[Jungian Cognitive Functions] Introversion, Extraversion, the MBTI and the IIEE/EEII stacks.

[GavinElster]

A further subtlety here is Jung needn't be saying Nietzsche's thinking is more conscious than Kant's thinking --- that would be problematic, because it seems like you're saying one guy's aux is more conscious than another's dom.

However, notice I only say Jung is probably alluding to greater introversion, not greater consciousness of thinking. If Nietzsche's attitude is more introverted consciously, then as long as his aux is conscious, it can display higher differentiation in the introverted direction than Kant's thinking, DESPITE Kant's thinking being more conscious than Nietzsche's thinking.

This once again speaks to my point that Nietzsche may (in the sense Jung uses the concept of Ti) be very unambiguously Ti, not Te, in Jung's reading, despite the almost certain truth that Jung would say Nietzsche's thinking was less conscious/differentiated than Kant's.

 

[GavinElster]

As you know, though, [MENTION=3521]Eric B[/MENTION], while I think this is what Jung said, and while this part does not seem to me to be ambiguous, I don't think of Jung as the authority. I think his view on whether the aux is conscious is problematic, because he quite directly says something to the opposite effect. But if we're interested in his view, problematic and all, I think he is quite truly saying Nietzsche has Ti in a sense he thinks appropriate. I don't think that's a misreading, and I've been quite careful to book-keep the subtleties.

But basically, by invoking the 'Jung's view on whether the aux is conscious is controversial at best', I think the Beebe model (at least in one aspect) is a reasonable reading by associating only one function-attitude to the ego-complex/true consciousness, with aux associated to the Parent.


I suspect (this part is all my speculation so feel free to ignore if you're only interested in the most conservative estimates I have on Jung's views) the real truth in all this as to WHY Jung made this seeming contradictory statement on consciousness of the auxiliary is just that he probably thinks all consciousness is relative/in degrees. That is, how conscious the dom is still may not be 100%, and perhaps the absoluteness of its sovereignty is more evidenced in its being MORE conscious than all other functions than in its attaining 100% consciousness. After all, I suspect Jung thought some people had a more differentiated dominant function than others, which does suggest he views consciousness even of the dom in degrees.

From this POV, when he says a function is conscious, he could mean two things. One is absolute sovereignty, i.e. second to no other. From another POV, it just means more-conscious-than-not. In the second definition, the aux is probably conscious in the normal case. In the first, obviously the consciousness of the aux is ruled out entirely.

 

[Yuurei]

I hate being home. Home is where I feel bored, sniffled, like I have less control. ( Perhaps because I have less to work with, fewer options) I actually feel much ...larger, and more power outside, amidst the crowds of people, the chaos, the vast, open world.

Of course this sounds like nonsense to many people who feel very small compared to world as a whole. I wonder if it has to do with Jung's quote about extroversion.

...or if I'm just weird.

 

[Eric B]

A further subtlety here is Jung needn't be saying Nietzsche's thinking is more conscious than Kant's thinking --- that would be problematic, because it seems like you're saying one guy's aux is more conscious than another's dom.

However, notice I only say Jung is probably alluding to greater introversion, not greater consciousness of thinking. If Nietzsche's attitude is more introverted consciously, then as long as his aux is conscious, it can display higher differentiation in the introverted direction than Kant's thinking, DESPITE Kant's thinking being more conscious than Nietzsche's thinking.

This once again speaks to my point that Nietzsche may (in the sense Jung uses the concept of Ti) be very unambiguously Ti, not Te, in Jung's reading, despite the almost certain truth that Jung would say Nietzsche's thinking was less conscious/differentiated than Kant's.

But this “greater/lesser introversion of a FUNCTION” is a new one on me. The attitude of the function is, to put it in my new terms, where it draws its “yes” or “no” response from; the environment or the individual. The only way I could see that being a sliding scale is looking at it as a “natural function”, (or basically a dichotomy), and saying it swings back and forth between introversion and extraversion more or less. In the Beebe model, we would say this is simply the “5th function” (shadow attitude of the dominant), “backing up” the dominant, or filling in with the “opposing personality” complex.
However, this is something that comes up based on circumstance. You seem to be implying he had this as a fixed variant of the typological preference.

I hate being home. Home is where I feel bored, sniffled, like I have less control. ( Perhaps because I have less to work with, fewer options) I actually feel much ...larger, and more power outside, amidst the crowds of people, the chaos, the vast, open world.

Of course this sounds like nonsense to many people who feel very small compared to world as a whole. I wonder if it has to do with Jung's quote about extroversion.

...or if I'm just weird.

Not weird; Tthat sounds normal for an ENTJ or “pure Choleric“.

