Socrates

[Jonathan]

According to http://www.socionics.us/celebrities/benchmark.shtml, nine socionists all agreed that Socrates (presumably as portrayed by Plato) was ILI (INTp).

Anyone have any ideas on why ILI and not, say, LII (INTj)?

The dialogues suggest someone who believes in the value of pure logic and in little else. Socrates boils down each person's argument into its core logic, then shows where it's lacking in terms of consistency or false assumptions. Apart from principles of logic, he tends to hold a skeptical view of any belief.

In what way is this kind of thinking Te and not Ti?















“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” ― Socrates

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” ― Socrates

“I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think” ― Socrates

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” ― Socrates

“Be slow to fall into friendship, but when you are in, continue firm and constant.” ― Socrates

“We cannot live better than in seeking to become better.” ― Socrates

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” ― Socrates

“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” ― Socrates

“Thou shouldst eat to live; not live to eat.” ― Socrates

“From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.” ― Socrates

“My friend...care for your psyche...know thyself, for once we know ourselves, we may learn how to care for ourselves" ― Socrates

“By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.” ― Socrates

“Sometimes you put walls up not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.” ― Socrates

“He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.” ― Socrates

“Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.” ― Socrates

“Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart’s desire; the other is to get it.” ― Socrates

“If you don't get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don't want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can't hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is law and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.” ― Socrates

“I did not care for the things that most people care about– making money, having a comfortable home, high military or civil rank, and all the other activities, political appointments, secret societies, party organizations, which go on in our city . . . I set myself to do you– each one of you, individually and in private– what I hold to be the greatest possible service. I tried to persuade each one of you to concern himself less with what he has than with what he is, so as to render himself as excellent and as rational as possible.” ― Socrates

“I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled [poets] to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.” ― Socrates

“What screws us up the most in life is the picture in our head of what it's supposed to be.” ― Socrates

“The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our separate ways, I to die, and you to live. Which of these two is better only God knows.”
― Socrates

“Be of good cheer about death, and know this of a truth, that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.” ― Socrates

[Creepy-]

It might be that it's an type of "logic" rather than related to Thinking itself. Also, doesn't Socrates (via Plato) mostly makes people aware of their assumptions by asking questions, leading the other to making the logical judgements themselves?

[Angel von Himmel]

It might be that it's an type of "logic" rather than related to Thinking itself. Also, doesn't Socrates (via Plato) mostly makes people aware of their assumptions by asking questions, leading the other to making the logical judgements themselves?

Actually, alot of what Socrates supposedly said was really Plato's philosophy. Plato made sure people thought what he was saying was from not from him to keep the authorities from thinking he was some sort of political threat and executing or prosecuting him somehow.

And I agree ... I always thought Socrates was more Ti with his refining of thought logic.

[Creepy-]

Well, we don't really have much to go on other than Plato's dialogues... do we?

[Angel von Himmel]

Well, we don't really have much to go on other than Plato's dialogues... do we?

Probably not ...

[MysticSonic]

We have a little bit.

[Rick]

I'm sure one of the reasons Socrates is considered ILI is because one of the things he was most known for was asking uncomfortable, ironic questions that revealed public figure's stupidity and lack of foresight. This made him a very unpopular figure among politicians. Or so the story goes.

[Dmitri Lytov]

Philosophy of Socrates is known not only through Platos' dialogues, but also due to Xenophontes' reminiscences.

There is a great difference between LII and ILI. LII build their system of positive views. ILI, being irrational, aremore flexible; instead of building a system, they develop a methodology; they rather prefer to criticize other people's view for imperfection (thus demonstrating perfection of their metodology) than to propagate their own views. From this standpoint, Socrates is a quite typical ILI. By the way, the traditional pseudonym of ILI is Critic; and criticism is very peculiar to Socrates' philosophy.

It's worth noticing that Socrates' criticism is in no way total negativism. By making his critical remarks Socrates wanted to awake other people's thinking, to make them make a conlusion based on facts they knew maybe better than Socrates himself.

[Jonathan]

Rick: I'm sure one of the reasons Socrates is considered ILI is because one of the things he was most known for was asking uncomfortable, ironic questions that revealed public figure's stupidity and lack of foresight.

That makes sense. However, as portrayed by Plato, the content of those questions seems to involve revealing an underlying logic and inviting the other dialog participants to engage in a mutual exploration to find truth. Would that point to Ti? Or is the content of the questions irrelevant as long as the form of them is Te?

