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[NT] Was Carl Jung an NT?

Il Morto Che Parla

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Unreal means opposite of real; 'not real'. He said: "And my relation to reality was not particularly brilliant.". Which doesent mean unreal, but not being in touch with reality all that well, i.e. not paying much attention to 'what is'.. Stop replacing the words you read and it will make things much easier.

Unrealistic is the opposite of realistic, synonymous with 'not realistic'. Someone who does not have a good relation to reality would normally be called 'unrealistic'.
 

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Unrealistic is the opposite of realistic, synonymous with 'not realistic'. Someone who does not have a good relation to reality would normally be called 'unrealistic'.

lol
 

INTP

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I think so. I would type Jung as INTP and Freud as ENTP.

Jung typed freud as extraverted rational, in todays terms EXXJ and said that his work shows Te. to me freud seem a lot like an ENTJ. i doubt that any ENTP would insist of holding onto his beliefs(in freuds case the sexual theory and basically forcing others to believe in what he beliefs) so badly and end up friendship with a good friend and try to ruin their professional career, so that other people wouldnt take the person opposing his view seriously, just because he disagree with his view.
 

EntangledLight

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not sure if this has been said (going to study instead of reading this entire thread right now :p)

there's really no reason any type has to go E-function, then I-function, or the reverse. their are reasons why it would make sense, but no reason as to why people would have to develop along a certain path--that's mbti's and people's inclination to put something no one understands into a strict box of human rationale when it's very probable that something we don't understand may fall outside of our conventional thinking, and once we begin to loosen the holds on "it has to work this way--no i really don't have a reason", we may find that there is another aspect to reality we can incorporate into our "conventional wisdom/consciousness" (i'm pretty sure Jung never really bothered with the direction of aux.'s as the dom/inferior functions were those that mattered most).

so, why can't he be Ni-Ti-Fe-Se, or even Ti-Ni-Se-Fe? if this is impossible, if we all really fit some schema of balance, why? for that matter, why would the balance of something that's supposedly not fully integrated into our psyche require a strict formation--and if we're really going to question this, why would the fundamental dynamic of "ourselves" even have to fall into an E/I or I/E duo?
 

EntangledLight

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and if our aux.'s don't matter as much, if they will bounce back and forth, then really there should be two sub-types of Ni--those with Fe/Ti that can come closer to the surface of consciousness as needed throughout our development (of thereof) in life, and those that will lean more towards the Te/Fi block.
 

ScottJames

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Jung was pretty clearly INTJ if you ask me.
 

Tinn

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Didn't Yung type himself as an INTJ? Or INTP? I can't remember which.

EDIT: I'm leaning toward INTJ though, but don't take my word for it.

Jung claimed in an interview I watched he was a dominant thinker with a great load of intuition, some sensing and great difficulties with feeling.
 

skylights

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Personally I support Jung as an INFJ, and his difficulty with "feeling" being difficulty with introverted feeling. It's common as a dominant Perceiver to experience your introverted Judgment process more strongly than your Perception.

I found a really excellent argument on this from PersonalityJunkie:

Jung’s Personality Type: INTP, INFJ, INTJ, or INFP?

There is little doubt that Carl Jung was both an introvert and a strong intuitive. After all, he spent much of his time mining the interiors of his own psyche—interpreting dreams, deciphering archetypes, and discerning the typological functions. [...] We should also recognize that Jung was of superior intelligence, which undoubtedly contributed to the nuance, complexity, and depth of this work. In my experience, such geniuses are more difficult to type because of their ability to think at different levels and to don different intellectual hats. [...] Since there is already near consensus that Jung was an intuitive introvert, we are left with the task of deciphering his thinking-feeling and judging-perceiving preferences. We could also take a different route, looking at Jung holistically to determine the degree of fit with each of the various types. Though I think either route is valid, I will focus primarily on the latter method merely because it feels more appropriate in this instance.

Was Jung an INFP?