 

[GavinElster]

But this “greater/lesser introversion of a FUNCTION” is a new one on me. The attitude of the function is, to put it in my new terms, where it draws its “yes” or “no” response from; the environment or the individual

Well it's certainly true there's a yes/no aspect to it, i.e. Jung does seem to be saying Nietzsche's an introverted thinking type = yes and extraverted thinking type = no. The yes/no aspect is just saying one always predominates. But the degree of predominance can still be talked of. I.e. MORE influenced by external factors or MORE influenced by the subjective factor.

But he does seem to think in terms of degrees (ie the degree to which someone favors Ti over Te might differ across people like Kant and Nietzsche). I think the reason for this is once again easy if thought of in dichotomies terms -- Jung seems to be fine saying functions can be more or less differentiated (and the degree of consciousness can vary both across people and across the same person's life)....and he certainly seems to be fine seeing intro/extraversion as a sliding scale, commenting on the levels of that in Adler, Freud and others. So put these together and one can certainly be more extremely introverted-thinking>extraverted-thinking-ish than another.

I certainly see differences in this regard in my own personal observations too. It seems how far someone takes the Ti>Te or Ni>Ne tendencies can differ.

When you capitalize 'FUNCTION' I note that is your source of incredulity --- well, to that I'd say Jung does not seem to view the degree of introversion of a FUNCTION as separate from the degree of introversion of the INDIVIDUAL. So if you're comfortable with more or less introverted people's consciousnesses, that's all there is to it.

 

[Eric B]

When I say "yes/no", it's not Ti="yes" and Te="no". Yes/no is a common feature of our cognitions, so all four functions can be considered dealing in "yes" or "no". Perception says "yes", if a perception has occurred (something "IS" there), and "no" if the thing in question is not perceived. Judgment determines if it's "right" (yes) or "wrong" (no), and then we usually seek to take action to make what's wrong, right, or maintain what's already right.

So what I was saying, is that Ti will say "yes" or "no" (=right/wrong="true/false") based on the subject, and Te will let an object determine what's true.
So I don't see how Ti can determine truth by the subject less, and sometimes determine it by the object, as so to be "less introverted". If that's occurring, I would again say it is Te backing it up, and maybe the person's "opposing personality complex" is activated a lot so that Ti is backed up by Te more. Ti will access the object, of course, but will always turn it back to the subject, which filters the object, keeping what's relevant according to the internal model. If the function accesses the object and 'stays there' (basically merging the subject to it, and taking on its evaluation of truth), then it's become extraverted.

I support a dichotomy or "natural function" (SNTF without i/e permanently welded to it) angle of view, where the attitude of the function (or better yet, an associated complex) will "turn up the volume" on one i/e orientation or the other. But when you delineate a specific Xe or Xi function-attitude, then you're specifying that the function is either introverted or extraverted; either/or, no "scales".
(I once tried out the idea of "ambiverted functions", resulting in 81 types, but that really doesn't work, and any preference for an attitude will be a full "preference", not a partial one.

I see the introversion of an individual determining the introversion of the dominant function. It may affect the auxiliary, in that it will be the "copilot" (to borrow from PersonalityHacker) of the dominant introverted ego agenda. But that doesn't make any function partway introverted or anything like that. Again, if the Opposing Personality" function is activated a lot, then it may look like he is inbetween on the attitudes.
Again, this of course is Beebe's theory, and Jung didn't develop a full eight "function-attitude" (with particular associated archetypes) stack, so Beebe simply refined (and to me, completed) the basic ideas Jung founded, and so I don't let these anomalies of Jung sidetrack what I see as the full, completed theory.

I also accept "ambiversion" as a form of "expressive behavior" in temperament, so you can have a "Phlegmatic" who is in between I and E in surface behavior. But functionally, he will still prefer one over the other, and the functions will follow. (Phlegmatic is traditionally "I", because the behavior compared to the extroverted Sanguine and Choleric appeared as such. But they are not as reserved as the introverted temperaments, and so could come out on the E side, and I believe my brother is an example of this).

Now, if the function is not completely differentiated, then the attitudes will be ambiguous. But if we're talking about the dominant, that is the first thing differentiated, and so would only be undifferentiated in a very young child. So that can't be what Jung is saying either.

 

[reckful]

Now, if the function is not completely differentiated, then the attitudes will be ambiguous. But if we're talking about the dominant, that is the first thing differentiated, and so would only be undifferentiated in a very young child. So that can't be what Jung is saying either.

Jung viewed his eight types as four varieties of extravert and four varieties of introvert, while also declaring that more people were essentially in the middle on E/I than were significantly extraverted or introverted — and characterizing those ambiverts as "the normal man."

