We start with a quote:

“Jung attaches great importance to the creative activity of fantasy, which he even puts in a category of its own, because in his opinion it cannot be subordinated to any of the four basic functions, but partakes of them all. He rejects the usual notion that artistic inspiration is limited to the intuitive type. … Fantasy is indeed the source of all creative inspiration, but it is a gift that can come to any of the four types.” – Jolande Jacobi: The Psychology of C.G. Jung p. 24

Here at CelebrityTypes we have previously touched upon the enantiodromia and its importance for Jung’s conception of his own typology. Briefly stated, it is a theory of a unity of opposites, as first discovered by the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, and then adapted by Jung to fit his conception of his psychological system.

Heraclitus himself would express his own conception of the unity of opposites in the following manner:

road up / road down / still same road

cold things warm / warm things cool / wet things dry / dry things soak

That is, opposites exist in a state of tension, but they’re really one - still the same road – still the same thing.

This is the thought of Heraclitus, but Jung then morphs it, as he did with many other philosophers that he read. In Jung’s conception of Heraclitus’ thought, then, we are not merely content to see how all things are really one – in Jung’s version the principle becomes a regulatory principle that pulls extremes back towards the center. (Though in Greek philosophy, that principle should actually be attributed to Anaximander, not Heraclitus.)

The Transcendent Function

In Jung’s view, then, extremes should be mediated in order to be pulled back to the center – back towards a sort of middle ground. That is one reason why Jung always stressed the importance of manual and somatic activities like chopping wood and going sailing in his own life.

Since a function-differentiation is an extreme in Jung’s view, the very fact that one is a type implies that one is an extreme with regards to one’s conscious orientation. For example, being an INFJ implies that one is subject to an extreme polarization of N (into consciousness) and S (into unconsciousness).

Yet as we saw from Jung’s reading of Greek philosophy above, whenever there is an extreme, there is (according to Jung) also a regulatory principle that attempts to pull that extreme back towards the center. Within the psyche, this process of mediating the extremes is what Jung called The Transcendent Function.

However, in Jung’s view, the Transcendent Function is not merely pulling every manifest quality back towards an undifferentiated black block. It is not (like Anaximander’s theory) a regressive force that aims to level every high and low – to pull every quality that has emerged in adult life “back up in the womb,” so to speak. (Like with Jung’s theory of Buddhism in Jung: Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido [Franz Deuticke 1925 edition] p. 332-n3) In Jung’s view, the Transcendent Function is a Hegelian progression that takes the emergent qualities (e.g. superior Ni and inferior Se) and elevates them both into a higher unity. (Jung: Psychological Types §824-827)

Here we must state that the Transcendent Function should perhaps rather be called the Transcendent Process to avoid confusing it with the actual functions. We will refer to it as such for the rest of the article.

The Transcendent Process, then, is a process by which the cognitive functions are dislodged from the usual fixed positions in consciousness. When the Transcendent Process is active, it allows for the free play of the functions within the psyche, and the activity of the Transcendent Process is especially related to creative work. (Jung: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche §168)

Since the function positions are usually fixed within the psyche, the Transcendent Process can only be active at certain points during an individual’s life. But since the Transcendent Process is especially related to creative work, it is reasonable to assume that this process is more often active in artists and in those musicians for whom music is an artistic endeavor.

Transcendent Intuition

If we look at an S type artist then – an artist who is not particularly intuitive in his normal state – we may nevertheless say that insofar as his work is a genuinely creative work – a work that has been born under the auspice of the Transcendent Process – then no matter what type the artist is, he will still have unbounded access to Intuition in his creative work. (Jung: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche §348)

In fact, one could go so far as to argue that with regards to creative work, only S types will have access to Transcendent Intuition whereas the N types will only have access to ‘normal’ Intuition and vice versa (i.e. only the N types will have access to Transcendent Sensation whereas S types will only have ‘normal’ Sensation), but that may be going too far.

At any rate, the point here is to make it clear that neither by our (the CT admins’) standards nor by Jung’s is there any upper limit to the creativity of S types. The notion that this should be so is of a newer date and may well be a facet of the general bias in favor of N types that exists in type communities rather than a true facet of type.

Just a few DVDs ago, the boy had no qualifications in life, but he already feels like Disney has taught him everything he needs to know.

“What a great friend I have in Disney!” the boy thinks to himself as he skips down the street with a spring in his step.

Years later, the boy enters a library reading hall and encounters a dusty leather-bound volume. The book contains the original source material for The Little Mermaid, Hercules, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and other such stories.

“Oh, that’s nice,” the boy thinks to himself as he lodges the volume off the shelf. “I know this stuff. It will be fun to see what they’ve written about ‘my’ topic.”

The boy starts reading with gleeful anticipation. But his anticipation soon turns to disgust. This is not what he was expecting. The stories feature all manner of sinister convolutions that he doesn’t fully understand and what’s worse – these deviant versions of familiar themes are presented unapologetically as if they were the real accounts. It’s like Victor Hugo and Hans Christian Andersen never even stopped to apologize for deviating from Disney.

“This is ridiculous!” the boy exclaims. “These guys have it all wrong! Hercules never murdered his own children, and the Little Mermaid doesn’t die in the end! She gets the prince and they live happily ever after. If these authors don’t even know that, then they’re total idiots,” the boy thinks to himself.

Disgusted, he puts down the volume.

The boy makes a pledge to himself: To stay with Disney for the rest of his life.

There’s no good reason grown men can’t watch Disney.

When it comes to determining the types of musicians, one ubiquitous problem seems to be that people don’t separate the musician as a person from the music that that person has created. But if you want your typings to hold up, it is necessary to do so.