I'm curious about what you or others have to say regarding form vs. content, because many of the descriptions of the difference between Ti and Te refer to content (i.e., Ti being about structural consistency, understanding, etc.; Te being about accomplishing some external goal, etc.); yet in discussions about the differences between Ti and Te, it appears that maybe the form (how the thoughts are "framed" in the mind) is perhaps more significant for typing purposes than the actual content of those thoughts.

[Creepy-]

Philosophy of Socrates is known not only through Platos' dialogues, but also due to Xenophontes' reminiscences.

There is a great difference between LII and ILI. LII build their system of positive views. ILI, being irrational, aremore flexible; instead of building a system, they develop a methodology; they rather prefer to criticize other people's view for imperfection (thus demonstrating perfection of their metodology) than to propagate their own views. From this standpoint, Socrates is a quite typical ILI. By the way, the traditional pseudonym of ILI is Critic; and criticism is very peculiar to Socrates' philosophy.

It's worth noticing that Socrates' criticism is in no way total negativism. By making his critical remarks Socrates wanted to awake other people's thinking, to make them make a conlusion based on facts they knew maybe better than Socrates himself.

That was also my understanding of Socrates.

[Creepy-]

Rick: I'm sure one of the reasons Socrates is considered ILI is because one of the things he was most known for was asking uncomfortable, ironic questions that revealed public figure's stupidity and lack of foresight.

That makes sense. However, as portrayed by Plato, the content of those questions seems to involve revealing an underlying logic and inviting the other dialog participants to engage in a mutual exploration to find truth. Would that point to Ti? Or is the content of the questions irrelevant as long as the form of them is Te?

I'm curious about what you or others have to say regarding form vs. content, because many of the descriptions of the difference between Ti and Te refer to content (i.e., Ti being about structural consistency, understanding, etc.; Te being about accomplishing some external goal, etc.); yet in discussions about the differences between Ti and Te, it appears that maybe the form (how the thoughts are "framed" in the mind) is perhaps more significant for typing purposes than the actual content of those thoughts.

In my understanding, the content is quite irrelevant to the function. Two types might ask the same questions but the may have entirely different goals/purposes or place different significance on your answer, or value different questions more than others.

[Jonathan]

There is a great difference between LII and ILI. LII build their system of positive views. ILI, being irrational, aremore flexible; instead of building a system, they develop a methodology; they rather prefer to criticize other people's view for imperfection (thus demonstrating perfection of their metodology) than to propagate their own views.

If I understand this properly, it explains a lot. It sounds as if you're saying that if a person is trying to decide if they're ILI or LII, and that person tends not to fully commit to believing any philosophical system, but only acknowledging logical methods, then that person is probably ILI, even if he or she takes great interest in systems of thought. Conversely, an LII would be more likely to actually believe and defend a particular systemmatic way of thinking. Is that what you're saying?

....In which case, the following two conclusions probably follow (?):
* All the stuff people have written about Ti being about understanding "why" questions, axiomatic logic, etc., and Te being more about practical, utilitarian, business-oriented logic is probably wrong.
* My postings here show that I'm more likely ILI than LII.

[Jonathan]

Ishy: In my understanding, the content is quite irrelevant to the function. Two types might ask the same questions but the may have entirely different goals/purposes or place different significance on your answer, or value different questions more than others.

I think that may really be the key that so many people are missing when they get confused between functions. If this is the correct way of looking at it, it's interesting that it's not the impression I get when looking at most Socionics sites when they define functions. Often, so many generalizations about functions are made that are content-centric. I'm thinking now that such generalizations confuse much more than they help.

[Creepy-]

Ishy: In my understanding, the content is quite irrelevant to the function. Two types might ask the same questions but the may have entirely different goals/purposes or place different significance on your answer, or value different questions more than others.

I think that may really be the key that so many people are missing when they get confused between functions. If this is the correct way of looking at it, it's interesting that it's not the impression I get when looking at most Socionics sites when they define functions. Often, so many generalizations about functions are made that are content-centric. I'm thinking now that such generalizations confuse much more than they help.

I'm not devaluing the content altogether, I'm sure it can be useful as a starting point but not as the defining point.

