand it would make themselves feel a particular way, only if the two people are similarly constituted will true empathy be achieved. Fe users are in a much better position of understanding the emotions they would then have to only relate to, in order to achieve empathy.

3

In order to feel empathy one has to compare one's experience to what one observes in another person. It only works one way.

 

[Tiltyred]

I think it's different for Fe doms vs Fe auxiliarys, etc. (not as to whether they're selfish, but as to describing how they use their Feeling function).

And if that's true, it's useless to talk about Fe versus Fi.

 

[Zangetshumody]

3

In order to feel empathy one has to compare one's experience to what one observes in another person. It only works one way.

I'm afraid what you describe does not imply empathy at all. Contrasting one's experience to another's is, in my mind, completely antithetical to the idea of empathy.