How types of typologists influence their functional descriptions

[CR400AF]

The idea is that when typologists are writing functional/elemental descriptions, their views are influenced by their own type. Hence, we could analyze two aspects from this information:

1) What's the possible type of this typologist? One's descriptions tend to be influenced by her or his own type and there should be some clues from his writings.
2) How well does this typologist understand Jungian typology? Although her or his descriptions will be biased according to her/his own type, if one understands Jungian typology correctly, the bias will be more limited.

For instance, Aushra has some bias toward ILE: she claims that ILEs become scientists or writers under favorable conditions and she types most famous scientists as Ne-leading types. Also, her examples of sensing elements are not as vivid as her Ne descriptions. However, her descriptions are generally correct and the bias is quite limited.

Carl Jung


Jung typed himself as Ti-leading and N-secondly, which means LII in Socionics. I also type him as LII. There are a lot of reasons to type him as LII but today let's discuss how his type affects his descriptions.

1. Te-ignoring
Jung describes the negative effects of all the 8 elements but he has a particular negative bias toward Te. He said:

The destructive quality of this thinking as well as its occasional and limited usefulness, hardly need further elucidation.

The vertiginous abundance of the socalled scientific literature of today owes a deplorably high percentage of its existence to this misorientation.

So Jung not only describes the negative effect of overusing Te but also claims that Te itself only has occasional and limited usefulness, he also attributes many problems in scientific researches to Te. Overall, Jung has the most negative attitude toward Te, this implies Ti-leading and Te-ignoring. I don't understand why various typologists (both Eastern and Western) such as Lytov and Beebe typed him as Ni-Te since he is obviously a Ti-valuing person.

2. Ti-Ne block
Jung distinguishes Ti and Ne clearly. When he describes Ti and Ne, the first definitions and descriptions are mostly pure Ti and pure Ne and the descriptions are pretty good. However, when he extended his description, it's visible that he has a Ti-Ne block.

Hence, in the statement of new facts, its chief value is indirect, because new views rather than the perception of new facts are its main concern. It formulates questions and creates theories; it opens up prospects and yields insight, but in the presence of facts it exhibits a reserved demeanour.

When Jung extended his descriptions on Ti, the novelty is valued in his Ti descriptions and this is more true to Ti blocked with Ne. Also, his descriptions of Ti-leading types are mostly LII instead of LSI. This is another evidence to type Jung as LII.

The primary function of intuition is to transmit mere images, or perceptions of relations and conditions, which could be gained by the other functions, either not at all, or only by very roundabout ways.

This one is not as well-documented as Ti and it's a bit arbitrary, but there's also a bit of clue. When Jung describes Ne, the first paragraph is very pure and insightful. But when he extends the descriptions you could see Ti here. He claims that relations are also transmitted by Ne. This is true but it is somewhat a Ne feature that is more valued by Ti instead of Fi. When the penetrating vision of Ne perceives the essence of objects, relationships show up (eg. two different objects have the same essence). However, finding such connections are mostly useful for systematic analysis and creating systems. On the contrary, when John Beebe defines Ne, it's more related to Fi.

3. Se-PoLR

This one is more arbitrary. But when counting his descriptions on functions (exclude the types), the results are:

Te: 1923 words; Fe: 699 words; Se: 418 words; Ne: 732 words; Ti: 1290 words; Fi: 702 words; Si: 770 words; Ni: 1062 words (I'm using the English version from Wikisocion for counting)

Te is the first function he described so there are a lot of general discussions. For instance, he also discussed Ti in his Te descriptions. Then he used more words to describe Ti and Ni. This is also quite understandable. However, his descriptions of Se are extraordinarily short.

Also, you could see that when describing other functions, he illustrated how the function works in detail. For extraverted functions, he discussed how subjective factors are repressed. For introverted functions, he described how subjective factors are utilized. Only for Se, his descriptions are mostly trying to argue that Se is repressing the subjective factor. He didn't show how Se is ignoring the subjective factors but he just keeps emphasizing this point then claims that Se leads to "ruthless enjoyments".

Overall, I think these are how Jung's personality type reveals in his descriptions.

Viktor Gulenko

Now we switch to Viktor Gulenko. He typed himself as LII and I agree with his self-typing.

1. Ti-leading

His descriptions on Ti contain some extremely broad descriptions. Instead of being a Ti description, I would say that it's probably a description of an arbitrary ego judgmental function.

While thinking in the L-state, a person compares one object with another according to one or another criterion and places the object in a corresponding box on the classification table.

Of course, this is not the whole description, he also claimed that Ti logic is not aimed at profitability (I don't really like this word choice). However, here let's focus on this sentence, which is how he describes Ti thinking at the intellectual level. This sentence is extremely broad such that it can describe all ego judgmental functions.

To some extent, classification = judgmental. Why? We show it in two directions. At first, classification is a judgmental process, so classification ⊆ judgmental. On the other hand, when we make any arbitrary judgements, we are conducting a classification such that each possible judgmental result is a class and we choose a class for the judgmental process. Hence, judgmental ⊆ classification. Overall, we have classification = judgmental.

So this Ti-thinking description could actually fit any ego judgmental function. Example: Fi compares I with the girl I love according to the subjective feeling criterion, the classification table contains various options such as "love", "like" and "hate", I place it in the corresponding box labeled "love".

Also using "compare" to describe the relationship-oriented feature is a bit vague. Actually, Te and Fe also fit into this description. Example: When trying to buy a tool, Te compares brand A and brand B according to the experimental efficiency criterion, since the experiment shows that brand A is 50% more efficient than brand B, I place brand A in the corresponding box labeled as "buy it".

