3.2 Psychological types  (Page 5/13)

Jung writes, "so long as a new possibility is in the offing, the intuitive is bound to it with the shackles of fate". He also writes that "he seizes on new objects or situations with great intensity, sometimes with extraordinary enthusiasms...". By objects he means any aspect of a persons personality, or any aspect of a social situation I would guess. Even though Jung says the extrovert seizes external objects, he means that he orients himself outward. An introvert could think about the aspects of someone else in his head, but an extrovert might seize on "new objects" - implying that he is more engaged with the other person than the internal thinking of an introvert. The extrovert obviously is more involved with what is happening in a social situation than the introvert - "bound to it with the shackles of fate". Both an introvert and extrovert could think deeply about the other person and analyze their characteristics and attributes, but the extrovert is enthusiastic and energetic about being social and engaged with the other person.

Jung writes, "neither reason nor feeling can restrain him or frighten him away from a new possibility, even though it goes against all his previous convictions." That shows that Jung thought the extrovert was impulsive, willing to change his beliefs in a moment if it means he can have more fun socially. "The intuitives morality is governed neither by thinking or feeling . . . consideration for the welfare of others is weak". Jung is showing the extrovert to also be immoral, like he abandons everything in order to explore social possibilities. I think this makes some sense, if someone is very outgoing, it is like they are really getting involved and putting themselves out there. I don't know if I would say they are willing to give up their beliefs and have no morality, and they sacrifice those things in order to be more friendly, but it gives you an idea of what extroverts are like.

In this paragraph Jung describes the general attitude of consciousness for the introverted type:

• Although the introverted consciousness is naturally aware of external conditions, it selects the subjective determinants as the decisive ones. It is therefore oriented by the factor in perception and cognition which responds to the sense stimulus in accordance with the individual's subjective disposition. For example, two people see the same object, but they never see it in such a way that the images they receive are absolutely identical. Quite apart from the variable acuteness of the sense organs and the personal equation, there often exists a radical difference, both in kind and in degree, in the psychic assimilation of the perceptual image. Whereas the extravert continually appeals to what comes to him from the object, the introvert relies principally on what the sense impression constellates in the subject. The difference in the case of a single a perception may, of course, be very delicate, but in the total psychic economy it makes itself felt in the highest degree, particularly in the effect it has on the ego. If i may anticipate, I consider the viewpoint which inclines, with Weininger, to describe the introverted attitude as philautic, autoerotic, egocentric, subjectivistic, egotistic, etc., to be misleading in principle and thoroughly depreciatory. It reflects the normal bias of the extraverted attitude in regard to the nature of the introvert. We must not forget-although the extravert is only too prone to do so-that perception and cognition are not purely objective, but are also subjectively conditioned. The world exists not merely in itself, but also as it appears to me. Indeed, at bottom, we have absolutely no criterion that could help us to form a judgment of a world which was unassimilable by the subject. If we were to ignore the subjective factor, it would be a complete denial of the great doubt as to the possibility of absolute cognition. And this would mean a relapse into the stale and hollow positivism that marred the turn of the century-an attitude of intellectual arrogance accompanied by crudeness of feeling, a violation of life as stupid as it is presumptuous. By overvaluing our capacity for subjective cognition we repress the denial of the subject. But what is the subject? The subject is man himself-we are the subject. Only a sick mind could forget that cognition must have a subject, and that there is no knowledge whatever and therefore no world at all unless "I know" has been said, though with this statement one has already expressed the subjective limitation of all knowledge.