“What is decisive [in] me is that I dream about physics as [others] think about physics. … I simply cannot evade it!” – Pauli: Personal Letter to Fierz, 26 November 1949
By Ryan Smith
We have managed to stitch together most (possibly all) of the eminent physicist Wolfgang Pauli’s type assessments and have added them to the site. Pauli was a scientific genius and a personal friend of Jung – it might even be that Pauli influenced Jung’s type assessment of Plato. But his method of determining type requires some explanation.
However, this is not to say that Pauli was merely using Jung’s typology epistemologically, as type enthusiasts who are also interested in philosophy often do (i.e. lacking psychological acumen, they type the philosophy instead of the philosopher). Pauli made use of an in-between approach: He did type scientists and philosophers on the basis of their thinking, but rather than going by the specific contents of their thinking, he went by whether a given thinker was a hard systematist (ST) or open to the irrational totality of reality (NF).
To Pauli, the ‘Trinitarian’ (S)T thinkers were the ones who had little sense of the absolute. By a combination of Sensation and Thinking they proposed strictly rational models that exclude the irrational, the ineffable, and the sublime. Trinitarian thinkers may hear talk of the irrational and the absolute, but they are quick to dismiss it as nonexistent.
In Pauli’s view, ‘Quaternarian’ thinkers are the ones who reach an understanding of the irrational wholeness of the real through a blend of Feeling and Intuition. Though they may grant that the irrational is scientifically inexpressible, they nevertheless see the value of the irrational as a “background process” that may inspire their science.
One interesting feature of Pauli’s thinking is how it presents a bridge between hard science and non-science. The scientific view of the world is widely agreed to be non-exhaustive. Because science can’t make sense of everything, this leads certain thinkers to inject whatever personal beliefs they have into the gaps of our scientific knowledge, or even to make empirical claims that can be contradicted by science (e.g. astrology).
Obviously such a postulating “God of the gaps” approach is bound to be dissatisfying to the critical scientist. But what is so unique about Pauli, as far as top-ranking scientists go, is that he was also dissatisfied with the merely rationalistic, system-building approach. That is why Pauli, after conducting extensive studies in the contrasts between the rationalistic Kepler and the mystical Fludd, concluded: “I myself am not only Kepler but also Fludd.”
Pauli perceived himself as trapped between psychology and physics, between intuitive feeling and scientific thinking, and between mysticism and science. He would hardly have entertained anti-scientific conjectures such as astrology or specific theological doctrines alleged to be hiding in the gaps of scientific knowledge. But he had a sense of the ineffable that guided his scientific thinking and, among other things, led him to formulate ingenious scientific predictions like the existence of the neutrino – a prediction he made some 12 years ahead of its actual empirical discovery.
In Pauli’s view, this same conflict between the exclusively rational and the inclusively irrational that he felt within himself was also found in the differences between Indian and Western philosophy. With few exceptions, Pauli saw European philosophers as formulating strict rationalistic systems which shut out the transcendental, while he experienced the Indian philosophers, indeed the entire Indian way of life, as much more open to experiencing the ineffable wholeness of existence:
“During his time in India … [Pauli] was struck particularly by the prominent rhythm symbolism of Indian culture, which appears, for example, in conceptions of the periodic creation and decline … of the world. This rhythm may be described as form in motion and is symbolized by, among other things, Shiva’s dance. Pauli observed that [there was a] total absence of a rhythmic aspect [in the West]. Quite simply, he said [it] could not provide an adequate expression for his unconscious.” – Gieser: The Innermost Kernel (Springer 2005) p. 319
To Pauli, it was not enough to believe in philosophy or science as a set of static and speculative ideas. One must live one’s philosophy – it must be a spiritual quest that engages with the unconscious and the irrational elements of the psyche, or it is no philosophy at all. No wonder, then, that he found himself fascinated with the mode of thought that had prevailed in India:
“Western philosophical systems, with a few exceptions, are speculative in character. Being mere playthings of imagination, they do not necessarily lead to a spiritual discipline. … No Indian philosophical system is merely speculative. Each is … an insight into the real which is at once a path of perception and cessation of pain.” – Murti: The Central Philosophy of Buddhism (Munshiram Monoharlal 2013) p. 30
In Pauli’s view, Western science had been (S)T ‘Trinitarian’ all the way from the days of Kepler and Newton and right up to Einstein. Yet as he saw it, the discovery of quantum physics in the early 20th century was a wake-up call that told scientists that they could no longer exclude the irrational from their studies. Like Jung, Pauli thought that the advent of quantum physics had finally necessitated the re-introduction of the irrational into the very heart of science.
