Jungian Typology Continued - The Four Functions
January 16th 2008 12:07
The four functions through which external and internal data are consciously mediated are: Sensation, Feeling, Thinking and Intuition. These deserve a closer look before I describe their particular effects in relation to personality.
Thinking.
To most people it would seem this function is an obvious one. We all "think", and perhaps Jung might have been a little more careful in his choice of a name here, for the thinking function relates specifically to thinking in its pure, clinically logical form - and not to those variously applied notions about mental function that often, in more general terms, pass for thinking. The thinking function analyses, discriminates, relates fact to object, abstracts information from the object, calculates and apprehends the laws and dynamics of the world via cause and effect. Thinking is regarded as a "Rational" function because it uses the discriminatory function of consciousness to perform its operations.
Feeling
Not to be confused with emotion, Feeling values, assesses, judges the relative merits and considers human qualities of worth in relation to the object, situation or person with which it is concerned. Feeling places value judgments above all other assessments - things are good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, right or wrong, tidy or untidy, tasteful or distasteful, moral or immoral, amusing or shocking. These judgments may or may not partake of the collective view on such matters, they are merely the way in which this function processes information. The assessments of Feeling in any one person may or may not be what others might consider "right".
Feeling is also a "Rational" function in that it also uses discriminatory consciousness to assess what is correct within a system of values.
to be cont.
Thinking.
To most people it would seem this function is an obvious one. We all "think", and perhaps Jung might have been a little more careful in his choice of a name here, for the thinking function relates specifically to thinking in its pure, clinically logical form - and not to those variously applied notions about mental function that often, in more general terms, pass for thinking. The thinking function analyses, discriminates, relates fact to object, abstracts information from the object, calculates and apprehends the laws and dynamics of the world via cause and effect. Thinking is regarded as a "Rational" function because it uses the discriminatory function of consciousness to perform its operations.
Feeling
Not to be confused with emotion, Feeling values, assesses, judges the relative merits and considers human qualities of worth in relation to the object, situation or person with which it is concerned. Feeling places value judgments above all other assessments - things are good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, right or wrong, tidy or untidy, tasteful or distasteful, moral or immoral, amusing or shocking. These judgments may or may not partake of the collective view on such matters, they are merely the way in which this function processes information. The assessments of Feeling in any one person may or may not be what others might consider "right".
Feeling is also a "Rational" function in that it also uses discriminatory consciousness to assess what is correct within a system of values.
to be cont.
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