068 - Jung's Personality Types & Hegel: Operating Manual for the Mind

The great psychologist Carl Jung was a leading pioneer in psychological type analysis.  In fact, he coined the terms "extrovert" and "introvert."  His work spawned a whole industry of personality analysis which is as strong today as ever.  

And key to his psychological type system was his recognition of Intuition, or the "small still voice within."  This function has direct correspondence to Hegel's notion of Spirit.  In a 1933 lecture on proto-psychologists in philosophy, Jung thought that had a scientific study of psychology existed back in Hegel’s time, Hegel would probably have been a psychologist.   

This episode reviews Jung's work, relates it to Hegel, and offer a new dimension based on Jung's work - the Creative/Receptive.  

Transcript

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This is Gregory Nowak. This is the cunning of Geist episode 68. Welcome back. The purpose of this podcast is to explore philosophy, psychology and science with an emphasis on the great 18th century philosopher. George Wilhem Friedrich Hagle. Now. Onto the episode. In this episode, I'm going to do a deep dive into psychologist, Carl Young's famous personality type theory, and combine it with Hegel's notion of freedom and spirit to come up with some original speculation on my own part. Regarding a new dimension of personality that I think it uncovers what I'm calling the creative versus the receptive dimension. This episode will cover how I derive this new aspect of personality from the work of both young and Hagle. But first, before we get into Young's theory of personality, type a bit on the person himself. Young was born in. 1875 in Switzerland and trained as a physician. He began a correspondence with Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis in 1904. both Freud and young together are considered the founders of modern psychotherapy. Freud. In fact said the younger young would be his successor in this burgeoning field. However, the two, eventually he had a break. A pretty bad breakup with centered, primarily in two elements. First Freud's concept of libido of sexuality. Essentially Freud side is the cornerstone of personality development and young thought there was much more going on. Second. There was there difference? There are different view on the unconscious. Freud side is just a repository of repressed desires and nothing more. While young side is a gateway to something much deeper, the collective unconscious. Which we discussed in detail in episode 49 of this podcast. Young wrote extensively on many aspects of mine and psychology. But what I will be focusing on today is his theory of personality types. Now personality type theories have existed for millennia. Going back to the four humors of Galen who was the second century Greek physician. However it is really young who put personality type on the map. In fact, he coined the term introvert and extrovert. What's your in common language today. His theory was first expressed in his landmark, 1921 book entitled psychological types. Essentially the book proposes four main psychological functions. Two of them are judgmental functions, thinking and feeling. And two of them are perceptual functions, sensation and intuition. And I did an entire episode on these four psychological functions. Back in episode 34. And in that episode, I also compared to Young's for functions. To the analogy George Gurdjieff used of the horse drawn carriage, where the carriage represented the body or sensation. The horse represents the emotions or feelings the driver represents the thinking process and the person in the coach represents the intuition. Now, what was breakthrough here was that young proposed that everyone has a dominant function. Either sensation, feelings thought or intuition. And that the opposite function is actually suppressed in the unconscious whatever's opposite to the dominant one that becomes more of a shadow. Type, of, um, function to the individual. Oh, a good way to look at this is as a cross. With intuition at the top of the cross and sensation at the bottom of the cross. Thinking would be on the right side of the horizontal line. And feelings or emotions on the left side of the line. Picture yourself at the center of the cross. And you have to face one of the functions as your dominant function. And the one behind you is the one function you suppress. For example, if thinking. Is your dominant function. You would face to the right side of the cross facing the thinking function. And feelings and our emotions would be behind your back. We're presenting the shadow part of, of your, uh, psychology on your right side would be sensations. And on your left side, intuition using the cross. Example. And just one of these functions though, either on the right or the left would be your secondary or auxiliary function. So someone has dominant function was thinking might have sensation as a secondary function, or they might have intuition. Now. Young also introduced the important notion of how the dominant function is expressed. It's either expressed in an introverted manner or an extroverted manner. Or attitude. So he saw four functions. Intuition thinking sensation and feeling. And whether they're expressed either, introvertedly or extroverted only. So that yields a total of eight, eight personality types. An extroverted sensor, an introverted sensor, and so on. Now Young's personality types were picked up by him. Famous mother daughter team. Catherine Cook Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers. They used Young's work as their basis, but edit