In a lecture Jung gave in 1923 (two years after Psychological Types was published) that was separately published in 1925 and later included in the Collected Works edition of Psychological Types, Jung began by introducing his audience to the "extraverted" and "introverted" types, and then he said this:

There is, finally, a third group, and here it is hard to say whether the motivation comes chiefly from within or without. This group is the most numerous and includes the less differentiated normal man, who is considered normal either because he allows himself no excesses or because he has no need of them. The normal man is, by definition, influenced as much from within as from without. He constitutes the extensive middle group, on one side of which are those whose motivations are determined mainly by the external object, and, on the other, those whose motivations are determined from within. I call the first group extraverted, and the second group introverted.​

So... you can believe that only "a very young child" would fail to have either introversion or extraversion as their dominant (conscious) attitude if you want to, but that isn't what Jung believed. He thought it was common for somebody to stay essentially "undifferentiated" (in E/I terms) throughout life.

 

[Yuurei]

But this “greater/lesser introversion of a FUNCTION” is a new one on me. The attitude of the function is, to put it in my new terms, where it draws its “yes” or “no” response from; the environment or the individual. The only way I could see that being a sliding scale is looking at it as a “natural function”, (or basically a dichotomy), and saying it swings back and forth between introversion and extraversion more or less. In the Beebe model, we would say this is simply the “5th function” (shadow attitude of the dominant), “backing up” the dominant, or filling in with the “opposing personality” complex.
However, this is something that comes up based on circumstance. You seem to be implying he had this as a fixed variant of the typological preference.
Not weird; Tthat sounds normal for an ENTJ or “pure Choleric“.

Well then the answer would be " yes, it is relevant."

Andi hope that "Choleric" has a different meaning in this context.

 

[GavinElster]

So what I was saying, is that Ti will say "yes" or "no" (=right/wrong="true/false") based on the subject, and Te will let an object determine what's true.
So I don't see how Ti can determine truth by the subject less, and sometimes determine it by the object, as so to be "less introverted".

OK that's fine -- obviously my interpretation of Jung's passages/what he thought is the same regardless of whether I was getting your own meaning right.

I think the difference between how you're going about it and the degrees method is that you're saying you either use subjective factors or objective factors to determine truths... whereas if you don't see introverted thinking as more than a peculiar flavor of the thinking function deployed in the introverted attitude, the point is the thinking function can determine truth based on some combination of subjective and objective factors. The more the latter influences the thinking function, the more you call the person an introverted thinking type.

The key here is you're saying Ti can determine truth. Whereas I get the sense Jung was still going by *thinking* determining truth, viewing Ti as a flavor of thinking. This is consistent with his still having a basically dichotomous framework, vs viewing a function-attitude as a separate cognitive process.
Certainly though, there was the beginnings of the function-attitude philosophy in that Jung would acknowledge how hard it was for an introverted thinking type to understand an extraverted thinking type, but it was still based on the predominance of subjective factors, not exclusive use of subjective factors, for determining conclusions/truths.

So that can't be what Jung is saying either.

Once again, if you believe Jung says you can be more or less introverted (forget functions -- Jung spent a huge portion of Psychological Types discussing i/e independently), and if you believe he thought of what we now refer to as function-attitudes in terms of a relatively dichotomous framework, it's very easy to see what a *more Ti than Te* type might be -- simply being more introverted would do it.

I think the Nietzsche/Cuvier stuff is nearly obviously mentioning degrees of Ti-ness over Te-ness, so the question is only what Jung means by that, and I'd just say it's the dichotomies theory at work.

 

[Eric B]

Jung viewed his eight types as four varieties of extravert and four varieties of introvert, while also declaring that more people were essentially in the middle on E/I than were significantly extraverted or introverted — and characterizing those ambiverts as "the normal man."

In a lecture Jung gave in 1923 (two years after Psychological Types was published) that was separately published in 1925 and later included in the Collected Works edition of Psychological Types, Jung began by introducing his audience to the "extraverted" and "introverted" types, and then he said this:

There is, finally, a third group, and here it is hard to say whether the motivation comes chiefly from within or without. This group is the most numerous and includes the less differentiated normal man, who is considered normal either because he allows himself no excesses or because he has no need of them. The normal man is, by definition, influenced as much from within as from without. He constitutes the extensive middle group, on one side of which are those whose motivations are determined mainly by the external object, and, on the other, those whose motivations are determined from within. I call the first group extraverted, and the second group introverted.​

So... you can believe that only "a very young child" would fail to have either introversion or extraversion as their dominant (conscious) attitude if you want to, but that isn't what Jung believed. He thought it was common for somebody to stay essentially "undifferentiated" (in E/I terms) throughout life.