Take, for instance, somebody like Miles Davis. Here you have a guy who initiated several big stylistic changes in the world of jazz over the years. He was at the forefront of cool jazz, modal jazz, jazz fusion, avant garde jazz and more. If you compare an album like Kind Of Blue to an album like On The Corner, they’re just on completely different planets. Miles Davis was an exceptionally creative guy with a wealth of innovative ideas. So, what one might erroneously take from this is that “he’s constantly coming up with new ideas and thus must be an Ne type.” But, if you put these preconceptions aside and read interviews with Miles Davis, you find absolutely nothing in the way of Ne there whatsoever. As to his extroverted perception, Davis shows Se, not Ne, and you end up with ISTP for him.

It is the same with Bob Dylan. Keirsey has written a really good article about Bob Dylan where he points out that because people connect with Dylan’s lyrics and ascribe meanings to his songs, they assume that Dylan must be like them and must care as much about the meanings behind those songs, just like they do. Yet Dylan never cared about that stuff – he just wrote songs. As he says, when asked about the meaning of his songs: “I just write them. There isn’t any big message.” Again, the same thing happens. If you forget about his music and watch interviews with Dylan, you end up with ISFP for him.

And you see this pattern over and over again. Frank Zappa, Trent Reznor, certain famous rappers, etc. – when you ignore how creative their music or lyrics may be and you focus on considering them as people, they are clearly S types.

The point is that you have to research what the musician is like as a person. You can’t derive a person’s type from their music or their lyrics. Especially when it comes to lyrics. It seems to be another recurring theme that people attach undue importance to specific instances where an artist they like has used a metaphor and then say: “See – this person must be an N type because he used a metaphor!” The implication of their argument is that an S type would not be capable of coming up with a metaphor, simply because they’re an S type. One wonders what they think a song written by an S type would be like. Perhaps they think every song that was written by an S type would read like a redux version of Rebecca Black’s Friday:

Yeah, Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah-La
Oo-ooh-ooh, hoo yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah
Yeah-ah-ah Yeah-ah-ah Yeah-ah-ah Yeah-ah-ah Yeah, yeah, yeah

…Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday
Today is-is Friday, Friday
… Tomorrow is Saturday
And Sunday comes after …

Yeah, Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah-La…

The question of being metaphoric vs. being literal is not a question of black or white; it’s a question of more or less. Do you expect lyrics written by an S type to be completely devoid of all metaphor and abstraction? And if so, do you also expect the lyrics of N types to be completely devoid of all practical and specific meaning as well? If the answer is no, then the underlying assumption here is that S and N is not a true dichotomy in its own right, but that N types are really S types with an extra layer. This assumption is clearly incorrect, in so far as the Intuitive dominant types tend to have definite problems mastering their Sensation.

So, what happens across the board is that S type musicians get mistyped as N types for all of the above reasons. Because these preconceptions prevail, people will inevitably arrive at the impression that N types make better musicians. But anybody who looks properly into the matter will find that this is simply not the case, and that there are fantastic musicians of both the N and S types.

Written by Jesse Gerroir – edited by the CT Admins for publication, and used with permission

The E/I split is a very important one. One that Jung spent most of his time talking about in Psychological Types and that pervades all of the functions.

However, one of the greatest misconceptions between extroversion and introversion is that it has anything to do with social ability. While there is often a correlation, the correlation is really a byproduct and not really the definition of the difference. Simply and concisely put, the extroverted functions and extroverts are orientated towards objects. While introverts are orientated towards the subjective impressions of objects. But what exactly does this mean?

Introverts need time to access their inner bank of stored impressions. Introversion is about recognizing similarities in impressions that have already been assimilated into consciousness. Whenever an introverted function encounters an object its concern is not really with examining the object but rather with accessing their storehouse of previously digested impressions. While this is true of all the introverted functions, it is most clearly seen in the irrational introverted functions (Si and Ni) which do not occupy themselves with judging the object, but which primarily seek to just soak up all impressions the object evokes.

A Rundown of the Introverted Functions

With Ti, we are concerned with stored thoughts, definitions, abstracted ideas, logical conclusions, and other such things that are ultimately abstracted from the impression of an object.

With Fi, we focus on stored emotional ideals, how does the object in question compare to its most ideal incarnation, to emotions felt by me in the past, and to concentrated ideals of the emotion?

With Si, it’s stored facts, physical sensations, what is reliable, stable, and agreeable to instinct. How the object compares to previously experienced objects of the same type.

And last but not least with Ni, we ask how does the impression compare to all the connections, associations, and patterns observed about the object largely revolving around the question from whence did it come and where is it going?

A Rundown of the Extroverted Functions

With the extroverted functions the person is not looking inward to access stored inner impressions. They are looking outward, and they are focused on the actual object.

With Te it wants to know how the object is organized, how discrete is it in its context, how it can be quantified, and what exactly it is, what common behavior it exhibits, and what amount of force sustains it in the outer world.

With Fe it wants to know the general feeling tone of the object (the object in this case generally being people), what context the object exists in, whether there is harmony among the object and its environment, the needs of the people, and different standard behavior and rituals among them.

With Ne it’s what the object could become, how it could be transformed, the innovative possibilities surrounding the object, what patterns the object exists in and how they can be manipulated, and how changes could be made.

With Se it’s direct physical awareness of the object. What it’s like, how it feels, how it will behave when manipulated, what it’s doing in the here and now and how it will behave in the here and now.

Considering the Difference

“There is no such thing as a pure extrovert or a pure introvert. Such a man would be in the lunatic asylum!” – C.G. Jung

Obviously, we all orient ourselves via both impressions derived from objects (I) and actual objects themselves (E). This is why it’s largely impossible to be entirely introverted or extroverted as Jung also famously said.