Ti differs from Te in the criterion for making judgments, but these descriptions fail to show this and it becomes a general description of an ego judgmental function. When Ti is not an ego function (eg. ignoring, suggestive) it might have a different thinking pattern.

2. Fi-role

In Gulenko's Fi description, it's also visible that he is a Fi-role type.

The intellectual and communicative aspects of R manifests themselves as veiled or hidden assessments. Reasoning in the R-state manifests as a person being afraid to admit to themselves and others that they prefer one object over another. In this state, a choice is made between two logically identical options.

At first, Fi is not necessarily afraid of admitting her or his preferences. This is more true to the Fi-role of LIIs. Also, he claims that a choice is made between two logically identical options. This is clearly Fi-role instead of Fi-leading. LIIs are Ti-leading and Fi-role, so they use Fi as a role-playing function. When Ti is not enough (eg. two options are logically identical) they have to refer to Fi. However, for Fi-leading types, it's the contrary. They mostly rely on Fi. Ti is their role function. Although I'm an LII, let me try to imitate this sentence from the perspective of Fi-leading types: In Ti state, a choice is made between two ethically identical options.

This implies that Gulenko is Ti-leading and Fi-role.

John Beebe

John Beebe types himself as ENTP. Although I'm not very familiar with him, I type him as IEE according to his functional definitions.

1. Ne-Fi block

Beebe's Ne definitions are more a description of Ne blocked with Fi.

entertaining, envisioning, enabling

It ends with enabling. Beebe explains that:

As soon as, through a process of ‘envisioning,’ I am firmly committed to advancing possibilities that I have formerly simply entertained myself with, I find that I become quite naturally interested in ‘enabling’ others to see and profit from these same possibilities.

Compare it with Jung's extended description on Ne. Ne envisions the essence of objects. Then the possibilities and relationships are becoming obvious. While Jung focuses more on the connections made obvious by Ne, which help to build systems, Beebe focuses more on the possibilities that could be shared with his friends. He even claims that the final step of Ne is to share it. When sharing something, it must deal with the problem that how you view the person. Most of us share our findings with our friends but we don't want to tell our enemies. So from my perspective, Beebe's Ne definitions are actually Ne blocked with Fi. This suggests that his Ne is in the same block with Fi.

2. Fi-ego and Ti-superego

Beebe's Fi and Ti definitions suffer from the same problem as Gulenko's descriptions. His Fi definition is too broad that it's a general definition of ego judgmental function. While when defining Ti he has a more passive word choice, this implies him having Ti in his superego.

Fi: Judging, Appraising, Establishing the value
Ti: Naming, Defining, Understanding

He uses the word "judging" for Fi. Doesn't Ti judge? Doesn't Ti appraise and evaluate? His Fi definitions perfectly fit my Ti-leading: I judge Socionics and MBTI according to logical consistency, then I appraise that Socionics is logically consistent while MBTI is not, finally I establish the value that Socionics is my choice of Jungian typology.

His Ti definition uses passive words such as "understanding". Of course, Ti tries to understand something but doesn't Fi understand? Fi also names, defines, and understands. For instance Fi names "love", defines "love" and understands "love". The difference is that understanding is much more passive than his Fi words. It reads like that you got something from society and you have to understand it. It's more related to the super-ego.

For instance, as an LII, I have to understand social relations. I try to understand my relationship with my friends and colleagues. When I'm dating I don't know whether the girl loves me or not, I try to understand it. But when I judge, I use Ti more since I have Ti in my ego. I am strong at my Ti so I simply understand Ti-related information easily. For Ti, it's "I know" instead of "I have to".

By this example, I am trying to argue that Beebe's word choice on defining Ti and Fi fails to capture the fundamental difference between Ti and Fi. Rather, it shows that he prefers to judge with Fi and he uses Ti in a more passive manner.

3. possibly Te-valuing

Te: Regulating, Planning, Enforcing

His definition of Te has the same problem. Can't Ti be used in planning? Of course, it can. The fundamental difference is the criterion of judgments. As an LII, which has Ti as the leading function, I also utilize my Ti when planning. I check whether a plan is logically consistent or not, I try to create a perfect plan which has no logical fallacies. I also consider Fe when planning since I don't want my activity to result in a horrible atmosphere in the office.

Why does he attribute these words to Te? I can come up with two possible reasons:

1) It's possible that he understands extraversion as "to the outside world" and he interprets introversion as "about myself". Since planning is about doing something, he attributes it to an extraverted function. If it's this case, his understanding of E/I is not Jungian but rather more similar to the one of Eysenck.
2) It's also possible that he is Te-valuing. So when he is planning, he prefers to make logical judgments on the Te side.

And perhaps both are true. So this also implies that he might be a Te-valuing type. As a result, I type him as IEE. So it turns out that he might have mistpyed himself as ILE, and he also mistyped Jung as Ni-Te.

Also, his definitions fail to differentiate perceiving functions from judgmental ones. For instance, he defines Si as Implementing, Verifying, Accounting. Isn't "verifying" a judgmental process? He even fails to obey the fundamental definition that Si is a perceiving function. But that's off-topic for this article.

Conclusion

The descriptions written by typologists are affected by their own types. Jung and Aushra have the most limited bias such that Jung describes all elements accurately and only in his extended descriptions and type descriptions there are some clues of his own type. Descriptions by Gulenko and Beebe are more biased toward their own types. Some explanations in their descriptions are very broad such that they are essentially describing how their own type use this cognitive function (IME) instead of descrbing the function (IME) itself. Gulenko types himself correctly while Beebe probably fails.

[Metaphor]

Now I'm intrigued with ILI and ILE's functional descriptions as typologists.