[MENTION=5143]Salomé[/MENTION] - what is intp function order according to your theory?
I don't think it is rigidly fixed. All I can say with certainty is that it's nonsensical and contradictory to claim INTPs are competent Fe-users. This isn't
my theory. It's JCF theory, properly understood. *
Individual circumstances lead people to develop functions according to their specific needs. However, INTPs consistently report Fi > Fe, and this is unsurprising given that Fe is diametrically opposed to their dominant function and therefore likely to be the
least available to conscious expression.
It's not uncommon for someone to be unsure about whether they are INTP or INFP. (Which makes no sense if these types have opposite dom functions. Far less common for INTPs and INFJs to get mixed up, and yet they are
supposed to share Fe/Ti ...)
Are you saying they use Te as their 4th function or that they don't use a Je function at all?
Most INTPs have better developed Te than Fe. Te is a sibling of Ti, they are not incompatible. They share similar goals.
I thought we all needed a "Ji-Pe-Pi-Je" (in any given order) as our first four functions?
People get too hung up on this. It has no foundation. It's an arbitrary formulation.
In my own case, I would say I have excellent Ti and Ne. Good Fi and Te use (the latter when I'm pushed to use it - I dislike having to do so and find it very dull). Pretty good Se. The rest (Fe, Si, Ni) are not well developed and have a largely negative aspect. I also sometimes react negatively or with frustration towards their expression in others (and others with these functions in leading positions similarly often react negatively or fail to understand me) which is another indication that they are not differentiated within my personality.
While individual circumstances will have played a part, I don't find this to be an uncommon pattern for INTPs.
IDK - I am Ti dom (90% sure not an extravert) and I do not use Fi, it is the function I can least understand or identify with. When I interact with Fe dom/aux we definitely are "speaking the same language" even if in opposition. Like two poltiical opponents (or sometimes allies) within the same country. But two opposite poles of the same "whole".
With Fi, it's a different language. I am looking in on something alien. They may either be opponents or allies, but from a different framework. If that makes sense.
That makes sense, since it's exactly how I feel (with the functions switched). Even Berens (who champions the Fe > Fi model for INTPs) acknowledges that function development is almost never "by the book". People are too complex to be described by neat little recipes.
FWIW, you strike me as more ExTP than IxTP. And I do think they are more likely to favour Fe at the expense of Fi. This is unsurprising, given an extroverted nature and drive to make things happen in the real world. Fe is much more utilitarian / pragmatic than Fi.
*Lenore Thomson has the function order for INTPs as:
[Ti/Ne/Fi/Se]/[Ni/Te/Si/Fe]
This pattern is closer to tested results than those which have Si/Fe 3rd and 4th respectively. So if I were going to endorse any model, it would be this one.
It fits logically, too, with the idea of a polarity between Ti and Fe, Ne and Si, such that development of one implies neglect of the other. Though it's still dangerous to insist on this kind of symmetry. Real things are seldom symmetrical.
Thomson's theory is that personality types are brain types. And that Ps are essentially right-brained. (Js, left). The right-brained functions are (according to her) Ti, Ne, Fi and Se.
This intuitively feels right to me on some level**, and there is some evidence to support such a view, but I don't think it's quite that simple.
Ne, Se, and Fi, seem to be pretty right-brained. (Te, Fe, Si and Ni, left). Ti, I'm not sure about. On one level, it's very left-brained - analytical, abstract, detached, clinical, interested in precision. On another, it's right - more visual than verbal, sensitive to the "aesthetic" of an idea. Interested in the bigger picture, the congruity and cohesiveness, relatedness and holism of ideas, as opposed to their practical application. (I don't know how much of this is the influence of Ne, in my case). It may straddle the divide in some way. Jury's still out for me.
** it also goes some way to explain why there are two modes of "thinking", "feeling", "sensing" etc - each reflects the approach of the hemisphere in which they arise towards the domain of use. I think the conflation of the introversion/extroversion continuum with the "attitude" of functions confuses the picture somewhat. It might be more illuminating to call it "left"-feeling vs "right"-feeling, or something else entirely. (Although there is an association of right hemisphere with introversion, left with extroversion.)
If you think of a function as a melody, it will have a very different quality played on a brass vs a stringed instrument, even if the notes and phrasing remain the same.