If a person was 100% introverted, the introvert would be approaching each new object entirely based upon previously gathered past impressions. But how could they even have such past impressions, if their approach was always to abstract from the object? If they always did that, they would never have experienced anything directly to begin with! They would have no impressions to use as a base. Without the help of their extroverted functions, their databank is empty.

Likewise, the extrovert would be approaching each new object entirely anew with no past memory of similar objects. They would never store the impressions of the object. There would be no databank at all.

This is why the extroverted functions are always paired up with introverted ones and vice-versa. The extroverted functions will bring in data about objects and things and the introverted functions form that data into a databank that can be used for future reference.

This is precisely what makes the introverted functions inherently subjective. Even Ti which at first seems so logical that people are tempted to deem it “objective” is actually a subjective function, when properly understood.

So in Conclusion

The extroverted functions will use the instance of the object to understand its ideal form.

The introverted functions will use the ideal form of the object to understand its actual instance.

We don’t by any means blame Jung – we correct and update our own assessments quite incurably ourselves, and besides, Jung did not deny that type could change through life. But in the case of Nietzsche, we get an especially grave instance of “dual typing” – because here we get dual typing within the same book!

The case for Nietzsche as IN-J:

(Psychological Types §242): The fact that it is just the psychological functions of intuition on the one hand and sensation and instinct on the other that Nietzsche emphasizes must be characteristic of his own personal psychology. He must surely be reckoned an intuitive with leanings towards introversion. … His lack of rational moderation and conciseness argues for the intuitive type in general.

So Nietzsche is IN-J.

But then we get Jung’s case for Nietzsche as I-TP:

(Psychological Types §632): Just as we might take Darwin as an example of the normal extraverted thinking type, the normal introverted thinking type could be represented by Kant. The one speaks with facts, the other relies on the subjective factor. Darwin ranges over the wide field of objective reality. Kant restricts himself to a critique of knowledge. Cuvier and Nietzsche would form an even sharper contrast.

So Darwin and Cuvier are E-TJs and Kant and Nietzsche are I-TPs.

***

Above, Jung said of Nietzsche that “his lack of rational moderation and conciseness argues for the intuitive type.” Well, said somewhat tongue-in-cheek, Jung’s promiscuous dual typing of Nietzsche within the same book conveys a “lack of rational moderation and conciseness” that argues for Jung himself being an intuitive type.

***

16 years later: The case for INTJ

In 1937, 16 years after the publication of Psychological Types, Jung said the following of Nietzsche’s type:

“I have heard of mothers wanting to be paid for their love only too often. Nietzsche had not because he was a man with very developed intuition and intellect, but his feeling developed slowly.” (Jung: Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, vol. I p. 1043)

As well as the following:

“[Nietzsche's] main function is surely intuition, which would be up above, connected with the brain, with consciousness, and that is in opposition to that which is in opposition to the things below, namely the other three functions.” (Jung: Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, vol. I p. 1082)

So strictly speaking, Jung has said that Nietzsche is an Intuitive dominant type with auxiliary thinking, but not whether he now considers Nietzsche an introvert or an extrovert. But not to despair, for in volume II of the same work, we get the following:

“In Nietzsche’s case … the unconscious came up with all its extraversion and … he locked the complex away from himself and dissolved in a tremendous extraversion within his isolation.” (Jung: Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, vol. II p. 145)

So alas – if Nietzsche’s unconscious is extroverted, then by implication of the enantiodromia that fuels Jung’s thinking on typology, Nietzsche’s superior function must be introverted. In 1937, Jung would therefore consider Nietzsche an INTJ.

***

Update: Bonus Quote: Nietzsche as an Intuitive Dominant Type:

“Nietzsche as an intuitive simply touches upon a thing and off he goes. He does not dwell upon the subject, though in the long run one can say that he really does dwell upon it by amplification. But he doesn’t deal with things in a logical way, going into the intellectual process of elucidation; he just catches such an intuition on the wing and leaves it, going round and round amplifying, so that in the end we get a complete picture, but by intuitive means, not by logical means.” – Jung: Seminar on Zarathustra (1934-39) vol. II p. 1083

* Though Odajnyk seems to say in his book that Adler was both ENFP and ESFJ, this is actually an error in the editing process surrounding the publication of the book. Odajnyk’s true assessment of Adler is as we have listed above: As an ENF type with N dominance. Our source is personal correspondence with Odajnyk.

Starting with deGrasse Tyson, the thing to notice is that he builds up a common vision for the audience – a vision in which the audience has a part to play. In this keynote speech, deGrasse Tyson spells out, “What we’ve gotta do: … that we have to double NASA’s budget.” The feeling process is out there. It’s objective, for others to see in full and to participate in. Likewise, as we quote deGrasse Tyson on the main site:

Tyson: “When [we do something like going] to the moon, everybody knows about it. And everybody becomes a participant in some way. Either an actual participant … or [as] an emotional participant, because they embrace the idea.”

Compare Brian Cox

Introverted Feeling (Fi), on the other hand, is about one’s own personal experience, personal values and the intense, subjective experiencing of them. Where Fe creates an exterior, tangible judgment, and is therefore objective, Fi, by contrast, creates an internal, intangible judgment and is therefore subjective. As Jung said in his portrait of the Fi types, the outer signs of Fi are but a pale shadow of the inner richness of the subjective experience. In fact, in Jung’s words, the outer signs of the Fi process are but a “parallelism,” that is to say, their outward demeanor is often harmonious and inconspicuous, but at the same time a trained observer will notice little cues that the outer inconspicuousness is but a vestige of the delight that the Fi type is experiencing on the inside, in a subjective form that cannot be directly communicated to others.