Then what's this whole argument that you've sparked off, regarding the Gray-Wheelwright stack ("XXYY", and with the whole "conscious functions" argument), or even the dichotomy-only position you've been pitching (and favoring the Big Five, etc.), if most people are really "ambiverts"? What are we really debating over (here and elsewhere), then? We might as well be like mainstream psychology and reject typology altogether and say no one has any sort of "preference", or it's very rare, like some sort of disorder.

It's clear this man was all over the place in the stuff he taught or at least the way he put things. He laid down ideas on preferences, and was ambiguous as it was on that, and so others came to fill in the holes in his theory. Yet, now, this whole mini "revolution" of sorts is occurring, where you and those you've influenced just want to knock the common theory, and replace it with what exactly, I don't know (just for the heck of it, it seems, and you all don't even agree completely amongst yourselves. And as I've said time and time again, this is evidence of the NiTe position, which says "no" to an existing theory based on an internal hunch, which is then supported by external authority like Jung, Gray-Wheelwright, Reynierse, etc. all cited like they were scripture. TiNe will take theorists like Myers, Grant and Beebe and weigh them on experience; i.e. the types and stack do seem to fit a lot of people, hence so many being able to discuss them here; and then say "yes" when it sees a pattern emerge, even if it isn't perfectly "proven" or supported by these other authorities).

I was saying, that there's also the temperament factor of "expressiveness" (basically, FFM and MBTI's "extraversion") which can be ambiverted, and then it will be "hard" to tell whether I or E is preferred. Notice, he says "hard" to say, "less differentiated" and "essentially" (not quite absolutely), as opposed to "mainly" and "chiefly", of those having "excesses". So there are scales of preference in I/E. That doesn't mean that there is not still a slight preference, that will support an I or E type placement, (and we were discussing an idea of that scale occurring on functions themselves, which should be moot since you don't believe in function-attitudes).

 

[Eric B]

The key here is you're saying Ti can determine truth. Whereas I get the sense Jung was still going by *thinking* determining truth, viewing Ti as a flavor of thinking. This is consistent with his still having a basically dichotomous framework, vs viewing a function-attitude as a separate cognitive process.
Certainly though, there was the beginnings of the function-attitude philosophy in that Jung would acknowledge how hard it was for an introverted thinking type to understand an extraverted thinking type, but it was still based on the predominance of subjective factors, not exclusive use of subjective factors, for determining conclusions/truths.

Yes, "thinking" is the determination of "truth". i/e is the "flavor", only indicating the subjective or objective factors. If Ti references an object, it will still be filtered through the subject. If Te references the subject, it will likely be some earlier truth remembered, or inferred from within, especially by the associated Pi function. (Like remembering what a consensus of truth is, and referencing it in a later occasion).

 

[reckful]

Then what's this whole argument that you've sparked off, regarding the Gray-Wheelwright stack ("XXYY", and with the whole "conscious functions" argument), or even the dichotomy-only position you've been pitching (and favoring the Big Five, etc.), if most people are really "ambiverts"? What are we really debating over (here and elsewhere), then? We might as well be like mainstream psychology and reject typology altogether and say no one has any sort of "preference", or it's very rare, like some sort of disorder.

It's clear this man was all over the place in the stuff he taught or at least the way he put things. He laid down ideas on preferences, and was ambiguous as it was on that, and so others came to fill in the holes in his theory. Yet, now, this whole mini "revolution" of sorts is occurring, where you and those you've influenced just want to knock the common theory, and replace it with what exactly, I don't know (just for the heck of it, it seems, and you all don't even agree completely amongst yourselves. And as I've said time and time again, this is evidence of the NiTe position, which says "no" to an existing theory based on an internal hunch, which is then supported by external authority like Jung, Gray-Wheelwright, Reynierse, etc. all cited like they were scripture. TiNe will take theorists like Myers, Grant and Beebe and weigh them on experience; i.e. the types and stack do seem to fit a lot of people, hence so many being able to discuss them here; and then say "yes" when it sees a pattern emerge, even if it isn't perfectly "proven" or supported by these other authorities).

I was saying, that there's also the temperament factor of "expressiveness" (basically, FFM and MBTI's "extraversion") which can be ambiverted, and then it will be "hard" to tell whether I or E is preferred. Notice, he says "hard" to say, "less differentiated" and "essentially" (not quite absolutely), as opposed to "mainly" and "chiefly", of those having "excesses". So there are scales of preference in I/E. That doesn't mean that there is not still a slight preference, that will support an I or E type placement, (and we were discussing an idea of that scale occurring on functions themselves, which should be moot since you don't believe in function-attitudes).

Um, thanks for the off-topic squawk?

You and GE were discussing what Jung meant — not what I think, or you think, about type — and you declared that the idea that the dominant function could remain essentially undifferentiated in an adult "can't be what Jung is saying" because, as you understood it, Jung believed the dominant function "would only be undifferentiated in a very young child."