another dimension. To create 16 personality types. They publish their work in. 1944 has is the Briggs Meyers type indicator. And then change the name. They switched the name to Myers Briggs type indicator in 1956. The Myers Briggs test is very well known and many of you have probably taken this test. I for one took it when I worked for a larger organization years ago. And they had everyone in the company take the test to identify work styles. Which was hoped that it would improve communication styles and better productivity. With coworkers among coworkers. And people came to know their type is identified by four letters. You may have heard these such as ENF, P and S in there, 15 others. So. How did Myers and Briggs adapt Young's functions specifically? Well, first they kept the original four functions of young and presented them as two choices. Now thinking versus feeling is one choice, one preference and sensation versus intuition is a different second preference. Now here's our first big difference from young young thought that only one of the four functions would be dominant with a backup auxiliary function as secondary. Whereas Myers Briggs presents two preferences. You thinking versus feeling and then intuition versus sensations, two separate dimensions. Secondly young is the major function of an individual being expressed in an introverted or extroverted manner. But Myers-Briggs adds this introvert extra dimension is a third polarity on top of the thinking, feeling polarity and this sensor intuitor polarity. So to repeat with Yung, one of the four functions is dominant. Both Myers Briggs, two of the four are considered primary. And as I said, they added in a third introvert extrovert polarity as its own separate dimension, but that it doesn't stop there. They even added one more dimension to their system. A fourth dimension, which they call judgment versus perception. And this is unique to their system. And what this represents this judgment versus perception is an attitude toward. One's outer life. Uh, judger would rely more on either thinking or feeling dimension. Whereas the perceiver would rely more on the sensation, intuition dimension. Uh, judger prefers rules and ways to make decisions through thought or emotions. Where the perceiver is more spontaneous and open to new ideas and what is coming to them from either the inside intuition or from the outside sensation. So to recap, In Myers-Briggs there are four polarities yielding 16 different types. Which differ to some degree from Young's original eight types. Basically. As I said, they separated the introvert extrovert as a separate dimension and created the judger perceiver dimension. And rather than a dominant and auxiliary function, they had a thinking, feeling dimension in a sensing, intuitive dimension as well. So that's the basics. Now let's bring Hagle into the picture. I have discussed before. Hegel's two different functions of thought. Understanding and reason. Which in German is, uh, for stunt and Vernon. And that understanding for stunt common thinking corresponds to the thinking function. Whereas reason for Corresponds more to the intuitive function. And this is somewhat difficult to grasp. It's it's hard to. Understand really what is meant by the intuitive function, but it's a critical part of Young's whole psychology. And let's just spend a minute on intuition. Intuition for young, with something beyond the ordinary and really lies at the heart of his psychology. This was w very well expressed in the following quote, which I will now read, quote. Intuition is central in the work practice and philosophical legacy of CG young. Young was attracted to intuition. Isn't an extra ordinary gift or function in the traditional sense. His personal and private use of intuition. And we know how extraordinarily intuitive he was led young to fully incorporate intuition at the core of his psychology. Not only in his practice. But in the crucial, intuitive form of empathy, But as we will see also at the very heart of his theory. In 1921 young road, psychological types were intuition, became one. The first of the four fundamental functions and types of the psych next to thinking, feeling and sensation. In 1921 in this book, young prove to the world in rational argument that intuition was no longer a psychologist hobby for table turning, but the most significant function of the psych. And quilt. What is clear here is that intuition for young was something deeper and more profound. Than ordinary thinking. It connects us with a deeper level of consciousness, what he called the collective unconscious. And we did a whole episode in this back in episode 56. In other words. Intuition corresponds to what Hagle would call spirit. And this nicely corresponds well to Gurdjieff's analogy of the horse drawn carriage. And tuition, would it relate to the person in the coach, the master within if you will. It is inside us, inside us all. And it's what gives us direction and purpose in our lives. The still small voice within you here. Should we choose to listen. And we cannot see this person sitting in the coach, but it is. To this one in the coach that the driver. The thinking must get direction from. And this is a perfect analogy to Vernon. Compton for stomp reasoning and understanding and the right and left brain ways of thinking that we described way back in episode 10. Now today's world. Most people did not recognize that there is someone inside the coach. The driver just ensures that the horse is fed and that the carriage is kept in shape. And this is a fundamental problem in the world today, as we've discussed so many times in these various