[Dmitri Lytov]

If I understand this properly, it explains a lot. It sounds as if you're saying that if a person is trying to decide if they're ILI or LII, and that person tends not to fully commit to believing any philosophical system, but only acknowledging logical methods, then that person is probably ILI, even if he or she takes great interest in systems of thought. Conversely, an LII would be more likely to actually believe and defend a particular systemmatic way of thinking. Is that what you're saying?

Something like that. After all, introverted logic is responsible for systematization, while extraverted logic for methodology.
LIIs are often cathegorical in their sayings, while ILIs tend to see another side of the same thing, to say "yes but...".
Newton, another ILI, was reluctant to publish his works for a long time - sometimes he waited for 10 or 15 years until he was sure in correctness of his methodology. LIIs, by contrast, often present well-elaborated conceptions and classifications, but very often with poorly developed methodologies (they generously leave solution of this task to their readers).

[Ave]

What can I say? I agree with Dimitri Lytov here.

[Rick]

Rick: I'm sure one of the reasons Socrates is considered ILI is because one of the things he was most known for was asking uncomfortable, ironic questions that revealed public figure's stupidity and lack of foresight.

That makes sense. However, as portrayed by Plato, the content of those questions seems to involve revealing an underlying logic and inviting the other dialog participants to engage in a mutual exploration to find truth. Would that point to Ti? Or is the content of the questions irrelevant as long as the form of them is Te?

I'm curious about what you or others have to say regarding form vs. content, because many of the descriptions of the difference between Ti and Te refer to content (i.e., Ti being about structural consistency, understanding, etc.; Te being about accomplishing some external goal, etc.); yet in discussions about the differences between Ti and Te, it appears that maybe the form (how the thoughts are "framed" in the mind) is perhaps more significant for typing purposes than the actual content of those thoughts.

Yeah, this is an important issue. Among Augusta's early realizations was that the same words can mean vastly different things in the mouths of different people. For an example she looked at the word "no" and how it can be used in so many different contexts for different purposes.

Science consistently says things like "90% of information is conveyed through non-verbal means." I don't have a clue how they arrive at that number or what exactly they mean, but this is well understood by many socionists. For example, imagine that I say "well, are you coming with us?" What information element does this relate to? Honestly, I doubt we can answer. Now imagine that I tip my head down, raise my eyebrows, squint my eyes a bit, and, looking straight into your eyes, ask "well, are you coming with us... ?" slowly and seriously. There I have sent a very definite information signal.

Socionics is about these information signals, which lie deeper than words. For the most part, we respond to these signals unconsciously. What interests people is not so much the words that are used, but the "point" or "intention" behind them.

[Phaedrus]

It is starting to make real sense now. As you already know, Jonathan, I've had the same problems as you with the descriptions of Ti, Te and other functions. From my new perspective it is much easier to understand what Dmitri Lytov is talking about and agree with him.

That Socrates was an ILI is exactly what I would expect, as that would put him in the group of those philosophers who are "disciples" of Plato. The other group consists of those who are disciples of the sophists. Here I'm looking at the history of philosophy from a very general perspective, so don't bother about the details.

Today we have the same polarity between objecitivists and relativists, or you could call them positivists and postmodernists or whatever you want. It's the same polarity of two different perspectives anyway.

Here are some examples of members belonging to each group:

1. Objectivists (presumably dominated by Te and Ni): Plato, Socrates, Bertrand Russell, Thomas Nagel (read his book The Last Word), analytic philosophy in general.

2. Relativists (presumably dominated by Ti and Ne): The sophists, Hegel, Kant, Nietzsche, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Heidegger, continental philosophy in general.

The objectivists are primarily interested in finding Truth, the relativists are primarily interested in finding Meaning. That is one reason why the descriptions of Ti and Ni written by MBTI theoreticians could easily lead one astray, I think. But the problem is probably more complicated than that.

[Dmitri Lytov]

Having philosophical education, I'd disagree with such classification of philosophers. However, I'd notice that introverted philosophers, both ILI and LII, both Socrates and Kant, Hegel and Heidegger, etc., tend to find the truth from within a certain system.They tend to terminological reductionism, to avoid "excessive dependence" from empirical data. By contrast, philosophy of extraverted philosophers abounds with terminology and approaches, sometimes it is not even easy to formulate the philosopher's credo. Plato, Hegel, Socrates, Kant, Wittgenstein were introverted, while Russel, Nietzsche, Ortega, Marx, Abelard were extraverted.

