It is true that Keirsey describes the INTPs as "preoccupied with spatial relativity and systems design", as "the architects of curricula, of corporations, and of all kinds of theoretical systems", and as "men and women whose aim is to design systematic structures and to engineer structural models". He says that the INTP "is the logician, the mathematician, the technologist, the scientist--that person given to any pursuit that requires architechtonics, systems analysis, or structural design. Is this
? Let's compare with the INTJs.
Keirsey says that the INTJs "build data and human systems wherever they work, if given the slightest opportunity. And in MBTT the INTJs are commonly known as the "Systems Builders" of the types. Keirsey says that they are described as good at contingency planning and strategy, and that their "traits of character lead them to occupations where theoretical models can be translated into actuality."
Now, which of these two type has the essential
qualities? The correct answer is the INTJ. Why? Because the crucial difference between INTJs and INTPs is that LIIs (INTJs) want to
implement a system, "force" it onto reality so to say -- that is how LIIs and LSIs are described in Socionics (compare the implementation of a system in Stalin, or Putin, or Robespierre, which all three are typical examples of
manifested in real life behaviour) -- whereas the ILIs (INTPs) want to make a correct
representation of objective reality in a model or a theory.
The INTJs (LIIs) want to turn their subjective ideas, their
systems, into something practically useful. They want to
shape reality according to their internal demands. The INTPs (ILIs) accept reality as it is, and are primarily interested in
knowing the truth about that reality. "What is imoportant [to the INTPs according to Keirsey] is that the underlying structures of the universe be stated correctly, with coherence and without redundancy. Curiosity concerning these fundamental structures is the driving force in INTPs, and they care little whether others understand or accept their ideas." This attitude of the INTPs is an
Objectivist attitude. It is an
empiricist attitude. And thus it is clearly a
attitude. The INTPs believe that there is an objective truth to be found, and that it is their job to try to find it.
The INTJs's attitude is different, and that should be obvious to you if you have read Socionics LII type descriptions, Jung's description of introverted thinking, and studied the attitudes of real life LIIs/INTJs. LIIs are
Subjectivists. They tend (as for example Kant) to relativize the notions of "truth" and "reality", and they are not interested in knowing things about objective reality itself, because it is the nature of
to be more interested in the categories by which we
comprehend or
define reality. LIIs are not very much interested in
facts about the universe, not primarily interested in getting more knowledge, but instead interested in
understanding the mechanisms behind the thinking process.
That is what
philosophers are focused on. And it often leads them to become relativists of some sort, just as the Subjectivist attitude is described in the Reinin dichotomies, or as the INJ mindset is explained by Lenore Thomson:
http://greenlightwiki.com/lenore-exe...rted_Intuition
Here is an important aspect of "Ni", according to Thomson, that is very characteristic of
and very Kantian in spirit: "For INJs, patterns aren't 'out there' in the world, waiting to be discovered. They're part of
us – the way we make sense of the riot of energy and information impinging on our systems."