If Fi seems hampered when compared to Fe with regards to popularizing, that is because – as opposed to Fe – Fi’s first order of business isn’t about communicating with other people at all: Fi is about depth and intensity of feeling within the Fi type himself, and external objects as well as other people are entirely secondary to Fi.

This is also why Fi types are generally better artists than Fe types: Fi champions the personal vision, – take it or leave it – while Fe tries to appease and align itself with the current state of affairs. And as a general rule, appeasing and aligning detracts from intensity.

Like Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Cox is on a popularizing mission to increase public awareness of and interest in science. But as Cox is an ENFP and interacting with other people in a directive (judging) manner isn’t his core competency at all. (Cox’s dominant function, Extroverted Intuition, can also interact with people, but during such interactions, Ne types take on an informative rather than judging role.)

So directing people toward doing specific things is not Cox’s primary competency. He does not deploy the tools of direct emotional persuasion that deGrasse Tyson has. As we have said before, when deGrasse Tyson presents a piece of information, the “correct” attitude (i.e. what he wants us to think or feel about something) is already obvious even before he reaches any conclusion or presents any actual argument concerning the subject.

This is the typical modus operandi of Fe’s persuasive powers. Fe persuades by manifesting an air of nobility about a given standpoint – an air that engages the audience’s feeling function and implicitly lets the audience know that if a contrary opinion were to be expressed, this would disturb the general well-being in the room.

Fi persuades by being sympathetic

Yet as we have said, Brian Cox does not have a preference for Fe. Because Cox’s judging function (Fi) is the opposite of deGrasse Tyson’s judging function (Fe), we must also expect that Cox’s manner of persuasion is the opposite of Tyson’s, and indeed it is.

Instead of persuading his audience by appealing to tangible, external objects (like deGrasse Tyson says: “We build a suit of launch vehicles that will enable us to go…”), Brian Cox stresses instead the personal enthusiasm that is generated by increased funding for science, in this case the CERN supercollider: Cox repeatedly stresses how exciting the work on the supercollider is to him.

Undeveloped in the outwardly judging manners of deGrasse Tyson, Cox’s means of persuasion are indirect: Cox’s entire presentation takes the form of a narrative (i.e. informative rather than directive). During his presentation he offers a series of innocuous jokes and repeatedly laughs in an engaging, disarming manner, seemingly at nothing in particular. This produces the effect in us that we find Cox sympathetic and harmless, perhaps even slightly submissive. (Here it is important to note that this point pertains to Fi and to Cox’s specific expression and manner of using Fi; not to all NFP types in general.)

So instead of appealing to externals, like Tyson, Cox talks about the personal intensity of his feelings and values regarding astrophysics. If we find him interesting, we can listen, and if not, we can tune out. Again Fi is ‘take it or leave it,’ where Fe strives to engage the entirety of the audience.

So taken together, Fi is subjective, largely inexpressible, and also indirect in its means of persuasion. As Jung said of the Fi user: Because the primacy of his feeling is directed inwards, the Fi user must struggle to “convey it to [his] fellow man in such a way that a parallel process takes place in him.” That is to say, Cox must try to convey his inner, subjective and intense value judgment to us, even though that is largely impossible, because by its very nature, Fi pertains to a person’s inner life.

Incidentally, that is why we have included the following quote about Brian Cox on the site:

Jane Fryer: “There’s something about his … poetic descriptions [and] bubbling emotions … that demystifies science and makes it fascinating.”

As it happens, poetry is a particularly apt vessel for conveying Fi outwardly, and as our INFP page can testify to, many of the world’s most famous poets have been INFPs. This is because poetry is in itself a parallelism. Poetry can only express the seeds, the bare essentials of a mental image; the process of the mental image’s unfolding will have take place in the receptive reader’s mind. Like Fi’s, poetry too, attempts to express the inexpressible. Poetry, too, persuades by indirect means, and by eliciting the instinctive sympathies of the reader, rather than by the conscious analysis that can be more readily applied when gauging prose.

In short, Brian Cox describes an approximation of his personal enthusiasm and feeling (Fi) and then it is up to his audience to react to that as they see fit. Like an artists’ production, his message is ‘take it or leave it.’ In contrast, Neil deGrasse Tyson urges his audience to accept his message by enveloping it in an atmosphere of warm unity, making it difficult for the audience to ignore or reject his message without breaking the emotional bond he has forged.

An overlooked and unusual contribution to the study of Jungian typology was released in 2011 under the name of Jung’s Compass of Psychological Types. It was written by James Graham Johnston, who is apparently a Jungian before he is a typologist (rather than a typologist before he is a Jungian). Though Johnston rejects the Myers-Briggs model and similar standard operationalizations of Jung’s typology, Johnston nevertheless trains people to use a training tool that is a concrete instrumentalization of Jungian typology, rather than simply dealing with the terms of Jungian typology on a conceptual level, like V.W. Odajnyk does, or as Jung himself did.

“[In writing ‘Psychological Types’] classification did not interest me very much. It is a side-issue with only indirect importance. … The intellectually detached classifying point of view is just the thing to be avoided. … [Classification] does not coincide with the purpose of my book.” – C.G. Jung

So even though Johnston adheres to a rather orthodox reading of Jung, and rejects operationalizations of Jung’s typology, such as the Myers-Briggs, Johnston nevertheless deviates from Jung’s own stated goals, and proceeds faithfully down the path that was first laid out by Myers and Briggs. Johnston’s operationalization of Jung’s typology goes under the name of the Gifts Compass Index, and his book is intended as a training manual for those who would seek to use his Compass Index instrument.

