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[MBTI General] Meritorious NFs?

SolitaryWalker

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Lets name all the meritorious NFs throughout history, and POP-Heroes do not deserve mention here.
 

SolitaryWalker

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Why dont we start bringing up names like Ghandi, Buddha, Jesus, Plato and so on?

That is not even half of it and those four were all INFJs.
 

Ivy

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I guess you pretty much hit the high pockets there. I believe Samuel Taylor Coleridge was probably an INFP.
 

Totenkindly

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Why dont we start bringing up names like Ghandi, Buddha, Jesus, Plato and so on? That is not even half of it and those four were all INFJs.

  • Ghandhi was probably INFJ.
  • Buddha might have been INTP.
  • Jesus is indeterminable because he was so well-rounded.
  • I haven't read enough Plato to know about him, although obviously his belief in "Ideals" might suggest the NFJ thing.
  • Stephen R. Donaldson, author of "Thomas Covenant" series and other fiction (INFJ)
  • Terry Brooks, author of "The Sword of Shannara" + assorted Shannara spawn (INFP)
  • Piers Anthony, author of Xanth novels + assorted ilk (INFJ?)
  • Charlotte Brontë, author of Jane Eyre (INFP?)
  • Virginia Woolf (INFx)
  • King David, from the Bible (INFJ?)
  • John, author of the self-titled Gospel and Revelation (INFP?)
  • Jennifer Connelly, actress (INFx)
  • Yunjin Kim, actress most famous as Sun on "Lost" (INFx)
  • Peter S. Beagle, author of "The Last Unicorn" (NF)
 

Chloe relic

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  • Ghandhi was probably INFJ.
  • Buddha might have been INTP.
  • Jesus is indeterminable because he was so well-rounded.
  • I haven't read enough Plato to know about him, although obviously his belief in "Ideals" might suggest the NFJ thing.
  • Stephen R. Donaldson, author of "Thomas Covenant" series and other fiction
This sounds plausible. So what type was the goob that invented fire? An NT or a Sensor? :eek:
 

Totenkindly

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  • John Lennon, of Beatles fame (INFJ?)
  • Celine Dion, entertainer (ENFP)
  • Amy Grant, singer (INFP?)
  • Alice Miller, author of "The Drama of the Gifted Child" + other psych books (xNFx)
  • Anais Nin, author of many publisyed personal diaries (INFx)
  • Terry Moore, author/artist of the graphic novel series "Strangers in Paradise" (INFP?)
  • Neil Gaiman, author of the graphic novel series "The Sandman" (INFx)
  • Carol Burnett, comedienne (NF?)
  • Stephen Curtis Chapman, Christian singer (INFP)
  • Chris Tomlin, Christian worship leader (ENFP)
  • Rita Springer, Christian worship leader (INFP)
 

Eileen

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  • Jesus is indeterminable because he was so well-rounded.

Eeeehhhh, I really think Jesus is/was/shall be ;) an NF. His rational side was always about ethics (F territory), not logic (T territory).
 

SolitaryWalker

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Eeeehhhh, I really think Jesus is/was/shall be ;) an NF. His rational side was always about ethics (F territory), not logic (T territory).

Seems to me you can do ethics with T as much as F.

Think about how INTPs tend to have strong principles as well as ENTJs.

Ethics can be founded on dispassioned thought just as much as they could be founded on sentiments. Many philosophers, Kant and Spinoza among them have attempted the former.
 

Geoff

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I'm always amused that people try to project type descriptions onto historic figures.

eg Hey Buddha! Must be INTP, right? Ha.

-Geoff
 

Eileen

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Seems to me you can do ethics with T as much as F.

Think about how INTPs tend to have strong principles as well as ENTJs.

Ethics can be founded on dispassioned thought just as much as they could be founded on sentiments. Many philosophers, Kant and Spinoza among them have attempted the former.


The "F" (in particular, the Fi) is not about sentiment. It's about "right" and "wrong". It's about values.
 

Eileen

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I'm always amused that people try to project type descriptions onto historic figures.

eg Hey Buddha! Must be INTP, right? Ha.

-Geoff

I think it can be done only insomuch as we can "type" fictional characters. It's a pretty meaningless exercise, but it can be fun. I'd love to hear an actual rationale for the Buddha being INTP, though. I think it can be done, but rarely does anyone seem to try.
 

SolitaryWalker

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The "F" (in particular, the Fi) is not about sentiment. It's about "right" and "wrong". It's about values.

