{"id":6483,"date":"2015-08-02T09:18:10","date_gmt":"2015-08-02T09:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.idrlabs.com\/articles\/?p=6483"},"modified":"2020-06-20T22:38:50","modified_gmt":"2020-06-20T22:38:50","slug":"determining-function-axes-part-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.idrlabs.com\/articles\/2015\/08\/determining-function-axes-part-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Determining Function Axes, Part 6"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201c… many are the afflictions that burst in and blunt their thinking. In their lives, they see a meagre portion of life … trusting only in whatever each has encountered as he was driven here and there, yet he falsely claims to have discovered the whole. … Mortal minds have no more power than this.\u201d \u2013 Empedocles: Fragment<\/em> BK31 B2<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are seldom impartial where ultimate things, the great problems of science and life, are concerned. Each of us is governed in such cases by deep-rooted internal prejudices, into whose hands our speculation unwittingly plays.\u201d \u2013 Freud: Beyond the Pleasure Principle<\/em> (SE 18:59)<\/p>\n

By Ryan Smith<\/strong><\/p>\n

The following installment has been stitched together from my previous articles Freud and Empedocles<\/em> and Function Biases in Buddhism and Vedanta<\/em>. Both of these articles were published in 2014, specifically in the period of time that fell between the publication of part 1 and 2 of the present series. However, since not all readers have had the ability (or patience) to peruse those articles in their original contexts and lengths, the sections of these articles that pertain the most to the concept of function axes have been reproduced here.<\/p>\n

The Three Laws of Ontological Prejudice<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Function Biases in Buddhism and Vedanta<\/em>, I suggested three laws of ontological prejudice that are commonly seen in relation to the Fi\/Te and Fe\/Ti axes. They are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. All else being equal, an Fi\/Te type is more likely to regard the self and one\u2019s personal identity as an ontological entity of primary importance. An Fi\/Te type is more likely to say that \u201cI\u2019m me and you are you,\u201d while an Fe\/Ti type is more likely to believe that \u201cwe\u2019re all one, all cut from the same cloth.\u201d<\/li>\n
  2. All else being equal, the ontology of an Fi\/Te type is more likely to consist of distinct objects and entities, whereas the ontology of an Fe\/Ti type is more likely to consist of interdependent objects that are \u201cfuzzy around the edges\u201d in the Fe\/Ti type\u2019s cognition and tend to blend into each other. The relation of parts to the whole in the Fi\/Te ontology resembles that of peas in a pod; in the Fe\/Ti ontology, it resembles that of waves upon an\u00a0ocean.<\/li>\n
  3. All else being equal, an Fi\/Te type is more likely to subscribe to some stripe of materialism or substance metaphysics, while an Fe\/Ti type is more likely to believe in a species of non-materialist or process metaphysics. Put another way, the Fi\/Te axis has a phenomenological bias in favor of materialism and substance; the Fe\/Ti axis a predilection for non-materialism and process.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    To be clear, I am not<\/em> saying that the functions themselves determine a person\u2019s viewpoint \u2013 that would be an error. That is why, in my writings on Jungian typology, I have always taken care to distinguish between mental processes<\/em> and mental contents<\/em>; between the structures of consciousness itself and the representations and judgments that are contained<\/em> in that consciousness. With respect to this dichotomy, a function is a process, and a metaphysical stance (such as a commitment to materialism) is an end product; a piece of content<\/em>. So rather than professing that the functions themselves are the determinants of the individual\u2019s viewpoint, what I am saying is that some viewpoints flow more naturally from certain functions than others.<\/p>\n

    Ontological Prejudice of the Functions<\/strong><\/p>\n

    As a complement to this line of thought, my article on Freud and Empedocles <\/em>suggested the following series of ontological prejudices, again relating only to the Fi\/Te and Fe\/Ti axes:<\/p>\n