A Unity of Opposites?

Jung’s Compass of Psychological Types was a book that was confusing for us to review: On the one hand, the book takes Jung’s ideas of individuation and of typology as the personal quest of “finding one’s way back to the center “ very seriously and states that this quest for individuation is the sole reason for delving into typology at all. So according to this manner of thinking, the idea is not so much to cast people as certain types as it is a way of mapping out where one’s own personal psychology may have deficits and excesses. Once the highs and the lows have been mapped out, one can then individuate from there in order to “become whole,” rather than going through life as merely a type.

Yet on the other hand, Jung’s Compass of Psychological Types is also a book that liberally typecasts a whole range of people, thus appearing to do exactly the thing that it warns its readers not to do. In a similar vein, the book makes a point of saying that Jung didn’t really think of the types as actual types of people, but rather as dispositions towards types of cognition. Whether Jung really thought this way or not is debatable, but at any rate, the point that interests us here is that elsewhere in the book, Johnston’s descriptions of the types are at points reified into almost Keirsey-like functional roles, such as the ones known from Please Understand Me II. So on the one hand, the book says that types don’t really exist except as dispositions towards certain types of cognition and on the other hand, the types will manifest themselves as actual and behavioral constructs.

What these examples serve to show is that the book tries to do too much: Reading it, one gets the feeling that Johnston wants to cover every possible interpretation and perspective on the field of Jungian Typology. It is not that the points that are made in the book are bad by any means, as much as they are simply confusing. Is type something very abstract (Jung) or is it something extremely concrete (Keirsey)? Is typology about individuation (Jung) or it is about typecasting (Myers, Keirsey)? In each case, the book professes to follow Jung’s point of view, but then also speaks about those same things as if it took the view of Myers/Keirsey. The overall result is dissatisfying.  Like glancing at pictures that were taken by a camera set to all levels of zoom at once.

For this reason – that the book appears to be “all over the place” at once – we can’t really go into detail with the book’s central ideas, since they seem to be so manifold that they contradict one another.

Back to School

The problematic thing about Jung’s Compass of Psychological Types is that it is by no means a bad book as much as it is merely unclear and insufficiently argued. There are points that are original here (which we will get to in a moment), but there are also points that appear to be merely Johnston’s willful interpretation of Jung’s original book on the types.

A typical argument in the book runs like this: The book quotes Psychological Types at length and then advances an interpretation of the quote as being the “correct” one. The book says in the foreword that there is still much disagreement over the correct way to read Jung (since he wrote so abstrusely), but within the book itself such considerations are left behind. As mentioned, the book advances a quote by Jung and then an interpretation of that quote as being the “right” interpretation. Arguments as to why that interpretation is the right one, or arguments refuting other obvious interpretations of the same quote, are sadly lacking, and so the reader is left with the feeling of being back in school where the teacher’s interpretation of the text is the right one simply because he is the teacher and he does the grading. Again, it is not that the interpretations are bad, as much as it is the manner in which they are presented that fails to satisfy the critical reader.

Rejecting the Standard Model

In the book, Johnston rejects the standard four-function model which is based on Jung-Heraclitus’s law of enantiodromia and says that a person’s functions alternate between E and I (e.g. Ti-Ne-Si-Fe). Johnston does accept the four-function model, but like V.W. Odajnyk, Johnston distances himself from the order of function orientations that were derived from the enantiodromia. However, while Odajnyk merely questions whether the interpretation derived from the enantiodromia holds true, Johnston positively rejects it. Johnston agrees that there is a “primary 16 types,” but to him, those types will be quite different from the ones that we know. For example, Johnston identifies his own two uppermost functions as Ni and Ti, while his two lowermost functions, by implication, are Se and Fe (not necessarily in that order). Ni dominance with Ti is found in INFJs according to the standard model, but in Johnston’s model it would not make sense to say that he was an INFJ, as his Thinking ranks higher than his Feeling, although ironically, perhaps, while reading the book we conjectured that Johnston was an INFJ, even before we had seen his self-assessment which is only included at the end of the book.

(This last point is merely of minor importance. We could just as easily be biased in our way of thinking as we are habituated to work with the standard model. So Johnston may be right and we may be wrong. But we did find it funny nevertheless.)

The overall point is this: The book posits an alternative model, but doesn’t really argue that the standard model is mistaken. One could argue that that is not really the responsibility of the author, but since the standard model is not some accidental construct, but one that has actually been continuously refined since the 1950s, one may perhaps raise an eyebrow when somebody advances a contesting interpretation without so much as giving his reasons for why we should abandon the standard model.

Johnston does have original points to make. For example, he says that in the Se types the ego is conflated with the environment. He also points out how Ne types hate conformity because they hate their own inferior Si. Another example of Johnston’s contributions to the field is when he says that Fe types tend to lose their authentic selves in a stream of external situations, as each situation is perceived as “requiring” their empathic participation. However, these contributions drown in the sea of striving to be everything at once.

The Path of Individuation

There is a matter in which the book is undoubtedly right with regards to honoring Jung’s intentions behind crafting his system of psychological types, though, and that is where Johnston lays out the purpose for studying type at all. To him (as to Jung) the purpose is one of individuation: To lay bare how one’s personality has differentiated itself away from wholeness (for example, if you are a T dominant, you need to work on integrating your F into the whole personality). As the Jung quote at the start of this article shows, this was undeniably also Jung’s cardinal purpose for dabbling in typology himself.