[Creepy-]

Kant wasn't a relativist!

[Dmitri Lytov]

...and Plato and Socrates were in no way objectivists!
They believed in something quite opposite. If you read Plato, you may remember the allegory with a cave and shades of a fire. It is something similar to what Kant wrote about Things-In-Themselves.

[Phaedrus]

Kant wasn't a relativist!

He was - at least in the sense that he put much emphasis on the problems we have as human beings to reach objective reality and truth. It is the same (not identical of course, but you have to ignore the details to see the general picture) "the-world-for-us" perspective as Wittgenstein's "forms of life" and "language game" perspective, to take one example.

...and Plato and Socrates were in no way objectivists!

They definitely were - at least in the sense I'm trying to talk about this polarity between two different attitudes toward philosphical problems and philosophy in general. But the risk of misunderstandings is probably great here, so maybe we should first focus on something more concrete, for example the types of various philosophers. Maybe there is a pattern, or many.

What do you think of the types of the philosophers you mention, Dmitri Lytov?

I think I've seen somewhere Russell being typed as an ENFp, but I really can't believe that, unless you have some very strong arguments for it. If he was an extravert, which I now also think is most likely, he was probably an ENTj.

As I've said recently somewhere, Wittgenstein was an INTj in my opinion.

[Dmitri Lytov]

...then you just use different definitions of objectivity and subjectivity than those used by philosophers, including those we are talking about.

I do not mean that I know philosophy better than you; maybe you understand some things deeper than me, who knows. But would you please, please, please, use words in their generally accepted meaning. You are trying to reform the philosophy, but do philosophers care?

[Rick]

My look at Bertrand Russell led me to believe he was LIE.
I would guess Wittgenstein was LII.

[Phaedrus]

But would you please, please, please, use words in their generally accepted meaning.

Which is? Words like "objectivity" and "subjectivity" have been used in many different ways as far as I know, and that's one of the reasons it is not easy to talk about these things without risk of misunderstandings. I'm certainly not claiming to use the words in the same way as those philosphers I'm referring to. Why don't you try to define them to your liking? Then I can either accept your definitions or try to explain in which way I mean something different.

There are, in fact, some philosophers who have written about things that are, at least to some degree, related to these things. One well known example is of course Robert M. Pirsig in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. If you prefer a more "accepted" name I know of no better source than Thomas Nagel in The Last Word. There are others too, and I have written something about it myself more than ten years ago, but it was only a small paper in Swedish. And at that time I didn't know anything at all about Socionics or other type theories.

[MysticSonic]

"1. Objectivists (presumably dominated by Te and Ni): Plato, Socrates, Bertrand Russell, Thomas Nagel (read his book The Last Word), analytic philosophy in general.

2. Relativists (presumably dominated by Ti and Ne): The sophists, Hegel, Kant, Nietzsche, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Heidegger, continental philosophy in general. "

Ludwig Wittgenstein practically founded analytic philosophy, Hegel was not a relatvist, nor was Kant.

Oh, and despite being a relatively relativistic() in his epistemic claims, Nietzcshe was an INTp. A complete INTp.

[Phaedrus]

Ludwig Wittgenstein practically founded analytic philosophy, Hegel was not a relatvist, nor was Kant.

Maybe I shouldn't have said anything about it, since it is probably very difficult not get stuck on words. I was trying to get you to focus on a very general pattern and disregard the details, but I don't think we will ever get there if we don't try to see the whole picture.

The words "objectivism" and "relativism" can be misleading. What I'm trying to say has perhaps more to do with whether one believes that the world has a structure in itself that is independent of our way of talking about it through language, or viewing it from our local, contingent perspective.

Kant, Hegel and Wittgenstein were all three some kind of "idealists", but when I say that you will probably say that Plato was too, and of course that is true in a(nother) sense. Or maybe we could say that they were all some kind of "perspectivists", which is word that has been used to characterize Nietzsche, who I also put in the same group. In fact, when I now think of it, the word "perspectivism" was the one I chose in my own paper instead of "relativism". Richard Rorty is also an example of the kind of "relativist" or "perspectivist" that I have in mind, so in some cases "pragmatist" is also used to name roughly the same thing.

Nietzsche was an INTp. A complete INTp.

Argue for it! (If you can prove it, I might have to modify my hypothesis.)

