Boye Akinwande is a contributing guest writer for CelebrityTypes and Ryan Smith is one of the admins of CelebrityTypes. In this article, Akinwande and Smith elaborate on the concept of function axes and how to determine them, expanding on Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of this series, as well as the article on the Background of the Idea of Function Axes.
By Boye Akinwande and Ryan Smith
In the Determining the Function Axes series, the CelebrityTypes admins Ryan Smith and Eva Gregersen have proposed an innovation in Jungian typology, namely their elaboration of the Heraclitean idea of the functions running counter to each other. If this idea is accepted, we can then postulate some (very abstract and general) patterns that the types who share a function axis all have in common. As we have seen in those articles, the opposing sides of a function axis are really interdependent, even though we normally think of them as different in terms of their dichotomies. Thus in terms of the dichotomies the ESTJ is the complete opposite of an INFP, but in terms of the functions both are Te-Fi, Si-Ne types.
In this article we will attempt to identify some similarities that are commonly found across the function axes (e.g. similarities between people who have Se and Te; Si and Ti, and so on). Doing so will help lay the groundwork for the next installment in this series, in which Akinwande and I will attempt to show how the types that share both their function axes (e.g. NTJs and SFPs, NTP and SFJs, etc.) are both similar and divergent because of their function axes.
Empirical Functions: Sensation and Thinking
In Jung’s view (as well as Pauli’s), Sensation and Thinking were the so-called “empirical” functions, because each of them deal with quantifiable, verifiable information.[1] Hence, before the modern-day bias against Sensation crept into typology, Sensation and Thinking were often considered the “default” scientist type. This is a fact of the scholarly record that CelebrityTypes has taken care to re-enliven and which has also been taken up by the American typologist Michael Pierce. This leads us to postulate the following matrices:
What all S and T functions share: All T and S functions are realistic in the sense that they prefer to structure information in an empirically verifiable manner. In that sense, they are also empirical as we mentioned above.
What Se and Te share: Both Se and Te are direct in the sense that they proceed straightforwardly to the point they want to make. Both functions are also objective, although we do not mean this in the Jungian sense of “proceeding to the object before the subject.”[2] No: What we mean is that each of them operate off of phenomena that are more capable of standing on their own than is the case with the rest of the functions.
- Se needs personal experience, true. But once that is accounted for, Se types often proceed to reify that experience in a way that picks out the most applicable principles of operation that this experience has revealed. As an example, think of the many Se types earning millions as self-help writers. Having mastered something themselves, their experience tends to have gained an objective character which makes them fluently able to translate that experience into guidelines for success that will be useful to others (not so with the Si type).
- Te needs analytical concepts, true. But Te types often tend to pick out quantitative concepts that stand in the closest possible relation to reality, so that these concepts are neither flimsy nor easy for others to reject (not so with Ti). As an example, think of Aristotle’s admonition that “It would be absurd to try to prove … what is obvious by what is not.”[3] We must make admissions to concepts, but the concepts should as far as possible be “self-evident” – and that then becomes the secret of their power and success.
What Si and Ti share: Both Si and Ti are indirect in the sense that they only approach the present situation on the basis of hitherto accumulated experience (Si) or principles (Ti). Both are also meticulous in the sense that many nuances and shades of denotation and connotation exist within their cognition.[4] On balance, their internal psychic landscape is more carefully constructed than that of other types.
- Si types tend to be very practical, true. As a whole, they are not known to drag present challenges and tasks into an ocean of qualifications and maybes. Rather than picking out the essential recipe for success from an ocean of experience, as the Se types do, the Si types operates on the basis of a thorough knowledge of the ocean itself. This means that the present problems are approached on the basis of how they fit together with the experiential pockets that are adjacent to the present problem rather than simply on the basis of the problem itself. As an example, where an Se type might prefer to acquire the skills to become the best torpedo gunner or the best helmsman aboard a submarine, an Si type might dedicate himself to understanding every nook and cranny of the operation of the submarine at the expense of excellence in one field. (This is in fact what Jimmy Carter and Karl Doenitz did.)
- With regard to Ti types, INTPs are usually pretty close to what one would normally consider indirect or meticulous in their approach and so little more needs to be said about that type here. With regard to ISTPs, however, it has often been remarked how most of the descriptions of “their” Ti, or what the two Ti types have in common, seem to pertain more to an INTP’s point of view than to an actual ISTP. This has been true of Jung, von Franz, and Myers, and has even been true of some of the articles found here on CelebrityTypes. In fact, this conflation is a dearth in the scholarship that has yet to be properly addressed. However, one way to unite the predictions of the theory with what is observed post hoc is to contend that while ISTPs do think in terms of principle, their overriding principle is the reality principle: Paraphrasing the German fighter ace Hans-Ulrich Rudel, one might say that according to the reality principle, reality is the sole criterion of what is possible or impossible, good or bad.[5] Theirs is a practical mode of thinking in principles, and since reality is not at all as neat as the noetic conceptions of N types would have it appear, the principles-thinking of ISTPs must therefore naturally be more adaptable and deviate more from pure ideation.[6] Still, in practice the distinction between the instinct of Se and the principles-thinking of Ti is a fine one when the two occur so close together.
Idealistic Functions: Intuition and Feeling
Turning now to Intuition and Feeling, it is our intention to refer to them as idealistic. Not in the way in which Keirsey uses the term to mean “someone who strives for the ideal state of things,” but rather as being less reality-bound and more concerned with the free-floating and ideational aspects of cognition.[7] Just like how Jung originally thought of Sensation and Thinking as the most reality-bound functions, this distinction is not completely new: It was in fact hinted at by Jung, but his distinctions afforded a greater role for a function’s orientation in this respect than ours.[8] No; with regard to the history of typology, it was Pauli who first proposed the idea that Intuition and Feeling were more ideational than Sensation and Thinking. It is his contribution which we propose to follow here.