So Johnston honors and agrees with Jung when he says that the purpose of typology is individuation, but Johnston overplays his hand when he says that typology cannot be understood apart from individuation. Again, in Jung’s own view, this is correct, but to understand why this is nevertheless wrong, one must recall David Hume’s split between the descriptive and the normative: Is does not imply ought. Being a ‘type’ (is), does not imply that one ought to find back to the center. And that is why practitioners and personal friends of Jung, such as van der Hoop and von Franz, could dabble in typology (indeed, write books about it) without mentioning individuation in the least. To Jung, “the intellectually detached classifying point of view is just the thing to be avoided.” To others, the intellectually detached classifying point of view was their whole reason for being attracted to typology in the first place.

The Middle is not the Middle

A perpetual theme of the book, as stemming from the goal of individuation, is the notion of “finding one’s way back to the center.” To this purpose, the book invokes Jung, Aristotle, Lao Tzu, the Buddha, Confucius and others, positing that they all subscribed to some form of the notion of “finding one’s way back to the center.” However, we think that it is a mistake to say that the firmly dualistic Aristotle, who would scold whatever did not live up to the law of contradiction, was in agreement with Lao Tzu, who positively reveled in contradiction. Likewise, Jung disliked Aristotle, calling his work a “lifeless desert,” and so on. It is possible that all of these thinkers voiced thought that contains themes of unity and return, but to say that what all of them were trying to get at was essentially just individuation, in the Jungian sense, is to miss the grist of these thinkers’ thoughts.

This approach of wanting to see essentially the same thought in all of these various thinkers makes Johnston essentially a pan-logicist. But there is nothing odd about this, since Johnston stays close to Jung, and Jung is also (most of the time) a pan-logicist. To give an example, see Jung’s interpretation of the Buddha’s enlightenment in Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido: Here, Jung says that the reason that the Buddha was enlightened under a tree was that the tree was a symbol of the Mother and that the Buddha’s enlightenment was an introversion of libido as the return to Mother’s uterus!

But pan-logicism is quite the opposite of what either the Buddha or Lao Tzu taught! With pan-logicism, one can lean back and use one’s analytical faculties to find one’s way back to the center: One can find out where the middle is, and then start walking in that direction. What could be easier? However, to the Buddha , for example, these things look quite different: Rather than identify where the middle is, one needs to look beneath the immediate fabric of reality, to see the harmony in the midst of the tension. According to this way of thinking, even the most differentiated T dominant (with no integration of his F function) is as genuine and harmonious an expression of reality as the T dominant who has attained a full integration of his F function. That is why the Buddha said: “I gained nothing at all from Supreme Enlightenment, and for that very reason it is called Supreme Enlightenment.”

So according to the Buddha, the “middle” is actually no middle at all. We cannot analytically determine a point which is the “middle” and then start walking towards that. That is why Heraclitus said that: “The road up and the road down is still the same road.”

Yes – to understand how the “middle” is actually no middle at all, one should read Heraclitus (with whom Jung was fascinated his whole life) or read Nagarjuna (who, as far as we know, was not an object of study for Jung).

No Book on Type without a Bias

Finally, it seems that most books on type must have some bias. In Keirsey, there was a bias in favor of the NT types, and in Myers, there was a bias against S types, and so on. In this book, we do not get a bias against S types, which is refreshing, but we do get a bias in favor of introverts. For example, in the chapter introducing introverts to the reader, we are treated to two examples of what an introvert is like: One is Albert Einstein, who didn’t want to talk to anybody for weeks on end, but only wanted to play the piano and study silently in his room. The other is J.S. Bach who reportedly didn’t “make an effort” to write his melodies, but simply snatched them out of the depths of his consciousness.

Now it is possible that some introverts will read these descriptions and think that these manners of conduct resonate with them. But these descriptions do in no way apply to your typical introvert. By selecting two extreme cases of genius to introduce the notion of an introvert to the reader, the book makes it sounds as if all introverts are either able to pull immortal masterpieces out of their cognition without having to put work into it, or that all introverts want to study alone for weeks on end and never get lonely or need to interact with other people.

On the conceptual level, the bias in favor of introverts is again in keeping with Jung, who was known to give extroverts a hard time in private and to generally favor introverts over extroverts, as indicated by the following quotes:

“Jung has [given many] reasons why the introvert is held back. It is true that he has mentioned many reasons; in fact, I can think of no possibility that he has omitted.” – Henry A. Murray

“Neither extraverted analysts nor extraverted patients have ever felt very much at home in Jungian circles.” – Marilyn Nagy

But ask yourself: Would Psychological Types have been a good book if Jung had bashed the extroverts and elevated the introverts in accordance with his personal biases? Is Psychological Types not a good book exactly because Jung defies his own biases in order to see the blessings and faults of both introverts and extroverts?

In fairness, we must repeat that there is nothing unusual about a book on Jungian typology having a bias for or against some types. If Jung’s Compass of Psychological Types had re-perpetuated the perennial bias against S types as found in the literature, we hardly would have raised an eyebrow. Not because such a bias is fair to the S types, but simply because it is so commonplace (and regrettably so).

An Encumbrance of Superego

In closing, Jung’s Compass of Psychological Types is certainly an original book. While it covers almost all of the same extrapolations of Jung’s theory that have previously been proposed (Myers, Keirsey, etc.), it manages to do so in its own way. However, one wonders why the book does not credit or mention other theorists when it repeats their innovations while merely adding its own flavor to them.

Johnston does know a thing or two about Jung, and unlike, certain other authors in the field, Johnston has studied and read Psychological Types. By the intention of a close adherence to Jung, as well as the sheer amount of perspectives that are touched upon in this book, everyone can expect to find something in here which they will agree with (and by implication, everyone will also find something in here which they will disagree with). We will certainly quote the parts that we agree with approval in our own book.