And you were wrong about that. Jung declared in 1923 that a plurality of people were neither introverts nor extraverts ("influenced as much from within as from without"), and I believe you will search in vain for any passage in Jung where he even mentions the possibility of someone having a differentiated, dominant function that was neither introverted nor extraverted.

I'm no Beebe fan, but he certainly characterized Jung's perspective accurately when he said:

It was C.G. Jung, of course, who introduced the language we use today: words such as function and attitude, as well as his highly specific names for the four functions of our conscious orientation (thinking, feeling, sensation, intuition), and the two attitudes through which those orientations are deployed (introversion and extraversion).
...
For Jung the attitude type was the primary thing, and the function type a kind of subsomething that expressed that attitude in a particular way. Accordingly, he organized his general description of the types in terms of the attitudes, describing first "the peculiarities of the basic psychological functions in the extraverted attitude" and then going on to "the peculiarities of the basic psychological functions in the introverted attitude."​

Jung's eight types consisted of people with eight different dominant functions (or "function-attitudes," if you prefer), and as I said before (and Beebe understands), they consisted of four subtypes of introvert and four subtypes of extravert.

But Jung also believed that there was a "third group" of people (the "most numerous" group) who were neither extraverts nor introverts, and were therefore not one of Jung's eight types.

As a final note, the fact that you continue to make post after post after post about Jung's views without ever having read (or owning a copy of) Psychological Types continues to baffle me, and I'd urge you to consider an addition to your library, and an upgrade to your posting standards.

 

[GavinElster]

But he's not saying his Thinking is not more introverted than his iNtition, either. So then his most conscious function might not be the most introverted, but if he's really speaking of dichotomies, then we can surmise an introvert with a non-introverted dominant function, somehow, since the attitude is really not wedded so much to the function after all.

I had not seen this before, so let me just cover it. He's not directly saying Nietzsche's thinking is not more introverted than his intuition in that passage I quoted, no. Of course, for my point, which is merely to say that Jung thinks T can be unambiguously introverted despite T being auxiliary, this is not necessary.

However, looking past this tiny snippet + at the rest of Jung's theory, I don't think it's even close to ambiguous that Jung would say it's inconsistent with his theory to have an introvert with non-introverted dominant function, precisely because having a conscious function be introverted is implied by having a conscious attitude of introversion>extraversion, i.e. it is implied by having the conscious function+being an introvert.

To put it this simply, yes it's dichotomies, but basically having "IN" seems to happen precisely when you have introverted intuition. The idea behind saying it's dichotomies is precisely to say that having introverted intuition isn't determined in a non-dichotomous way....which is quite different in flavor from when people place more emphases on, say, the "axes" like Te/Fi, which is what I notice in the 'NeTiFeSi' models.

 

[Eric B]

Um, thanks for the off-topic squawk?

You and GE were discussing what Jung meant — not what I think, or you think, about type — and you declared that the idea that the dominant function could remain essentially undifferentiated in an adult "can't be what Jung is saying" because, as you understood it, Jung believed the dominant function "would only be undifferentiated in a very young child."

And you were wrong about that. Jung declared in 1923 that a plurality of people were neither introverts nor extraverts ("influenced as much from within as from without"), and I believe you will search in vain for any passage in Jung where he even mentions the possibility of someone having a differentiated, dominant function that was neither introverted nor extraverted.

I'm no Beebe fan, but he certainly characterized Jung's perspective accurately when he said:

It was C.G. Jung, of course, who introduced the language we use today: words such as function and attitude, as well as his highly specific names for the four functions of our conscious orientation (thinking, feeling, sensation, intuition), and the two attitudes through which those orientations are deployed (introversion and extraversion).
...
For Jung the attitude type was the primary thing, and the function type a kind of subsomething that expressed that attitude in a particular way. Accordingly, he organized his general description of the types in terms of the attitudes, describing first "the peculiarities of the basic psychological functions in the extraverted attitude" and then going on to "the peculiarities of the basic psychological functions in the introverted attitude."​

Jung's eight types consisted of people with eight different dominant functions (or "function-attitudes," if you prefer), and as I said before (and Beebe understands), they consisted of four subtypes of introvert and four subtypes of extravert.

But Jung also believed that there was a "third group" of people (the "most numerous" group) who were neither extraverts nor introverts, and were therefore not one of Jung's eight types.

As a final note, the fact that you continue to make post after post after post about Jung's views without ever having read (or owning a copy of) Psychological Types continues to baffle me, and I'd urge you to consider an addition to your library, and an upgrade to your posting standards.

