What does Jung mean when he says that extroverted intuition seeks to
"apprehend the widest range of possibilities"? By possibilities does he mean social possibilities? What kinds of social possibilities? I suppose he just means any kind of social endeavor, something to say, something to do, someway to act. Sensation tries to "reach the highest pitch of actuality" - which probably means the extrovert tries to become as happy and fulfilled as possible. Probably through his intuition realizing social possibilities.
It makes sense that an extrovert would want to do more things socially. By definition, the extrovert is more social. You could say that extroverts are a lot more social than introverts, that they constantly try to explore new ways of interacting and are always looking for more things to say and more things to do socially.
For the extrovert, "objects appear to have an exaggerated value, if they should bring a about a solution, a deliverance, or lead to the discovery of a new possibility." By objects he is probably referring to the significant psychological objects of archetypes, which are aspects of a persons personality or behavior that are significant and represented as an archetype, such as "wise old man". So an extrovert analyzes other people and sees if their qualities can lead to new possibilities of them being social. If someone else is "devilish", how could that give them a new possibility for being social?
When you think about it that way, there are probably a lot of things that could enable someone to be more social. If you are more insightful, you could have more things to say in a conversation. If you think more about what is going on you could be more involved with what is going on and therefore more socially engaged. If your thinking is directed toward what is happening in the situation, instead of just thinking about yourself in your own mind, you are probably going to have a lot more possibilities to be social.
In the next paragraph Jung discusses how extroverts are enthusiastic:
- Whenever intuition predominates, a peculiar and unmistakable psychology results. Because extraverted intuition is oriented by the object, there is a marked dependence on external situations, but it is altogether different from the dependence of the sensation type. The intuitive is never to be found in the world of accepted reality-values, but he has a keen nose for anything new and in the making. Because he is always seeking out new possibilities, stable conditions suffocate him. He seizes on new objects or situations with great intensity, sometimes with extraordinary enthusiasms, only to abandon them cold-bloodedly, without any compunction and apparently no further developments can be divined. So long as a new possibility is in the offing, the intuitive is bound to it with the shackles of fate. It is as though his whole life vanished in the new situation. One gets the impression, which he himself shares, that he has always just reached a final turning-point, and that form now on he can think and feel nothing else. No matter how reasonable and suitable it may be, and although every conceivable argument speaks for its stability, a day will come when nothing will deter him from regarding as a prison the very situation that seemed to promise him freedom and deliverance, and from acting accordingly. Neither reason nor feeling can restrain him or frighten him away from a new possibility, even though it goes against all his previous convictions. Thinking and feeling, the indispensable components of conviction, are his inferior functions, carrying no weight and hence incapable of effectively withstanding the power of intuition. And yet these functions are the only ones that could compensate its supremacy by supplying the judgment which the intuitive type totally lacks. The intuitive's morality is governed neither by thinking nor by feeling; he has his own characteristic morality, which consists in a loyalty to his vision and in voluntary submission to its authority. Consideration for the welfare of others is weak. Their psychic well-being counts as little with him as does his own. He has equally little regard for their convictions and way of life, and on this account he is often put down as an immoral and unscrupulous adventurer. Since his intuition is concerned with externals and with ferreting out their possibilities, he readily turns to professions in which he can exploit these capacities to the full. Many business tycoons, entrepreneurs, speculators, stockbrokers, politicians, etc., belong to this type. It would seem to be more common among women, however, than among men. In women the intuitive capacity shows itself not so much in the professional as in the every social occasion, they make the right social connections, they seek out men with prospects only to abandon everything again for the sake of a new possibility.
