Would it be agreed that if someone were to say that a person was either an INTJ or an ENTJ because they used Te that this would be wrong? If Te and Ti do not exist except as concepts to explain the different results of two T preference people then how can you work backwards with any reliability?
I agree with you on this point, though as with MBTT in general, everyone has their own method that they believe works for them.
Personally, I consider myself too much of a novice to know what Te looks like.
And if I did, I wouldn't know if I was looking at a person's first or second function,
or a usually unused function.
And frankly, I don't see how anyone else could know that either.
And by the time you had been with someone long enough to determine that,
it seems to me that there would be faster more accurate means of determining someone's type.
The "working backwards" you mentioned happens in the 4 dimensions as well, if we think about it. What is the proper way to determine someone's type? Is it not by a personal/group consultation where the options are laid before the persons and they decide for themselves what type they are?
Technically, the system wasn't meant for people to go around typing other people, yet it's increasingly being used that way. I have read some of the most atrocious ways people have for determining the type of another. They jump to conclusions; they have no way of falsifying their findings, yet they insist that they're correct.
I think it just comes with the territory.
As with all of life, people are wrong all the time.
Some of the online tests use this "backwards" thinking as well.
Visit the "What's my type" sub-forum and you will see all kinds of information given in the name of thinking they are helping someone determine their type!
If Linda Berens were here, do you think she would agree with you? I think maybe not.
She probably feels secure enough in her understanding of people and of the functions that she feels she can determine someones type quite easily.
Maybe not. I could be wrong.
You see I don't have a problem with the function order as listed in most text books per se only the way in which people pick it up and use it literally. In strictest definition is Te a function? Is it not that T is the function and e the preferred arena to use it in?
Once again I agree. And given that a person might be forced to use a function outside of their preferred arena occasionally, it seems pretty arrogant to claim to be able to judge total strangers by such an observation.
As far as textbook listings, it's not that exact of a science, right? Or is it?
I think some people here are of the opinion that it is not.
I can only be as exact with my work as my tools allow me to be.
I.e., a chisel is less precise than an Exacto knife.
Ergo function analysis should not be based upon Fe and Fi but rather F itself as a whole. The various arenas should be a layer of analysis on top of that and not beside.
If I were a function "expert" I perhaps would disagree with that. Given the time to study someone, and observing that a certain person ALWAYS uses Fe and Never uses Fi, that might be helpful in helping me determine their type, but as I said, there are probably faster, easier ways to do it.
It's a question of priority and importance. It seems that many consider the context as part of the function itself, it is this which I find incorrect and it's this tendency which I'm trying to address.
I agree with you that determining someone's type by observing the functions they use is not a good way to do it.
But if a person chooses to do it that way and is always correct, then I don't see the harm.
It would be incorrect to assume that I'm trying to alter the system as it is, or as I interpret it to be (to be precisely precise), but rather how it is interpreted by a few people.
Perhaps these people are novices who don't know any better?
Also in part I'm trying to find out if my thinking is correct but that's an aside to this particular thread as if I try to do both I'll only get buried in nay sayers and that's just irritating.
That's an INTP question that I can't help with.