Quantum Physics and Types
“When rational methods in science reach a dead end, a new lease of life is given to those contents that were pushed out of time consciousness in the 17th century and sank into the unconscious.” – Pauli, quoted in Miller: Deciphering the Cosmic Number (W. W. Norton 2010) chapter 5
To Jung, the concept of a trinity was an artificial, hard, and ‘forced’ construction, which always excluded some element of the natural wholeness which he saw as synonymous with the number four. In the case of Christianity, for example, Jung saw the trinity as excluding the feminine element from spiritual wholeness.
This observation of Jung’s was carried over into the theory of types where the whole type is characterized by four functions, but where the fourth function is excluded from consciousness and suppressed. Hence we become ‘artificial’ as we differentiate ourselves out of the absolute and adapt to life as a type. If we did not suppress certain functions, we would not have superior ones either, and the question of types would be naught.
For Pauli’s part, he saw this same pattern repeated in the domain of quantum physics. There is a popular physicist’s joke that runs as follows: “Heisenberg was out driving and got pulled over by a policeman. ‘Do you know how fast you were going?’ asked the policeman. Heisenberg replied: ‘No, but I know where I am.'”
The joke alludes to the fact that in order to measure the velocity of a quantum particle with exactitude, we must exclude information about its position from our measurements and vice versa. In the same way, Jungian functions are antinomic in character, so in order to experience reality from the perspective of Fi, you must exclude Te and vice versa (and so on and so on for the rest of the functions). Thus Pauli saw Jung’s modes of psychological adaption (types) repeated (and seemingly confirmed) in the structure of quantum physics, stating that after the discovery of quantum physics “physicists are now obliged … [not to] eliminate the unconscious in their statistical investigations.”
However, Bohr’s model was eventually found to be incomplete: For one thing it couldn’t explain why electrons don’t just settle into the same quantum state. To this end, Pauli and other physicists postulated the necessity of a fourth quantum number, the particle’s fourth property which cannot be visualized in accordance with Bohr’s basic model. To Pauli, this discovery confirmed that when three becomes four (or when the inferior function is admitted into consciousness as a full function in its own right), the whole ordered rational understanding collapses.
Today we might not ascribe any importance to such parallelisms, but Pauli certainly did. Unlike Jung, who purposefully dabbled in mysticism, Pauli asserted that there was no “advance conscious intention for me to grapple with figuring out the [archetypal] problem of three and four. Consequently I am rather certain that objectively there is an important psychological and perhaps natural philosophical problem connected with these numbers.”
Pauli’s Trinitarian thinkers are the ones who are quick to center on what they think is the truth, while his Quaternarian thinkers are the ones who are never satisfied with their discoveries, always looking to bring even more of the irrational wholeness of existence into full view.
Pauli’s (S)T ‘Trinitarian’ Types:
- Descartes
- Einstein
- Newton
- Plato
- Kepler
Pauli’s NF ‘Quaternarian’ Types:
- Bohr
- Goethe
- Kant
- Fludd
- Plotinus
- Pythagoras
- Schopenhauer
Assessment of Pauli’s Approach to Jungian Typology
As I hinted in the beginning, Pauli seems to take a middle-of-the-road approach that lies between the purely psychological approach to Jung’s typology that we use on the site and the purely epistemological approach which beginners often use when attempting their first baby steps in the world of typology. While there is some legitimate overlap between Jung’s psychological functions and Pauli’s applications of these, there are also grave differences. For example, while Kant was indeed eager to include the absolute in his philosophical system, no psychologist would seriously claim that Kant should have a preference for Feeling in the psychological sense.
- With regards to T-F, it would seem that Feeling in Pauli’s sense of the term is not the psychological concept of Feeling at all, but a metaphysical awareness of the ineffable. Pauli’s approach is really so abstract as to lie beyond the familiar categories of Jung’s typology: In the way that we normally understand the concepts of Jungian typology, both F types and T types can be open to an experience of the ineffable, just like both F types and T types can be closed to it.
