Mal12345
Permabanned
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2011
- Messages
- 14,532
- MBTI Type
- IxTP
- Enneagram
- 5w4
- Instinctual Variant
- sx/sp
The context is an exploration of the Extraverted Thinking function -
"There is also, however and now I come to the question of the introverted intellect an entirely different kind of thinking, to which the term thinking can hardly be denied: it is a kind [of thinking] that is neither orientated by the immediate objective experience nor is it concerned with general and objectively derived ideas. I reach this other kind of thinking in the following way. When my thoughts are engaged with a concrete object or general idea in such a way that the course of my thinking eventually leads me back again to my object, this intellectual process is not the only psychic proceeding taking place in me at the moment. I will disregard all those possible sensations and feelings which become noticeable as a more or less disturbing accompaniment to my train of thought, merely emphasizing the fact that this very thinking process [viz., extraverted] which proceeds from objective data and strives again towards the object stands also in a constant relation to the subject. This relation is a conditio sine qua non, without which no thinking process whatsoever could take place[...]This parallel subjective process has a natural tendency, only relatively avoidable, to subjectify objective facts, i.e., to assimilate them to the subject." (Psychological Types, 430-1.)
If this was intended as proof of the existence of an auxiliary function, then it certainly falls short. The "conditio sine qua non" of the thinking process doesn't necessarily have to be a function at all.
At this point in the book he is calling the Ni and Si types a form of "thinking" ("to which the term thinking can hardly be denied"), which is rather confusing but understandable as he is only formally recognizing their existence at this time. The quote offers a nice description of what the auxiliary function does, even if it really offers no proof of it.
"There is also, however and now I come to the question of the introverted intellect an entirely different kind of thinking, to which the term thinking can hardly be denied: it is a kind [of thinking] that is neither orientated by the immediate objective experience nor is it concerned with general and objectively derived ideas. I reach this other kind of thinking in the following way. When my thoughts are engaged with a concrete object or general idea in such a way that the course of my thinking eventually leads me back again to my object, this intellectual process is not the only psychic proceeding taking place in me at the moment. I will disregard all those possible sensations and feelings which become noticeable as a more or less disturbing accompaniment to my train of thought, merely emphasizing the fact that this very thinking process [viz., extraverted] which proceeds from objective data and strives again towards the object stands also in a constant relation to the subject. This relation is a conditio sine qua non, without which no thinking process whatsoever could take place[...]This parallel subjective process has a natural tendency, only relatively avoidable, to subjectify objective facts, i.e., to assimilate them to the subject." (Psychological Types, 430-1.)
If this was intended as proof of the existence of an auxiliary function, then it certainly falls short. The "conditio sine qua non" of the thinking process doesn't necessarily have to be a function at all.
At this point in the book he is calling the Ni and Si types a form of "thinking" ("to which the term thinking can hardly be denied"), which is rather confusing but understandable as he is only formally recognizing their existence at this time. The quote offers a nice description of what the auxiliary function does, even if it really offers no proof of it.