Of the four types, INFP seems the least likely type for Jung. While capable of seeing the big picture and valuing holism to a certain extent, Jung was far too analytical, systematic, and attentive to detail to qualify as an INFP.

Was Jung an INTP?

The fact that INFP is Jung’s least likely type doesn’t bode well for the INTP. Though Jung was seemingly very even-handed and adaptable in his writing, his work seems more consistent with that of a judger than perceiver. Since INTPs are often right-brained thinkers, they are frequently attracted to monistic (a TP quality) and holistic (an NP quality) explanations. They tend to be more interested in synthesis (the unified whole) than analysis (the parts), finding connections between disparate elements and uniting them under a single theoretical umbrella.

Jung was both deeply analytical and pluralistic in his thinking. Although a student of Eastern religions, he seemed to retain a more marked degree of delineation between what was human and what was divine than is typical of monistic perspectives, such as Buddhism. Jung also articulated a pluralistic psychology comprised of numerous psychological archetypes and symbols, a sort of inner Platonic realm. He saw these symbols as deeply meaningful and integral to human spirituality. INTPs, in contrast, are more apt to emphasize the unity of mind and body, as commonly described in Buddhist metaphysics. Another argument against deeming Jung an INTP is his body type. Jung sported a rather large and imposing physical frame, distinct from the characteristically ectomorphic (i.e., elongated, narrow, lighter-weight) body type commonly found among INTPs.

Was Jung an INTJ or INFJ?

We have now arrived at the final and most difficult point in our discussion, attempting to discern whether Jung was a thinker or feeler. While less-seasoned students of personality typing may be apt to quickly label him a thinker, things are not that simple. Though Jung displayed great powers of analysis, both the thinking and judging functions may affect the degree to which one is analytical; FP types are the least analytical, while TJ types are the most analytical. Sex may also play a role, with males, on average, displaying a more pronounced analytical and “systemizing” bent than females (see Baron-Cohen’s The Essential Difference). So clearly we cannot rule out the notion that Jung may have preferred feeling merely based on his powers of argument and analysis.

Though difficult to prove unequivocally, It is my assertion that Jung was actually an INFJ rather than an INTJ. The most compelling reason for this, in my view, is Jung’s ineluctable attraction to religion and spirituality. While he was no stranger to scientific thought, Jung consistently reiterated his belief that attempts at pure objectivity, hyperrationality, and scientism had left humanity in a rather disenchanted and dismal state. So rather than endorsing the scientific salvation narrative, Jung turned to religion and psychology. He felt that the overarching problem in his psychiatric clientele was a lack of purpose and meaning in life. For the vast majority of individuals, Jung believed that a religious solution was essential for restoring their psychological health and vitality.

While it would be unfair to suggest that INTJs are not religious or interested in spiritual matters, for Jung, these were matters of ultimate importance. If Jung had been a strong thinking type, it seems likely that his penetrating intellect would have led him to study mathematics, the sciences, or philosophy. Instead, he opted to devote the majority of his efforts toward humanistic and religious topics, those which are most commonly embraced by feeling types. Even a cursory exploration of career demographics suggest that religious vocations are of marked and frequent interest to INFJs, while falling lower on the priority list for INTJs. It is also worth noting Jung’s regular use of “art therapy,” both personally as well as with his clients, which is certainly consistent with an INFJ designation.

--

skylights again - When I learned about him in my Psych classes, I was surprised by the degree to which he was into the occult, affected by his own personal experiences, his family experiences, and the story of how he created a little mannequin and brought it messages in a secret language. His life's work revolved around the analysis of the internal, personal human condition in the greater scape of humankind. This is the hallmark of an NF, not an NT.
 

Fluffywolf

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I always thought INFJ and the post above seems to be quite a good arguement to support that.
 

Little_Sticks

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Oh it's Jung's type again. Well hi thread.