Why cant you do the same thing with Ti? Right is what sounds reasonably to be a virtue and wrong what can not reasonably be thought of as a virtue.

All in all I tend to think that Ti and Fi do real virtue ethics, Te and Fe are more concerned with regulations that are supposed to bring order to society.

Eileen, are you familiar with Kant or Spinoza to any degree? It would be easier for us to talk about how you can have T ethics if you were.
 

Totenkindly

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Eeeehhhh, I really think Jesus is/was/shall be ;) an NF. His rational side was always about ethics (F territory), not logic (T territory).

I understand why you say he was more "F" than "T." Then again, what little we have to go on with Jesus is after he was a grown man, at 30 years of age, and presumably after he had been taking care of his family for years (a position of responsibility), since his father Joseph seems to have died based on the gap in what little record we had.

I'm still not sure how to parse the one story from his childhood where he blew off his parents at the temple at age 12 when they left him behind and they had to go find him, then told them when they found him that basically they needed to not make a big deal out of things because he had to "attend to his Father's business" -- his answer seemed a little more T-blunt, not F-diplomatic. And that is the more "raw" Jesus we are seeing there, before he would have "smoothed out."

In any case, I know some Christian INTPs (not a ton, but 3-4 of them) who, while being clearly T, are compassionate in the same manner Jesus was and think in terms of people, despite being T types. Once people mature quite a bit, it's hard to tell what is the foundation of their personality.

Jesus was often purposefully provocative and blunt, knowing full well what response he would trigger in people, but did and said what he did anyway. This could be F, but it's also very T.

And compared to other "F's" -- such as Peter (probably ESFJ) and John (INFP?), well, Jesus looks a lot more T than F in comparison to them. So I find it a bit nebulous.
 

SolitaryWalker

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I think it can be done only insomuch as we can "type" fictional characters. It's a pretty meaningless exercise, but it can be fun. I'd love to hear an actual rationale for the Buddha being INTP, though. I think it can be done, but rarely does anyone seem to try.

Buddha had an excellent ability to empathize with others and give emotional reinforcement. Ability to empathize could be an Fi, but the way he could support people tempts me to think he was an Fe. His esoteric vision about how life should be lived sounds like an Ni. Ni vision is about the individual, much like all I functions. Ni is about how you should live out your vision, whereas Ne is about how the society shoudl change in accordance to your vision. And he seemingly had a strong desire to live out his vision, provide emotional support for others and to make sense of the world(as Buddhism seems to be the religion that is the most accomodating to reason), yet this was weaker in him than the previous two. Sounds like Ni Fe Ti
 

Eileen

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I'm still not sure how to parse the one story from his childhood where he blew off his parents at the temple at age 12 when they left him behind and they had to go find him, then told them when they found him that basically they needed to not make a big deal out of things because he had to "attend to his Father's business" -- his answer seemed a little more T-blunt, not F-diplomatic. And that is the more "raw" Jesus we are seeing there, before he would have "smoothed out."

Heh--perhaps. Or maybe that's the "immature" Jesus. These are good thoughts, and certainly NTs have the capacity for compassion.

I do hold to my belief (from socionics) that there are rational NFs and irrational NTs, though. Rational NFs and NTs have primary judging (rational) functions (so, INFj has Fi, INTj has Ti, and so forth). Socionics places "ethics" in the realm of the F and "logic" in the realm of the T; these are two different systems that we use to make decisions. Fs, being values based, make decisions regarding "right and wrong," and Ts, being logic based, make decisions based on evidence and logical consequence. Of course these overlap sometimes, but the frameworks are pretty different and come from different instincts.

This, I believe (regardless of where you come down on function ordering, which tends to be the arguing point between MBTI and socionics) is a much more useful and sensible way to understand the difference between Thinking and Feeling because it explains basis for judgment.

SW's supposition that Feeling has anything to do with being sentimental is way off base. I know that I am NF, but I am one of the least sentimental people I know, even compared to a lot of the NTs in my life. NTs can be VERY sentimental (and indeed, compassionate) and still be NT, and NFs can lack those traits and still be NF.
 

Eileen

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Seems to me you can do ethics with T as much as F.

Think about how INTPs tend to have strong principles as well as ENTJs.

Ethics can be founded on dispassioned thought just as much as they could be founded on sentiments. Many philosophers, Kant and Spinoza among them have attempted the former.

You can "do" ethics as an NT, but "doing" ethics and making your decisions BASED on ethics are very different things. What NTs and NFs do with ethics is rather different.
 
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