What all N and F functions share: All N and F functions are idealistic in the sense that they prefer to structure information on the basis of mental concepts where the known is tangled up with the knower himself. Not only are their preferred knowledge-formats thus harder to verify empirically. They are also more transgressive in the sense that they tend to overstep the reality-based boundaries of the objects and concepts that are given to them.[9]
What Ne and Fe share: Both Ne and Fe are inclusive in the sense that they add up different (and differing) perspectives to comprise elements in the illustration of an abstract idea (Ne) or a relational unity in which everyone can see their own interests and wishes reflected (Fe). Similarly, both Ne and Fe are also accepting in the sense that, by themselves, these functions do not subsume or reject the individual component but still aim to afford it its own place in their overall illustration or unity (although it is true that when Fe is coupled with Ni, as in NFJs, the synthesizing proclivities of Ni tend to obfuscate this fact).
- As far as Ne goes, CelebrityTypes has previously coined the epithet that Ne is in the habit of “connecting the dots.” Another way to state the same point would be to say that Ne quickly feels out each of the central nodes of an overall intellectual pattern akin to the way a drawing book might give you the outline of a figure by emphasizing a series of dots that are situated in all the right places. However, Ne does not, by itself, synthesize the information into a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts the way Ni does; Ne remains in contact with the information that is objectively given to a greater extent that Ni does and thus allows each “dot” in the overall pattern to retain its original identity instead of subsuming it to a scheme that would fit a comprehensive synthesis better (such as Ni tends to do). As an example, take the Canadian-American psychologist Steven Pinker’s book The Blank Slate: For more than 500 pages, Pinker chases the same idea, namely the idea that human beings have inborn dispositions and are not born as “blank slates.” An impressive battery of studies, theories, and facts are relegated to the reader, but at the end of the day, that is just where the book remains: As an inclusive mosaic of “dots,” each of which are accepted on their own terms.
- As for Fe, by directing its eloquent sensitivity outwards, the Fe type attains rapport with others and a compassionate awareness of their desires and vulnerabilities. In doing so, the Fe type gains an unaffected understanding of how the interrelational situation may be steered towards a common good that will allow everyone to participate in its organization on equal terms. As an example, take the American paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould whose idea of science and religion as non-overlapping magisteria served to accept both of these domains as diverse, yet equal. By this arrangement, Gould elegantly avoided a painful and reductive confrontation between the two domains and allowed both parties to participate in the disciplines of spirituality and scientific inquiry without fear of having to relinquish the beliefs that were personally dear to them.
What Ni and Fi share: Finally, both Ni and Fi are excluding in the sense that they are more concerned with what is going on in the person’s own consciousness, giving less reference to outer perspectives (including the perspectives of others) than do the other functions (all else being equal). For this reason, we may also say that Ni and Fi are inner-directed in the sense that whatever conclusions they come to will on balance have more to do with the person’s own idiosyncrasies than the suppositions of other types (again, all else being equal).
- With regard to Ni, it can often be slow to accept information that does not agree with its previously accepted parameters.[10] On the other hand, once a piece of information has been accepted as legitimately important, Ni can keep circling and synthesizing it until the information has been appended to the Ni type’s existing body of knowledge in every possible (and impossible) way. As an example, consider Schopenhauer’s dictum that: “It is only a man’s own thoughts that he really and completely understands. To read the thoughts of others is like … putting on the discarded clothes of a stranger.”[11] Or simply Jung’s assertion that everything that he did was derived from his pursuit of the “inner images” that were prevalent in his own consciousness and that nothing else could hope to come close to their import.[12]
- Concerning Fi, it is not that Fi types have a denseness with regard to outer observation (as is the case of the Ni types) as much as it is the fact that the Fi type will in many cases have a propensity to withdraw his own judgments from the world as a violet shrinking back from the touch.[13] More often than not, Fi will seek to hold its own passions and values constant in spite of outside normative pressure to relinquish or amend its views. As a rule, Fi does not deny the merit of opposing views that others might hold (such as Ni types might do), but rather refuses to put its own values up for public access and display, no matter how meritorious or “rational” the opposing compulsion may be.
Conclusion
In this installment we have tried to demonstrate some similarities between function-pairs that cut across the function axes, drawing upon some hitherto underutilized tidbits of the theory as first coined by Jung (Psychological Types, 1921) and especially Pauli (The Influence of Archetypal Ideas on the Scientific Theories of Kepler, 1952), and then seeking to combine them with Gregersen and Smith’s idea of the Function Axes (Determining Function Axes, 2012). From this article alone, it will probably not be possible to discern how this scheme of cutting across the axes will be relevant to the idea of the axes themselves. Fortunately, that is just what we will endeavor to demonstrate in the next installment of this series.
NOTES
[1] Jung: Personal Letter to Ernst Hanhart, February 18, 1957
[2] Jung: Psychological Types §663
[3] Aristotle: Physics II.I
[4] Van der Hoop: Character and the Unconscious (Kegan Paul & Co. 1923) p. 174
[5] Rudel: Stuka Pilot (Black House 2012) p. 205
[6] Hume: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding IV.I
[7] Keirsey: Please Understand Me II (Prometheus 1998) p. 19
[8] Jung: Psychological Types §665
[9] Nietzsche: Philosophy in the Tragic Age of The Greeks §3
[10] Jung: Psychological Types §658
[11] Schopenhauer: On Thinking for Yourself §3
[12] Jung: The Red Book (W.W. Norton & Co. 2009) p. vii
[13] Jung: Psychological Types §638