It really depends on
1. how you interpret types and what you decide they mean.
2. whether or not you want to generalize someone into one type or type someone depending on behavior in certain time-frames.
3. whether you believe people grow and change as they age.
4. whether or not you decide Jung was just a little crazy, schizophrenic, or read into things too much.
5. because I want to have five points and not four.
 

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I always thought INFJ and the post above seems to be quite a good arguement to support that.

its funny because my world view is formed largely by cultures and their beliefs(buddhism, native americans ad their general belifs, australian aboriginals with their dream world, egyptians etc), in much the same way jungs was. actually what really struck me about jungs thinking about religion and cultures was the fact that i pretty much came to same conclusions and studied more or less the same things as jung did, before i even knew who jung was. i thought i figured out something unique, but this guy figured it all out like 100 years ago and figured it out in much more depth than i did. i really dont think those arguments for INFJ are legit, but are just some crap based on stereotypes about types. what people often miss about jungs view on religion is that he never saw religions as being true in a sense which christians for example do. but he approached religion in very rational Ti sort of way, trying to figure why these people think the way they do about certain things and his conclusions couldnt had been less "spiritual". what he saw about religions was that they represent something in the human psyche which is based on genes(archetypes), not something supernatural, which would had been more of an typical INFJ approach.
 

skylights

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its funny because my world view is formed largely by cultures and their beliefs(buddhism, native americans ad their general belifs, australian aboriginals with their dream world, egyptians etc), in much the same way jungs was. actually what really struck me about jungs thinking about religion and cultures was the fact that i pretty much came to same conclusions and studied more or less the same things as jung did, before i even knew who jung was. i thought i figured out something unique, but this guy figured it all out like 100 years ago and figured it out in much more depth than i did. i really dont think those arguments for INFJ are legit, but are just some crap based on stereotypes about types. what people often miss about jungs view on religion is that he never saw religions as being true in a sense which christians for example do. but he approached religion in very rational Ti sort of way, trying to figure why these people think the way they do about certain things and his conclusions couldnt had been less "spiritual". what he saw about religions was that they represent something in the human psyche which is based on genes(archetypes), not something supernatural, which would had been more of an typical INFJ approach.

Two things - one, good points. Two, the article itself pointed out that it was taking a holistic route to type assessment, instead of breaking things down piece by piece. So yes, it's stereotyping, but it fully admits that, and I think the info still stands - stereotypes aren't based on nothing, after all. The funny thing to me, though, is that the article points out that INTPs tend to break things down. Like you just did. Like you're saying the article isn't doing. Soooo... haha, yeah.

The problem to me about an INTP typing is I still see a preponderance of evidence for Ni in Jung, given concepts like archetypes and the collective unconscious. I wouldn't disagree that he shows well-developed Ti. But the only other option given Ti and Ni is ISTP, and I'm just not seeing that.
 

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Two things - one, good points. Two, the article itself pointed out that it was taking a holistic route to type assessment, instead of breaking things down piece by piece. So yes, it's stereotyping, but it fully admits that, and I think the info still stands - stereotypes aren't based on nothing, after all. The funny thing to me, though, is that the article points out that INTPs tend to break things down. Like you just did. Like you're saying the article isn't doing. Soooo... haha, yeah.

The problem to me about an INTP typing is I still see a preponderance of evidence for Ni in Jung, given concepts like archetypes and the collective unconscious. I wouldn't disagree that he shows well-developed Ti. But the only other option given Ti and Ni is ISTP, and I'm just not seeing that.

the idea of archetypes comes from alchemy, jung just refined the idea and similar ideas to collective unconscious have been around in many cultures. you see, jung just saw these ideas outside of him and saw the potential/possibilities/connections to other things(which is much more Ne than Ni) and refined the ideas further in ways that made sense to him(hello Ti).

after all jung did say that he was always since very young age characterized by thinking, i should note that jung saw dominant function being strongest from early age and often the only strength before developing aux
 

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archetypes aren't an idea that comes from something. they are the essence of Ni. typological thinking, top-down thinking, is the opposite of how right-brained p types work. who focus on linear, temporally situated description rather than systemic, circular self-referential thinking. typological thinking is tested hermeneutically in its own domain and pragmatically in terms of how it is applied and tested in the real world. these are separate domains. that alchemy is a thing does not undermine the fact that typology is also an approximation of a way of thinking.
 