episodes, I contend that life does have purpose. Then we can get in touch with the source of that purpose. To guide us and direct us in life. The master within the still small voice within using the analogy of the horse-drawn carriage, the person inside the carriage. And it's just this. Person or entity. That connects us to spirit is spirit. W that connects us to the collective unconscious to the bigger picture of our purpose here. How many do not see this purpose, they deny there's anyone, even in the carriage, they deny any underlying connection to others. Life to them is mechanical, separate or random accident. And that is it. Now let's go back to what I said in the beginning of the episode. And analyzing Young's personality types in reviewing the work of Myers Briggs. I've come up with a new dimension. A new polarity, which I call creative versus receptive. Let me explain how I developed it. First is background. I spent most of my professional career in the field of market research, studying what motivates people to buy certain goods and services. One of the most useful tools I found in developing marketing strategy was a uni in personality types. I even coined a phrase for marketing this way of looking at things which I dubbed psych type. Let me cover some examples of how this worked in the business world. In a study done for one of the fast food giants. And I did. I find that their customers were not really motivated by the warm and fuzzy, emotional appeal of their current advertising. And then what they're actually looking for their customers was a good meal at a good price served quickly. And the company was using an emotional feeler type campaign. When a more rational, direct approach would have worked better. Another example was a large hotel chain. And they were offering the rational benefits of a functional room and a great price to attract their business person clientele. What I found was that the business people that stayed in the chain responded to a more emotional appeal of kind of your home away from home pitch. They traveled a lot and want some warmth at where they stay. So the company ended up putting, working fireplaces in each of the lobbies to enhance the emotional appeal. But anyway. Here's what I've developed first. I do agree with the young that each of us has a dominant function of the four, either intuition thinking, feeling, or sensation, and this differs from Myers-Briggs, but I'm with young hair. And I also believe that each person has a secondary auxiliary function. He mentioned this, but he didn't use it in developing his eight types. He only said that the four were either expressed introvertedly or extroverted Lilly. I'm saying now though, that if you take the person's primary function and they add to it, their secondary function, you now come up with eight types. Now. Let me give you an example. Again, going back to the cross example I used before. If one is standing in the middle of the cross facing their major function. The auxiliary function is either to the right side or the left side of the one dominant function. And as I said, this produces a types. Now, let me just list them. You don't have to memorize this, but for the dominant one will be said first, then the secondary. So there are eight types. One intuitive thinker. To intuitive feeler three thinker sensor, four thinker, intuitive, five sensor feeler, six sensor thinker, seven feeler intuitive, eight feeler sensor. Now this is different from Young's eight types, which are formed by taking each dominant function. As I said, and expressing it. Extroverted or introverted only. When I'm doing. Is putting the dominant in the secondary function. As the primary categories and each of these four dominant functions is paired with two possible secondary functions. So I hope this is clear. Now. Going back to haggle. I believe that two of the functions, the intuitive and the thinking are superior. They're a higher level, a higher order than the two other functions, feeling incense. And this is pretty obvious as most pet owners realize most higher animals have emotions. And most living things have some physical sense of what's going on about them. Intuition and reason are what separates us from the animals. They are our highest functions. So based on this and Hegel's work, I came up with another dimension. A lower and a higher polarity, which gave the name of creative and receptive. Intuition and thinking of the creative functions and feelings and sensations are the more receptive. Of course, we all use for functions. The question is which one's dominated, which ones are suppressed. And this new dimension of creative receptive, I believe is equally valid as the other dimensions of introvert, extrovert and judger perceiver. Now I'm not disregarding the other two dimensions of judging, perceiving or introvert extrovert. That Myers Brigg uses. In fact, each of my eight types can be further profile along those two additional dimensions as well. But because of the way I've set it up the way I've formed this, you still end up with a types automatically. Uh, so whatever you pick as your primary and your secondary, that automatically tells you where you land on the judging, perceiving. Or introvert extrovert dimension. Let me show you how this works. The creative side contains both the intuitor and the thinker. And there are two cases of this, the intuitive thinker, where the intuitives dominant and thinker secondary, and the thinker intuitive where the thinker is dominant and the intuitive secondary. And the intuitive thinker, the intuitives dominance of the person would be more of a perceiver cause that's