- With regards to S-N, it is perhaps correct to say that a greater percentage of the world’s N types are inherently open to an experience of the ineffable than S types. One argument would be that in Psychological Types, Jung describes the N type as being always on the lookout for what lies beyond the existing mode of thought. Another reason may be found in the correlation between Jungian N types and Big Five types who are high in Openness. But none of this ultimately matters, because no matter what your inborn capacity is for awareness of the ineffable, that awareness has constantly to be tended to in order for you to remain in contact with it. For our part, we have documented numerous S types around the site who have all achieved an incomparable awareness of the irrational wholeness that is intrinsic in reality (e.g. Shunryu Suzuki et al.).
Of all the type assessments listed above, the only one that is puzzling to us, when factoring in the context of Pauli’s typing, is that of Plato as ‘Trinitarian.’ Of course, if Pauli was unaware of the mystical content in Plato and simply saw Plato as the philosopher of the Theory of Forms who merely wanted to consign every object to its proper ideal form, then it makes good sense that Pauli would conceive of Plato as ‘Trinitarian.’ But as we have detailed elsewhere on the site, the purely rationalistic Plato is a stock image that fails to account for the impressive range of Plato’s thought when considered as a whole and the synthetic genius that he exhibited in coming up with his Unwritten Doctrine.
On closer inspection, it would seem that Pauli’s reason for labeling Plato ‘Trinitarian’ was that Plato postulated a cardinal cause (the Forms) that produced effects in the sensible world but could not itself be affected by the sensible world. While this perception of Plato is justified, one nevertheless wonders why Kant escapes the same censure. Granted, the Kantian noumenon is not a cause, but it is nonetheless a reality-aspect that cannot itself be affected by phenomenal perception (or so Kant thought). And of course, in Plato there is the whole aesthetic element that offers human beings a clue to the absolute perception that lies beyond words. In our opinion, Plato is therefore a ‘Quaternarian’ thinker and hardly a ‘Trinitarian’ one.
Did Pauli Influence Jung’s Typings?
One question remains for us to ask: It is well-known that Pauli and Jung inspired each other with regards to the broader domain of the person’s thought. But did Pauli have an influence specifically on Jung’s theory of types?
On the whole, no. Pauli only came into contact with Jung some 10 years after Jung had published Psychological Types, and their deepest point of contact was with regard to Jung’s theory of archetypes. But Pauli can be proven to have informed Jung of his type assessments, and Jung saw fit to express himself in accordance with Pauli’s original assessments on at least two occasions: Plato and Newton.
With regards to Plato, Pauli was very clear about labeling him a ‘Trinitarian’ (S)T thinker. In a private letter, written in an altogether different context, and to a different recipient, Jung later hints that he sees Plato’s “world of ideas” as corresponding to ST “on the mystical level.” Unfortunately for us, it is standard fare for Jung always to insert such extra qualifiers, which even professional Jung scholars are unable to decipher. But insofar as Jung saw Plato as an IST type, it is reasonable to ascribe at least some of that basis to Pauli’s admonition that this was so. It is not contended here that Jung knowingly “stole” Pauli’s assessment without crediting him (although Jung was not above such nefarious behavior). Rather, in our assessment it seems more likely that Jung idly entertained the thought when Pauli informed him of it, forgot all about it, and then may have unconsciously remembered the connection between Plato and ST when it later came up in a different context. One reason that it seems especially credible that Jung was influenced by Pauli in this regard is that, while Pauli seemed ignorant of the mystical element in Plato, Jung certainly wasn’t. For this reason alone, it would have been more natural for Jung to type Plato as an N type. The assessment of Plato as ST seems foreign and out of place in Jung’s thinking.
Lastly, Jung also seemed to think that Newton was an S type, not an N type. This again is in concordance with Pauli’s thinking on the matter, yet in this case, we are not convinced that Pauli had any direct influence on Jung. For one thing, Jung’s terminology is completely different from that of Pauli, and in the context of the letters, Jung is provoked into taking a stand on Newton’s stance towards the empirical whereas in the Plato letter, Jung offers his assessment of Plato as ST all by himself. Finally, there is the matter that where Pauli considers Newton and Einstein as belonging to the same type of ‘Trinitarian’ (S)T thinker, Jung considers Newton (S) and Einstein (N) as opposites in the context of the very letter wherein he identifies Newton as “concretistic.”
All in all, then, we therefore conclude that it is reasonable to suspect that Pauli influenced Jung’s assessment of Plato as ST, while on the other hand there are many reasons to deny the hypothesis that Pauli influenced Jung’s assessment of Newton.
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Image of Pauli in the article commissioned for this publication from artist Georgios Magkakis.