[MysticSonic]

You are correct in saying that both Kant and Hegel were idealists, but this does not mean that they did not believe that there were facts independant of the mind---which they most certainly did. As for Wittgenstein, although his work is fairly hard to sort through and difficult to assess in such a manner so as to arise from it with a holistic view of his general philosphical perspectives, I'm fairly certain he was NOT an idealist. If you so desire, I'd request for you to clarify in what ways Wittgenstein was an idealist.

To put it all summarily, though, my general objection to your statement is that Ti and Ne are relativistic functions in nature, which is not true, as Ti, as has been propounded in this very topic, is categorical in nature and hence melds perspectives quite that one might consider to be objectivistic in nature. And, while I believe Ne is essentially the source of germination by which post-modernism has arisen from, its operation does not neccessarily, nor does it even tend to, produce data which may even be construed as relativistic in its claims.

"Argue for it!"

No, it's a general argument not particularly important in relation to this topic.

[Phaedrus]

And, while I believe Ne is essentially the source of germination by which post-modernism has arisen from, its operation does not neccessarily, nor does it even tend to, produce data which may even be construed as relativistic in its claims.

I'm not saying it does. But if my hypothesis is right, we would find that there are more TiNes than NiTes among those who belong to my "relativistic" group, and we would find the opposite in my "objectivistic" group. Therefore my hypothesis can be falsified, which is a good thing.

[MysticSonic]

"I'm not saying it does. But if my hypothesis is right, we would find that there are more TiNes than NiTes among those who belong to my "relativistic" group, and we would find the opposite in my "objectivistic" group. Therefore my hypothesis can be falsified, which is a good thing."

1. I'm assuming you meant NeTis will be more prominent among "relativsts"?
2. I disagree strongly.
3. Attempting to form general type statistic by forming a demographic is rather difficult due the methodological difficulties involved with the data collecting involved, thus the argument devolves to a general debate on who is which type and what philosophy they should be classified under, which in itself is rather difficult. This, in turn, makes the whole ordeal "rather difficult", and thus the potential falsifiability of your claim is rendered insignificant, comparable to the claim that Jesus existence is somehow falsifiable---with the falsity of said claim being very hard to determine.

An objectivist whom I'm fairly certain is INTj is Alvin Plantinga, a possible counter-example

[Phaedrus]

1. I'm assuming you meant NeTis will be more prominent among "relativsts"?

No, I meant TiNes. Maybe NeTis are too, but I'm primarily interested in the differences between INTjs and INTps, and there are probably more introverts among philosophers in general, at least among those who come up with the ideas that influence philosophic "schools". Of course I could be wrong about that, but it is not my job to do the empirical research work.

[MysticSonic]

Then what's this about:

"1. Objectivists (presumably dominated by Te and Ni)

2. Relativists (presumably dominated by Ti and Ne)"

[Phaedrus]

Then what's this about:

"1. Objectivists (presumably dominated by Te and Ni)

2. Relativists (presumably dominated by Ti and Ne)"

I didn't want to exclude Bertrand Russell, for example, just because he happens to be an ENTj, since he is a good example of a member of the "objectivist" group. And I'm not sure of the ENTps. Wouldn't it be easier to prove me wrong if you only count how many INTjs and INTps there are in each group? (But first you have to identify the groups by seeing the general pattern, of course, and that you might not like to do if you are an INTj.)

[MysticSonic]

What I'm saying is, Phaedrus, that you said that INTjs and INTps are more likely to be relativists, which does make much sense given what you believe to be the general correspondance between types and epistemic positions.

[Phaedrus]

What I'm saying is, Phaedrus, that you said that INTjs and INTps are more likely to be relativists ...

Where did I say that? I certainly did not mean to.

[MysticSonic]

"I'm not saying it does. But if my hypothesis is right, we would find that there are more TiNes than NiTes among those who belong to my "relativistic" group, and we would find the opposite in my "objectivistic" group. Therefore my hypothesis can be falsified, which is a good thing."

[Phaedrus]

I still can't see what you mean. What I'm trying to say is that I think that, in comparison to NiTes, there are more TiNes among "relativists", and, in comparison to TiNes, there are more NiTes among "objectivists".

[MysticSonic]

Ha. I read your statement wrongly. Sorry.

[Transigent]

Edited for gayness.

[Phaedrus]

Could you clarify what you just said, Transigent? Some examples maybe? How do I use the method? What exactly is it?