Te and Ti: empirical and rational respectively

[Ezra]

Am I right in thinking that Te valuers prefer diving into the world and seeing things how they 'really' are rather than, like Ti valuers, conceptualising one's vision of the world and sticking to that view?

[Jonathan]

I'm going to quote someone that is a alpha NT, but what he says is probably only representative of a alpha NT.

This may be an accurate description of how Alpha NTs view thenmselves, but it would be wrong to take this further (as some have in the past) and assume that because an Alpha NT perceives himself as emphasizing "understanding" rather than memorizing "facts," then Ti must be "understanding" and Te must be "memorizing facts."

Here are the problems with Te being "memorizing facts":

1) Facts are static entities. But Te is a "dynamic" element.
2) Facts are judgment-neutral. But Te is a "judging" function.
3) Facts are typically discovered or validated via the senses, either directly or vicariously. But Te is not a sensing element.
4) Memorizing facts is very far removed from what Ti is. But Te is supposed to be the extraverted form and Ti the introverted form of something; so, their relationship should be closer than the relationship between Ti and memorizing facts.

[Phaedrus]

I agree with hkkmr that the quote expresses an Alpha NT view on understanding the world. In the first three passages we see one important difference between and being explained -- that is about understanding and is about knowledge (of facts). This difference has also been explained in a similar way by socionists, like for example Sergei Ganin, so I suggest that those who are still not sure what this is all about take a look at Ganin's articles and comments. Here is an example from his site: http://www.socionics.com/articles/intjorintp.htm

My first impression from hkkmr's quote was that the writer's most likely type is ENTp. One reason for that hypothesis is that I understand the style of the text and its content quite well. It is usually more difficult for me to follow the reasonings of an INTj.

After that preliminary and very rudimentary "analysis" I took the initial sentences of the quote and searched on the Internet. I found that it was written by David Deutsch, a person that I haven't read anything of yet, but when I checked I saw that Rick had put him in his ILE gallery, so I guess I have to agree with that typing for the moment. I need to read more about Deutsch to be sure what I think of his type, but ENTp seems like a good guess from my perspective.

[Phaedrus]

This may be an accurate description of how Alpha NTs view thenmselves, but it would be wrong to take this further (as some have in the past) and assume that because an Alpha NT perceives himself as emphasizing "understanding" rather than memorizing "facts," then Ti must be "understanding" and Te must be "memorizing facts."

I agree with you that we should not take self-perception of Alpha NTs and what they talk about for granted, but if we look closer at the content of that text by David Deutsch, I think we can see that it makes sense to see it as an expression of an perspective.

Facts are judgment-neutral. But Te is a "judging" function.

That is not entirely correct. Facts are, in a sense, judgment-neutral, but we cannot express those facts in stataments in a language without a judgment. So, facts are, in another and perhaps more important sense, not judgment-neutral. A fact is what a proposition (true or false) corresponds to, and if we keep that in mind, it might be easier to see the connection between facts and judgments.

Facts are typically discovered or validated via the senses, either directly or vicariously. But Te is not a sensing element.

Jung has explained the four functions this way: "Sensation establishes what is actually given, thinking enables us to recognize its meaning, feeling tells us its value, and finally intuition points to the possibilities of the whence and whither that lie within the immediate facts." (Modern Man in Search of a Soul, p. 96) And Jung has a very similar simple, pedagogic explanation of the functions in his first Tavistock Lecture.

It is correct to say that facts are typically discovered and validated via the senses, but that is not the same thing as directly observing a fact. What we are actually directly observing (and thus are taking in as raw "data" by our five senses) are not facts in themselves, because we don't recognize them as facts until we can describe what we observe in a language. It is possible to observe without being aware of what we are observing, and what we observe in such a "meditative" state of mind are not facts. Or we could say that we are actually observing facts in that situation too, but in that case we don't know which facts we are observing. To know what we see, hear, etc, and also to be able to communicate that knowledge to others, we need to add a language -- and that means adding an expressable meaning.

[FDG]

I agree with hkkmr that the quote expresses an Alpha NT view on understanding the world. In the first three passages we see one important difference between and being explained -- that is about understanding and is about knowledge (of facts). This difference has also been explained in a similar way by socionists, like for example Sergei Ganin, so I suggest that those who are still not sure what this is all about take a look at Ganin's articles and comments. Here is an example from his site: http://www.socionics.com/articles/intjorintp.htm

My first impression from hkkmr's quote was that the writer's most likely type is ENTp. One reason for that hypothesis is that I understand the style of the text and its content quite well. It is usually more difficult for me to follow the reasonings of an INTj.

After that preliminary and very rudimentary "analysis" I took the initial sentences of the quote and searched on the Internet. I found that it was written by David Deutsch, a person that I haven't read anything of yet, but when I checked I saw that Rick had put him in his ILE gallery, so I guess I have to agree with that typing for the moment. I need to read more about Deutsch to be sure what I think of his type, but ENTp seems like a good guess from my perspective.

I must be an alpha NT then. Because I entirely agree with that quote.

[Phaedrus]

I must be an alpha NT then. Because I entirely agree with that quote.

Me too. I agree with its content in the sense that everything said there is true. But I wouldn't express my own views in the same way, and I don't hate memorizing facts.

[Creepy-Cyclops]

I guess you could say that T types in general probably are more retarded than F types, because they don't understand people and emotions quite as well.

