OrangeAppled said:
but they're not dichotomous.
Sure, and I'd also note Fi/Ti as Jung thought of them share
introversion -- that's I think pretty consistent with 4/5 which seem to often at least involve introverted themes. I think post-Jungian thought frequently emphasizes the axes (Ti/Fe vs Fi/Te) to the point of obscuring that Jung would've probably viewed Fi and Ti doms as sharing a ton of things, given for him, these meant introverts...who happen to also be of the feeling or thinking type respectively. In this sense, there would be no dichotomy, only a difference.
But I recognize myself in Fi only so much as it is defined as rational and focused on creating and exploring concepts of value (ie meaning in the human experience), not as holding emotionally driven values.
I think at bottom, I should ask this: why do you think feeling/thinking is a legitimate dichotomy (as defined in the Jungian sense)? Intuition/sensation is kind of obvious comparatively, but I find a lot of people's understandings of feeling/thinking doesn't even make it clear why they'd repress each other, rather than merely be different (I mean, being different isn't sufficient to repress, because otherwise how would we pair the auxiliary with dominant).
Also, when you suggest "I recognize myself in Fi only so much as....not as holding emotionally driven values," it almost makes it seem as if you think you'd recognize yourself in Fi
more were you driven by emotional values.
But I guess the latter part of your post seems to bring up the traditional point of view that feeling is not about emotion, but value judgment.
Anyway, I personally think this topic is pretty subtle, because I think ultimately, we have to ask: what exactly IS the feeling/thinking dichotomy about? Why are judgments of worth in some sense opposed to focus on these other kinds of judgments?
The way I look at it, the key is that we wouldn't have value judgments without subjective reactions to things, but we can't
solely explain them by those reactions. Even super non-emotion-based value theories like those of Kant seem to at least mention moral sentiment, and I think the point is not all sentiment is subjective in the sense of *personal* but may involve some more general property of being human.
So I tend to view the feeling function's role as mediating between the two necessary faculties for value judgment: reflection and subjective reaction. We can't explain how the process of reflection can lead to literally revising our reactions to things if the reaction is just a sort of blind thing. It isn't unrelated to feelings, but the point is it seems to be more about determining the appropriateness of the feelings than essentially tacitly accepting whatever one's personal whims say.
T-dom types seem to be just a bit more fatalist about hey, my personal reaction is just a fact about my psychology, we can deal with it, but questions of appropriateness of feeling are a rabbit hole. This means the two things above aren't in quite as much
dialogue -- the reactions are raw, and the reflection is also raw, and leads to making things explicit/defining ideas clearly. So some T types are pretty emotional, but with the reactions largely unrationalized. There's something more pragmatic and functional about this view -- kind of reminiscent to how money does ultimately reflect human values in a crude way, but it's an instance where the values just are what they are, and the question of what they ought to be isn't raised as seriously.