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archetypes aren't an idea that comes from something. they are the essence of Ni. typological thinking, top-down thinking, is the opposite of how right-brained p types work. who focus on linear, temporally situated description rather than systemic, circular self-referential thinking. typological thinking is tested hermeneutically in its own domain and pragmatically in terms of how it is applied and tested in the real world. these are separate domains. that alchemy is a thing does not undermine the fact that typology is also an approximation of a way of thinking.

ofc archetype is an idea that comes from something, everything non concrete are ideas that come from something. even plato talked about archetypes, not really sure if plato himself is considered as an alchemist too, but he did study alchemy(old wisdom of egypt).

psychological types; introverted type said:
The psychological structure is the same. Semon has termed it 'mneme',[2] whereas I call it the 'collective unconscious'. The individual Self is a portion, or excerpt, or representative, of something universally present in all living creatures, and, therefore, a correspondingly graduated kind of psychological process, which is born anew in every creature. Since earliest times, the inborn manner of acting has been called instinct, and for this manner of psychic apprehension of the object I have proposed the term archetype. I may assume that what is understood by instinct is familiar to everyone. It is another matter with the archetype. This term embraces the same idea as is contained in 'primordial image' (an expression borrowed from Jakob Burckhardt), and as such I have described it in Chapter xi of this book. I must here refer the reader to that chapter, in particular to the definition of 'image'.

The archetype is a symbolical formula, which always begins to function whenever there are no conscious ideas present, or when such as are present are impossible upon intrinsic or extrinsic grounds. The contents of the collective unconscious are represented in consciousness in the form of pronounced tendencies, or definite ways of looking at things. They are generally regarded by the individual as being determined by the object—incorrectly, at bottom—since they have their source in the unconscious structure of the psyche, and are only released by the operation of the object.

psytype Ti said:
Although to the man who advocates the idea, it may well seem that his scanty store of facts were the actual ground and source of the truth and validity of his idea, yet such is not the case, for the idea derives its convincing power from its unconscious archetype, which, as such, has universal validity and everlasting truth.

it is true that Ni tries to perceive archetypal (primordial)images, but archetype isnt something related to Ni only.

psytype Si said:
But it makes a definite psychic impression, since elements of a higher psychic order are perceptible to it. This order, however, does not coincide with the contents of consciousness. It is concerned with presuppositions, or dispositions of the collective unconscious, with mythological images, with primal possibilities of ideas.

and archetypes as you probably know are the structures within collective unconscious(like complexes are the structures of personal unconscious and ego is the main operating structure in consciousness) and source for mythological images etc.

and as the most important thing, collective unconscious(and ofc its structures, archetypes) are universal phenomenon which isnt related to types by themselves(but naturally these universal thing manifest bit differently on different types, as you probably saw in the quotes above):

psytype; introverted type said:
Auch Einer, the novel by F. Th. Vischer, gives a rich insight into this side of the introvert's psychology, and at the same time shows the underlying symbolism of the collective unconscious, which in this description of types I am leaving on one side, since it is a universal phenomenon with no especial connection with types.

alchemists had the idea of anima(represented by hermaphrodite), shadow, hero, fool etc which you can also find from tarot cards, greek gods, hindu gods, myths, movies today and all over the world through the time. the idea of fool isnt something concrete unless you are talking about an some specific person who is a fool, but when talking about a fool in general, the fool is an idea, i guess you could also use the word concept, but idea is something that represents the archetypal concepts better imo.
 