intuitive. It's classified as a perception. And intuition. Is classified as a perceiver, as I just said, rather than a judgment function, the Myers Briggs. And likewise, the thinker intuitive. With the thinker being dominant would be more of a judger than perceiver because thinking comes first and it was more of a judgemental function than a proceeding function. Now in addition, one can also map the introvert extrovert dimension onto the four functions. Introvert being represented by the intuitive function and the feeling function. And extrovert being represented by the sensation function and thinking function. So the intuitive thinker would also be a perceiver in an introvert. And the thinker intuitive would also be a judger and an extrovert. But again, you still only have eight types based on dominant and secondary functions. And the introvert extrovert in judger, perceiver categories fall. As I have shown now I do recognize it's very tough to keep track of this. And again, let me go back to the cross example. Um, put intuition at the top again, sensation at the bottom, thinking of the right and feelings at the left. The vertical line, the up and down line is the perceiver dimension. The horizontal line. Is the judgmental dimension. Now. Let's connect the four points on the outside as a diamond as in a diamond or rhombus. Now the right, the upper right line is the creative dimension consisting of intuition and thinking. The lower left line is the receptive dimension consisting of feeling. Feelings in sensations. The upper left line. Is the introvert dimension consisting of intuition and feelings and the lower right line is the extrovert. Dimension consisting of thinking and sensation. So, what I've done is I've kept the four primary functions of intuition thinking, feeling and sensation. I've met three different dimensions on top of that. First to create a reception dimension. Which I've discussed. Next, the perceiver judger dimension, which I've discussed and then the introvert extra. Extrovert dementia, which I have discussed. And there you have it. Now. Perhaps I can share some diagrams again. I realize this is tough to visualize when I'm just hearing the spoken word. Uh, hopefully I can put it up on the Facebook page, maybe even on the Patrion page. So you can visualize this and it, it's tough. Just hearing me talk about it. But let me summarize. I am postulating a new dimension to the union Myers-Brigg functions and dimensions of personality. What I call the creative receptive dimension. I struggled with what to call this and ended up with the creative receptive, which I borrowed from the E Ching. To be honest. Which the Eachine calls these, the creative and the receptive, the two primary forces in the universe. And this is symbolized in the yin yang symbol. And I believe it ties directly to Hagen's mind with the nature of spirit. And I also believe this creative receptive dimension is a fundamental aspect of one's personality. Some seem to be born with no or little capacity for creativity. And others live by it. Now I believe that creativity, freedom spirit is what moves the world forward in terms of improvement. I'll be at very slowly. With fits and starts. That is why it is so important to keep the figurative fight alive, to fight for the ascendancy of mind and spirit and creativity and freedom. Uh, when I say fight, I don't believe that this is actually accomplished by direct confrontations with others in arguments. I believe it's more a matter of asking others to keep an open mind, to show them why an open mind is the preferred. Um, state and to tell them to go where the evidence leads them and where their gut leads to them. So. To summarize. We have reviewed Carl Young's pioneer work in personality type. And I showed how this is similar to the horse drawn carriage analogy of George Gurdjieff and now Young's work was picked up and extended my Myers Briggs. Which is in. Why do you see even today? And I also showed how I believe that a new dimension emerges from these four functions. Yes. A new dimension, one not covered by young or Myers-Briggs. Then if the creative receptive dimension, which is one of the most. Oh, one of the oldest, most powerful dimensions. Known. Symbolizing the fundamental duality of yin and yang of mind, nature of substance and subject of being and nothing. And yet as the yin yang symbol shows this fundamental duality is actually a unity identity in difference. And also as the Indian symbol shows, there is a small circle within the end, which symbolizes the gang within it. And a small circle within the yang, which symbolizes the yin within it. Look at the symbol again. You'll see it. As with the personality types. It's, this is not an either or. It is just a one pole of dimension is dominant, conscious while the other exists, but it's unconscious. Well, that's a wrap for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. Once again. Please like the podcast Facebook page at cutting of guys. And follow me on Twitter as well. Gregory Nowak. at cunning of Geist. And if you care to help support the show me now, the Patrion site, as I mentioned, last episode, you can reach an under the, a support, the show link, where if you get this podcast, And, references and possibly some diagrams, hopefully some diagrams will be posted within a day or two on the Facebook page. and please do check that Facebook pays cause they often comment. In between episodes there quite frequently.. Don't forget to tell your like-minded friends about the cutting of guys podcast. Help spread the word. Thanks again. This is Gregory Nowak. This is the cunning of Geist. We'll see you next time.