I hadn't made reading him (beyond Chapter X, which is the basic summarx on the function types) a priority, because as it is, from what I've seen, he's hard to digest and fully understand, and inconsistent in places, and as I argued to you in the beginning, apparently even changed some of his views (which I think I remember you denying), evidenced by the fact that this "neither introverts nor extraverts" quote is from a separate lecture two to four years later.
And just yesterday seeing the new thread over on PerC where someone asked about the "Jung Mayhem", and as usual, you linked to one of your old threads, which I had seen before, but looking at it again, the person called Shadow Logic (changed to "Deus Absconditus" and now inactive) really showed quite well how you took Jung's statements out of context (and ignored stuff that didn't fit into your agenda) in many places. Which is easy to do, the way he wrote. (And again, you ignore qualifying terms like "hard to say", "chiefly" and "excesses". I never said anything about a differentiated dominant function that was neither introverted nor extraverted, but you would expect something that, the way you're citing it. I said you could be overall “ambiverted” yet still have a slight differentiated preference. As for the Beebe quote and the rest, I never denied that i/e and SNTF were factored separately). So it's really not about how much of Psychological Types one has read.

So yes, it would help to read the whole volume, and I will when I ever get a chance, but that doesn't prevent errors, nor would change anything, as I'm not basing everything on Jung (again, like he's scripture); as I keep saying over and over, Jung laid the foundation, which others have built upon, and I believe they've improved it.
And a TiNe perspective does not become fixated on one authority, but rather filters them (and in the case of someone like Jung, draws what it can out of the overall teachings, to get a basic sense of the framework), and comes up with its own conclusion. You're turning less initiated people against the Myers-Grant theory these sites are based on, from your readings of select Jung passages, and others such as Reynierse, and that's why I had to end up “making post after post about Jung“ in this context. (And I wasn't off topic, as this rampant new anti-Grant thinking was the premise of the OP and thus the whole thread). But these are Myers-based forums, not Psychological Types Collection forums.

 

[GavinElster]

I think one aim of this thread is one I highly approve of, which is to emphasize not to merge different theories, and to understand the differences among them.

I don't think one should decide based solely on what Jung thought whether Grant thinking is great or not -- after all, perhaps it's better than Jung's own. After all, in terms of reputation for empiricism, Jung wasn't great. I think it is pretty clear that Jung, despite any of his claims otherwise, was in fact engaging in more of philosophical than empirical psychology. An example is how he'd likely see things like Kant's theories on how the mind contributes intrinsically to our understanding of external reality (as opposed to a more direct empiricism)/as in its seeing physical reality in the form of space and time....as evidence of his introversion creeping into his thought.

The one main thing examining Jung does is it may show some empirically minded folks how the situation in cognitive functions theory is not unlike that in philosophical thought -- conclusive arguments are rare, and theorists disagree very sharply essentially forever, since there's nothing like a simple test to conclusively rule things out.
That is, if Jung himself had some very significantly different thoughts, it at least gets people shaken up and less likely to blindly accept some of the slogans thrown around, like "you can't have Ni and Ti at once" -- instead, hopefully it ups the standards significantly before someone will accept such a statement.

This helps not take either the Beebe, Grant, Jung, Myers, socionics, etc stackings like a religion (which to me is often just a word for presenting philosophy as factual)....

What I think the philosophical approach can do very well is it can characterize what exactly someone's attitude is, because here it's a matter of coming up with the right definitions/coherent logic. What it cannot do is test predictions as to how typical the combination of several attributes is in people. As a result, it may be that only a few people really are described by the types someone comes up with using some kind of a priori thinking. However, for some fine distinctions, maybe that's exactly what you want.

 

[Turi]

I hadn't made reading him (beyond Chapter X, which is the basic summarx on the function types) a priority, because as it is, from what I've seen, he's hard to digest and fully understand, and inconsistent in places, and as I argued to you in the beginning, apparently even changed some of his views (which I think I remember you denying), evidenced by the fact that this "neither introverts nor extraverts" quote is from a separate lecture two to four years later.

Oh hey, Eric's still trying to piss on my thread for no reason and from a place of no education.

In Psychological Types - Jung notes that the descriptors in Chapter X are extremities of the types - galtonesque family portraits - essentially, intentionally portrayed as almost inhumane statistics - the descriptors in Chapter X - if they are to be noted as anything at all, are to be noted as *not* basic summaries of the function types, in any fashion that is intended to be realistic - he literally notes he has no desire to give reader the impression that those types appear at all frequently in such pure form in reallife.

They're not realistic, and Jung noted this. You'd know this if you'd, I don't know - read the book? I mean come on, this is noted in the section of the book you claim to have read.

I think one aim of this thread is one I highly approve of, which is to emphasize not to merge different theories, and to understand the differences among them.

Yep - this is important.