RaptorWizard

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If you go by cognitive functions, ISTP may not be out of the question for Jung, though if you type by his behaviors and interests, he would look an INFJ to me. I mean what kind of ISTP studies what wikipedia describes as,
Though he was a practicing clinician and considered himself to be a scientist,[5] much of his life's work was spent exploring tangential areas, including Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology, and sociology, as well as literature and the arts. His interest in philosophy and the occult led many to view him as a mystic.

source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung

Except for his being a scientist (and it depends what kind too), none of that seems in line with any other ISTPs I have ever seen.
 

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The archetype is a symbolical formula, which always begins to function whenever there are no conscious ideas present, or when such as are present are impossible upon intrinsic or extrinsic grounds. The contents of the collective unconscious are represented in consciousness in the form of pronounced tendencies, or definite ways of looking at things. They are generally regarded by the individual as being determined by the object—incorrectly, at bottom—since they have their source in the unconscious structure of the psyche, and are only released by the operation of the object.

this is the work of Ni. to aggregate and update the conditions of possibility for meaningful communication. to revise the operating system, the paradigm, the conditions of being (rather than simply the rules of acting). which is to say the central tags, the symbols that regroup the organizational boundaries of objects as we refer to them socio-linguistically, consciously (in jung's parlance), through circuits of cultural meaning that circulate through us but are not stable internally within our own minds or externally as objects themselves. the orbits of meaning scaled to their own levels of descriptive usefulness spanning further and further outward into the "universe" are simply ways of ordering the self-organization process, a recursive hierarchy, the process of perception that binds emergent organizational intelligence to the particulars of process.

jung's distinction of creatura and pleroma showcases this fundamental split between j and p thinking. seeing the world as symbols (universal meanings) vs as objects (concrete particulars). the N difference (for both Ni and Ne) is simply a third eye difference. it is an analogical recontextualization process that allows neither side of the equation, internal or external context, to be seen as first and de facto and determining of the other. so we can revise our understanding of the conditions of possibility abductively based on the attempted reconciliation possibilities rather than by privileging either side of the mind/body creatura/pleroma distinction. even if our own modes of rendering the world do start on one side of this equation (as our lateralization bias has shaped our developmental process).

i mean, put another way, the collective unconscious is semiotic territorialization. the potentiation of meaning, of ways of guessing at what things are based on orders of self-referential description. eg what is the difference between this and the idea of this that has been programmed as the idea through which difference is calculated? which is the conditions of perception imposed by a perceiver, a recursive hierarchy that is the ongoing, three-part process of emergent organizational intelligence that weaves together the order of the universe. sign, object, interpretant. the skill of N is in the awareness of the full triangulation of this process. Ni is the circularity whereas Ne is the linearity, which simply have to do with being in synchronic or diachronic time, using semantic or episodic memory. this is also why archetypes, when viewed as objects, are seen as historical constructs. but why, when seen as meanings, are essentialistic, ahistorical, universals that have no grounding in anything (but in the abstract auto-association networks and the emerging algorithms that have shaped the very infrastructure of thought in unconscious ways).

i don't mean to obscure this unnecessarily. but the underlying information structure of cognition is necessary to consider because we cannot simply identify with a randomly selected boundedness such as "human mind" when the psychological processes themselves are contingent on so much that cannot be easily accounted for when we recognize that in all spaces our differentiations (both typological and purely descriptive/historical/processual) will render the world in nearly unfathomably different ways. in other words, we cannot have foundation. we cannot have stability or certainty. we must be aggregating from the top-down as well as recognizing the uniqueness of all things from the bottom up. top-down is space-making and bottom-up is moving through it in time. endlessly subsuming each other, oscillating at all levels of bifurcation, blinking in and out of existence (depending on level of description, mode of analysis, orientation within the larger process of rendering). top down creates the shapes and the surface areas that potentiate interactive possibilities that probabilize degrees of boundedness whereas bottom up stays with the particular details of experience, stays present in the interaction itself.we are all identifying with but parts of the total process of rendering reality. reality as totality, whether rendered as singularity or multiplicity, in the words of jung, "has from the beginning been infinite and ungraspable."
 
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