However, the overall structure of the book is flawed. It tries to do too many things at once and to be the “be all, end all” of books on type. The building blocks of an original book on the types are here, but in its present form, Jung’s Compass of Psychological Types cannot be said to live up to a Gifts Differing, a Character and the Unconscious, a  Lectures on Jung’s Typology, or even a Please Understand Me II, as all of these titles at least present a coherent take on how Jung’s typology should be understood, rather than trying to cover every possible interpretation at once.

A final observation: As Jung’s contemporary van der Hoop once said, Freudian psychology can sometimes yield some perspectives that Jungian psychology will miss and vice versa. In reading this book, a Freudian might have said that such an attempt to cover every possible interpretation of the subject material ultimately stems from a desire to appease the superego and that the author should work towards easing the encumbrance that he feels from the superego.

In its present form, we cannot recommend Jung’s Compass of Psychological Types. But if Johnston re-wrote the book with the aim of laying out what he wants to say (rather than trying to say everything), then his book could become a new Gifts Differing (and one that stays closer to the original Jung to boot). It could become a book that was more focused, more original, and where Johnston was singing in his own voice.

We will now argue these claims.

***

First, we look at some cursory definitions of Te and Ti as cognitive processes:

Te: Starts with the facts, then moves to the theory, then ends with the facts.
Ti: Starts with the theory, then moves to the facts, then ends with the theory.

Next, let’s look at the definitions of deduction and induction:

Deduction: Starts with the theory, then moves towards the facts.
Induction: Starts with the facts, then moves towards the theory.

So we see that neither Te nor Ti can be made to fit 100% with either deductive or inductive reasoning. Both functions are more complex than simple epithets like inductive or deductive.

***

But don’t take our word for it. Here is what Jung said about Te and Ti:

“External facts are not the aim and origin of [Ti]. … [Ti] formulates questions and creates theories, it opens up new prospects and insights, but with regard to facts its attitude is one of reserve. They are all very well as illustrative examples, but they must not be allowed to predominate. Facts are collected as evidence for a theory, never for their own sake. If ever this happens, it is merely a concession to the extraverted style.” (Psychological Types §628)

Bam. After this last sentence, it is hard to argue that Te should be more deductive than Ti.

Likewise, here is what Myers said about Te and Ti:

Te: “Relies on fact … depends upon the facts of experience … has a tendency to multiply facts.”

Ti: “Values facts chiefly as illustrative proofs of the idea … neglect[s] facts … coerce[s] them into agreement with the idea.”

(Both definitions are from Gifts Differing, chapter 8.)

So you see, Myers and Jung are in agreement: In Te, we have a greater preoccupation with the facts, while in Ti, we have a greater preoccupation with the theory.

With deductive reasoning, the overall theory determines the facts, whereas with inductive reasoning the overall facts determine the theory.

Deductive reasoning stresses the theory and neglects the facts that don’t fit, as does Ti.

Inductive reasoning stresses the facts and neglects the facets of the theory that do not fit, as does Te.

***

In the end, neither Jung nor Myers nor any of the other classical authors ever used the words ‘inductive’ and ‘deductive’ to make sense of Ti and Te. So maybe the argument will go on forever. But that doesn’t mean that the two lines of argument are equally cogent.

The problem appears to be that people learned in school that induction is ‘wrong,’ and so everyone wants their function to be the deductive one. However, while Induction may be ‘wrong’ in science, our lives would be vastly inefficient if we were to be deductive all the time.

Induction is efficient. It provides support for a conclusion without guaranteeing its ultimate truth. And in the real world, that is often enough. For example, if a bunch of business leaders are sitting around a table, deciding whether to launch a product, they have to use inductive reasoning: “We believe that this product will sell because similar products have sold in the past.” (Or the scientific equivalent: “I believe that the next swan that I see will be white, because almost all swans are white.”) If these business leaders used deductive reasoning, they would never get anywhere!

So there is nothing ‘wrong’ with inductive reasoning as long as one keeps scientific truth out of the question.

***

So that is our argument as to why Te is inductive and Ti is deductive. As we said, the functions are more complex than just these simple words, and our argument does in no way mean to say that actual people who prefer to reason by way of Te can’t use deductive logic when the situation calls for it, just as we are not saying that Ti users can’t use inductive logic when the situation calls for it.

On average, however, there is some connection to the overall point in so far as TJ types are more likely to “leave theoretical nuances on the table” as they pursue the facts, while TP types are more likely to “leave facts on the table” as they pursue the theory.

That’s all for now. Feedback is welcome.

***

Update: As John says in the comments below, there are some alternative definitions of deductive and inductive reasoning besides the classical one we cited above. Let’s look at those other definitions. Here are some different examples from a modern textbook:

Inductive Reasoning:

1. The window of my house is broken.
2. There are footprints in my house.
3. My valuables and electronics are missing.
4. Therefore, someone broke into my house.

This example is actually much the same as the classical definition of inductive reasoning that we gave above. One starts with the facts, and then moves towards the theory. We also clearly see here how the manner of reasoning is a multiplication of facts (i.e. an extrapolation from facts) and we know from Myers that Te reasons by the multiplications of facts. Thus, in this example, inductive reasoning is still more reminiscent of Te, even though a person who used Ti would probably conclude the same thing. The difference is not so much one of logic, as it is one of psychology: On average, a Te user would be more certain of the inductive conclusion that someone robbed the house than the Ti user would. For as Jung said, external facts are “not the aim” of Ti, and so the Ti user is less comfortable with this type of reasoning as it pertains to the outer world.

Next example.