People mix them all together, and we wind up with the typology community being where it is today - every thread devolves into the same old shit-fest, people arguing and debating over interpretations etc etc - now we've even got people who haven't even read the damn book joining in - absurd - Jungs work should be just Jungs work - which is why I contend the "Grant stack" if you will, as being true to Jung here and in the ENTP descriptor section - it's misleading and not true to Jung.
It's a mixture of systems and that doesn't work, it confuses people.

MBTI is dichotomy and dichotomy only - branching into type-dynamics via function-attitudes etc is a mistake, there's no evidence to support this - so all those people that type as INFJ and ramble about their dom Ni and aux Fe etc etc so on and so forth - are speaking complete and utter nonsense, they're I+N+F+J and all of the combinations of those letters, no more no less - no such "Ni" etc etc involved (and, not tested for anyway).

"Cognitive function" tests ala Nardi etc are completely separate from dichotomy - or at least, they would be, if they didn't try to force your type by treating introversion and extraversion as a dichotomy - the test here on TypologyCentral falls prey to this same mistake as well - half the test is I/E dichotomy, then it goes into "functions" - which means you can be a "dom Te" and still be pegged as an INTJ - it's a mashup of dichotomy and "functions".
I suppose this is where I view Jungs work differently to reckful, as I do believe it's possible to be an Extraverted Thinking type, and not actually be ordinarily Extraverted - Jung notes the attitudes permeate through the functions - not the other way around, as I understand it - so the idea of being a stereotypical "introvert" and leading with say, Thinking in the Extraverted attitude, isn't not true to my understanding of Jung.

Then people branch into Socionics - insanity - completely different model, different understandings, different everything - is there any statistics or research behind it? Like, real-world proofs to support anything in it? I don't know. Never looked. But it's *not* MBTI and it's *not* JCF so when people start mixing this in, I have no idea WTF is going on.

Then we get people throwing in Enneagram typings, attempting to justify all of their nuances and whatnot and why they're an X type in MBTI but a Y type in whatever else on account of Enneagram which has about as much scientific credibility as my neighbours homemade lawnmower doing tea-leaves readings for a pregnant TV cabinet.

It gets all screwed up.

This thread was intended to say, nah - Myers messed things up, Jungs perspective was IIEE/EEII.
That's all.

I'm not saying it's better than any other model or that people should view it as the gospel truth (I prefer a model I haven't mentioned here) - I'm just saying, the IEIE/EIEI stack everyone keeps raving about is not true to Jung.

 

[GavinElster]

I suppose this is where I view Jungs work differently to reckful, as I do believe it's possible to be an Extraverted Thinking type, and not actually be ordinarily Extraverted - Jung notes the attitudes permeate through the functions - not the other way around, as I understand it - so the idea of being a stereotypical "introvert" and leading with say, Thinking in the Extraverted attitude, isn't not true to my understanding of Jung.

Well let me put it this way on this issue:

- Jung saw introversion/extraversion as involving both the 'stereotypical' things like sociability and a host of esoteric things like orientation to the archetypal and the collective unconscious.
It's reasonable for us to separate those things out, as we might say he put too many loosely related things into the same category. As to whether Jung would agree you can exhibit the latter without exhibiting the former nearly as much, I suspect personally that he might be open to it. How I can say this is that I suspect he might have prioritized the latter over the former as more important -- why, otherwise, would he type Adler as an introvert and Freud as an extravert (even if he eventually changed this diagnosis), when Adler was by all indicators OBVIOUSLY the 'stereotypically' extraverted one, compared to Freud the 'stereotypically' introverted? I'd think it could only be because he was struck by Freud displaying extraverted qualities in the oriented-to-sensation > the subjective factor sense.

But it remains that this is a kind of hazy endorsement, because ultimately Jung did put the traditional/stereotypical i/e traits in the same category as the more esoteric.

- Of course, as I've said. I think Jung's idea was you had say, extraverted thinking conscious precisely if you were consciously extraverted and had differentiated thinking. The only question is how much his 'extravert' coincides with the more traditional notion we're used to from say the Big 5.

- I think one reasonable way of thinking about what Jung was doing by stuffing his category of i/e too much is perhaps he really was getting at a "IN vs ES" region-of-intercorrelation scale, and simply saying having "I" qualities makes you more likely to be IN, even if having truly IN qualities is most indicative.
This would be the only possible way Jung might (and i say might, because perhaps even this doesn't work) avoid the charge of smooshing two independent dimensions of personality together ... that is, I/E and N/S... because it is valid to measure IN vs ES as a scale of its own right as long as you don't forget to say "pure" I/E or N/S things are less correlated with the scale than the most jointly IN/ES things.