[Kristiina]

Am I right in thinking that Te valuers prefer diving into the world and seeing things how they 'really' are rather than, like Ti valuers, conceptualising one's vision of the world and sticking to that view?

well I agree with this. I've noticed the same. Like one time I was trying to describe Ti to the INTp husband and he was saying that every theory needs clear facts. And I told him about Einstein. "That's a perfect example of a person using a bunch of theories, not facts, and building a new theory." Te is the extroverted function that needs clear facts from the real world (even Te produces subjective data like all the other judging functions) and Ti is the introverted function that can use theory to create theory. He was baffled that all science doesn't rely on clear facts and he hadn't really thought of it that way.

So yeah, Te is empirical (relies on empirical facts) and Ti is rational (in the sense that it's the product of logics and the mind).

[Logos]

I would just precaution that alot of the discussion of Ti in this thread is oriented more towards Ti + Ne and likewise with discussion of Te leaning more towards Te + Ni.

[Kristiina]

I would just precaution that alot of the discussion of Ti in this thread is oriented more towards Ti + Ne and likewise with discussion of Te leaning more towards Te + Ni.

This is all 口语翻译,排版,网站本地化 to me. (PS! Don't try to translate, I don't know what those symbols mean, but that's the point of the post. )

[Kristiina]

I would just precaution that alot of the discussion of Ti in this thread is oriented more towards Ti + Ne and likewise with discussion of Te leaning more towards Te + Ni.

on second look, it's Te+Ni, not Te+. I do get the gamma style Te and alpha style Ti talk. But I still stand by what I said. Like for example what I said about Ti creating theory from theory like Einstein did. ISTjs may be more realistic than INTjs but they still create theory upon theory, using rational thinking to "create" new truth.

[krieger]

1) Facts are static entities. But Te is a "dynamic" element.

Gulenko uses the terms "synthetical" and "analytical" to denote dynamic and static respectively; these seem to work fairly well in regard to the difference between the kinds of "facts" that Te and Ti respectively handle.

[Logos]

on second look, it's Te+Ni, not Te+. I do get the gamma style Te and alpha style Ti talk. But I still stand by what I said. Like for example what I said about Ti creating theory from theory like Einstein did. ISTjs may be more realistic than INTjs but they still create theory upon theory, using rational thinking to "create" new truth.

I would not say that it is necessarily more realistic, but rather that LSIs deal with the objective relationships of more tangible and apparent properties (i.e. institutional organization).

[Phaedrus]

Gulenko uses the terms "synthetical" and "analytical" to denote dynamic and static respectively; these seem to work fairly well in regard to the difference between the kinds of "facts" that Te and Ti respectively handle.

Yes, I prefer to talk in terms of differences between analytical and synthetical thinking too, because that makes it easier to understand what this is all about. You can also find most of it in Jung's writings, because in his Psychological Types he actually described the differences between Te and Ti in terms of the synthetical/analytical distinction.

[Kristiina]

I would not say that it is necessarily more realistic, but rather that LSIs deal with the objective relationships of more tangible and apparent properties (i.e. institutional organization).

lol, I had my husband translate this into English.

[Jonathan]

That is not entirely correct. Facts are, in a sense, judgment-neutral, but we cannot express those facts in stataments in a language without a judgment. So, facts are, in another and perhaps more important sense, not judgment-neutral. A fact is what a proposition (true or false) corresponds to, and if we keep that in mind, it might be easier to see the connection between facts and judgments.

Jung has explained the four functions this way: "Sensation establishes what is actually given, thinking enables us to recognize its meaning, feeling tells us its value, and finally intuition points to the possibilities of the whence and whither that lie within the immediate facts." (Modern Man in Search of a Soul, p. 96) And Jung has a very similar simple, pedagogic explanation of the functions in his first Tavistock Lecture.

It is correct to say that facts are typically discovered and validated via the senses, but that is not the same thing as directly observing a fact. What we are actually directly observing (and thus are taking in as raw "data" by our five senses) are not facts in themselves, because we don't recognize them as facts until we can describe what we observe in a language. It is possible to observe without being aware of what we are observing, and what we observe in such a "meditative" state of mind are not facts. Or we could say that we are actually observing facts in that situation too, but in that case we don't know which facts we are observing. To know what we see, hear, etc, and also to be able to communicate that knowledge to others, we need to add a language -- and that means adding an expressable meaning.

That's fair. These are good points. However, the misconception I'm trying to address is the idea that Te is expressed by, for example, caring more about the fact that so-and-so was born in 1837 than about the role that person played in history....or that Te is about memorizing some formula, whereas Ti is about knowing what the formula means.

In these cases, the role of any sort of logical judgment in establishing the fact is rather trivial.

[Jonathan]

Am I right in thinking that Te valuers prefer diving into the world and seeing things how they 'really' are rather than, like Ti valuers, conceptualising one's vision of the world and sticking to that view?

As to this, diving into the world could pertain any extraverted element, whereas conceptualizing according to one's own particular view could be any introverted element.

However, if one's focused on issues of "logic" specifically, then I think your statement is basically correct.

In practice though, other elements could easily get confused with Te and Ti. For example, Ni may also be seen as having one's own vision of something.

Also, crea-Ti may not necessarily be perceived as "sticking" to a view.

[Logos]

lol, I had my husband translate this into English.

Sorry?