Deductive Reasoning:

1. A woman was murdered in her bedroom.
2. If John was seen at the ballgame at the time of the murder, John cannot be the murderer.
3. John was seen at the ballgame.
4. Therefore, John is not the murderer.

Here we see a line of reasoning that is based on what follows logically from the premises. It is still deduction because the line of reasoning is not so much concerned with the facts as it is concerned with establishing a logical relation between the facts. In the burglar example above, even if 1, 2, and 3 are correct, 4 might still be wrong. In the ballgame example, if 1, 2, and 3 are correct, then 4 must be right. There is no guesswork or multiplication of facts involved.

However, while it would be nice to be able to peg this example to either Te or Ti, we don’t think that such an attribution is possible. In this example, we think the line of reasoning is simply logical, and whether the person reasoning has a preference for Te or Ti will be of minor importance here.

Now for a final example.

Deductive Reasoning:

1. All men are mortal.
2. Obama is a man.
3. Therefore, Obama is mortal.

Here we have an example of hierarchical reasoning. What is true for the higher level of organization (“man”) must be true for the lower levels as well (“Obama, a man”). This is a type of deductive reasoning, but it is actually more reminiscent of Te than Ti! How can that be? The reason is that here we see some top-down logic that actually leaves some theoretical nuances on the table. We reason in an efficient manner, and we don’t care about the possible exceptions to the rule. “What possible exceptions could there be,” you ask?

Well, for example, both the Buddha and the philosopher Immanuel Kant reasoned that mortality and immortality could never be proven. There were so-called “un-decidable” categories. For example, if a person is immortal, we will never see his immortality; we will merely see that he keeps living on, no matter what happens. But living past one’s last bout with fate does not guarantee that one won’t die the next time around (and if you thought that, that was because you used induction to try and establish the truth of the matter).

Likewise, with mortality, you don’t see the termination of consciousness. You only see consciousness leaving the body. So does consciousness terminate, or does it “live on” outside of the body? According to Kant and the Buddha, we cannot prove anything, either one way or the other.

These examples from Kant and the Buddha are reminiscent of the types of questions that are at the forefront of consciousness to a person that uses Ti with N (not necessarily in that order). In a similar situation, a Te user – even as he is using deductive reasoning – would be far more likely to simply look to the external facts and disregard these considerations by Kant and the Buddha as sophistries that are not relevant in the real world.

So in our final example, we actually provide an instance of a deductive argument that sits better with Te than Ti. But we also see that even when Te is prone to deductive reasoning, its lifeblood is still the facts, first and foremost. As we have said in this article, we do not deny that one can make an argument for Te being reminiscent of deductive reasoning, but based on the arguments that we have laid out above, we do contest that Te – with its preoccupation with efficiency and facts – could be said to be as deductively oriented as Ti.

“…Your comparison of Freud and myself [is quite correct]. Freud is essentially concretistic, like Newton, and I’m chiefly impressed by the relativity of psychological phenomena.” (Jung: Letters, vol. 1, Princeton University Press 1973, p. 301 – boldface added.)

Jung then goes on to on to explain to Robert Loeb how he now thinks that Freud is essentially an INFP who puts on an EST face when he theorizes. (Rather than Freud simply being an EST type, as Jung had thought at the time that he wrote Psychological Types.)

But what interests us here is that Jung tells Robert Loeb that “Freud is essentially concretistic, like Newton.” What does “concretistic” mean in Jung’s parlance? Jung gives us a definition at the end of Psychological Types:

“CONCRETISM. By this I mean a peculiarity of thinking and feeling which is the antithesis of abstraction. … Concretistic thinking operates exclusively with concrete concepts and percepts, and is constandy related to sensation. … Similarly, concretistic feeling is never segregated from its sensuous context. … Both of them depend on sensation and are only slightly differentiated from it. … In civilized man, concretistic thinking consists in the inability to conceive of anything except immediately obvious facts transmitted by the senses. … Concretism represents a fusion of thinking and feeling with sensation, so that the object of one is at the same time the object of the other. … This fusion prevents any differentiation of thinking and feeling and keeps them both within the sphere of sensation; they remain its servants and can never be developed into pure functions. The result is a predominance of the sensation factor in psychological orientation.” (Jung: Psychological Types §696 – 698 – boldface added.)

So, basically, someone who is concretistic is a Sensation-dominant type.

If Freud and Newton are “concretistic,” then, and concretism means “a predominance of the sensation factor in psychological orientation,” then Jung identified Newton as an S dominant type (ISTJ, ISFJ, ESTP, or ESFP).

***

Update: (After the comment by the user ‘Jungster’): As with Jung’s typing of Socrates, Jung expressed himself in a cagey manner, leaving multiple “trap doors” open to escape his own definition. The definition of “concretistic” that we cite is featured in a section of Psychological Types (§696 – 698) that is called “DEFINITIONS,” and as such, we defer to the “letter of the law” when we cite §696 – 698. Even more so, Jung himself felt that psychologists should use their terms with “fixity and precision,” (Psychological Types §674) so he would hardly be able to object to our reading.

But as ‘Jungster’ points out: By following the letter of the law, we may be doing justice to Jung’s formal definition, while failing to do justice to Jung’s meaning. This is probably the case with Jung’s typing of Socrates, where we follow a “letter of the law” reading, but where ‘Jungster’ is probably right that Jung was simply being promiscuous with his own terminology.

So are we betraying Jung’s meaning when we use his formal definition to say that he identified Newton as an S type? Is Jungster correct when he allows Jung a “longer leash” with regards to his own formal definitions? Quite possibly, he is. So scroll down and read the comment by ‘Jungster.’