I mention this because it's the only way I could support the idea of really being able to avoid some of the 'stereotypical' I/E stuff while still having a clear introvert vs extravert type in Jung's sense.

 

[Turi]

..and, let's not forget Jung pegs Charles Darwin as an example of Extraverted Thinking, despite Darwin being one of the most influential introverts of all time.
General 'I/E' dichotomy stereotypes etc need not apply, from a Jungian perspective imo - as it's not necessarily to do with how one acts or behaves but rather whether they are ordinarily oriented towards objective data (e) or subjective data (i).

I don't see any reason why someone that is oriented towards their own subjective data (i) couldn't be overly "extraverted" in the stereotypical sense, whereas someone that is oriented towards objective data (e) couldn't be overly "introverted" in the stereotypical sense.

I suppose my argument here, is that introversion and extraversion have been severely misunderstood by, well, everybody.


Using myself as an example - horrendous, I know - I'm as "introverted" as it gets, insofar as the MBTI portrays introversion, or how it's painted everywhere else for that matter, in movies, on the internet, in books, in research regarding introversion-extraversion (ie, Eynsencks work etc) as well as how it's portrayed in book like Susan Cain's "Quiet" and Dr. Laneys "The Introvert Advantage" - I am, beyond any and all doubt - a stereotypical "introvert" - to the point this is a joke among friends, and I am literally introduced as "socially awkward" or "an introvert" by friends - if I ever go out with them.

Despite this absurd preference for introversion over extraversion - my "T" is "e" - I source my data from the outside world, I prefer external logical consistency among all things, I seek out evidence to support my self, I reach outside of my own mind, for practically everything - I am oriented towards objective data with regards to making my decisions - my Thinking pertains to the intellectual atmosphere of my time, current events, current happenings, current interests - my Thinking is extraverted - I'm not pondering over and building up my own ideas and concepts *more than* I am oriented towards the current intellectual atmosphere.

So despite not being an "extravert" as it is commonly understood - my Thinking is extraverted - I don't believe this actually contradicts Jungs work, as I understand it, either - if anyone believes it does, I'd love to hear the case for Charles Darwins type - as he was notoriously introverted, yet pegged as an Extraverted Thinking type by Jung himself.

 

[Eric B]

Oh hey, Eric's still trying to piss on my thread for no reason and from a place of no education.

In Psychological Types - Jung notes that the descriptors in Chapter X are extremities of the types - galtonesque family portraits - essentially, intentionally portrayed as almost inhumane statistics - the descriptors in Chapter X - if they are to be noted as anything at all, are to be noted as *not* basic summaries of the function types, in any fashion that is intended to be realistic - he literally notes he has no desire to give reader the impression that those types appear at all frequently in such pure form in reallife.

They're not realistic, and Jung noted this. You'd know this if you'd, I don't know - read the book? I mean come on, this is noted in the section of the book you claim to have read.



Yep - this is important.

People mix them all together, and we wind up with the typology community being where it is today - every thread devolves into the same old shit-fest, people arguing and debating over interpretations etc etc - now we've even got people who haven't even read the damn book joining in - absurd - Jungs work should be just Jungs work - which is why I contend the "Grant stack" if you will, as being true to Jung here and in the ENTP descriptor section - it's misleading and not true to Jung.
It's a mixture of systems and that doesn't work, it confuses people.

No one's pissing on your thread. reckful with his emphatic presentations has made knocking the Grant model into some sort of fad (just like mixing Socionics and other stuff has become a fad), so you and a few others have jumped on the bandwagon spouting parts of his arguments, but putting your own spin on them (like you partly accept functions where he completely rejects them), but it doesn't matter, just as long as Grant is trashed. And now your harping point is how much of "the book" I've read, but I've told you it's not about being 100% faithful to Jung, because he was all over the place (what Gavin just said made a good point), and you two have read the book, but were shown to have possibly misread things, and others who have read the book, including genuine Jungian experts who have far more credential than you, still accept Grant's model. They're not just being stupid or something, there's a reason Grant's model has stuck.
So preferences are not realistic? Only extreme? Then why do so many people identify with them? So we're really all or mostly total ambiverts? And what is a "pure form? Is it either "pure" and if you're not "pure" you're a total ambivert, or are there graduated scales inbetween, that are still preferences?

You want to deconstruct the model most accept here, yet you're not even clear on what you want to replace it with. You're the ones doing something with no reason; rebels without a cause!

 

[reckful]

You want to deconstruct the model most accept here, yet you're not even clear on what you want to replace it with

Here ya go, and thanks for asking.

The final link at the end of that linked post is no longer functional (since the owner has taken INTJforum private), but you can find a long replacement excerpt from the INTJforum post — describing the dichotomy-centric history of the MBTI — in the spoiler in this post.