Peter Abelard was a popular lecturer in 12th century
France, students followed him from city to city, and were prepared
to camp in forests in order to learn from him. His fame is frequently
linked to the founding of the University of Paris, the first university,
upon which all others were directly or indirectly modeled. What was
the source of this fame? Abelard was the greatest logician of the
middle ages.
After surpassing all of his possible rivals, but by no means all of
his enemies, Abelard in his thirties became the tutor of Heloise who
was probably seventeen at the time. Heloise was bright, educated,
and possessed both a maturity and clarity of heart. Where Abelard
followed his head, Heloise followed her heart. Tutoring soon turned
into one of the famous romances of history, of which we have letters
from later in their lives when Abelard is an abbot, and Heloise an
abbess.
We conclude our brief look at the dimensions of psychological preferences
by looking at Jung's characterization of the thinking-feeling axis.
Jung described thinking and feeling as the rational functions, that
is, the means by which an individual evaluates and judges. There is
a bias in our culture towards thinking, such that rationality is at
times strictly defined in terms of thinking or of logic. However,
both thinking and feeling can have a highly developed (or differentiated)
form, as well as a poorly developed form.
Thinking is associated with the ancient element of fire, and feeling
with water. In the symbolism of alchemy, fire is the element of separation,
as in the refining fire which separates the impurities out of a substance.
Water was the element of dissolution, substances such as salt could
be dissolved in water. Separation and dissolution in cycles were used
in producing the philosopher's stone, a symbol of wholeness.
The thinking function shouldn't be thought of as cognition in general,
that is the working of the brain, but rather the use of rational/linguistic
idea oriented cognition. The thinker is more interested in what Hume
called, 'the relations of ideas,' as opposed to 'matters of fact.'
Problem solving for a thinker usually involves an unconscious automatic
step of abstracting the problem, then analyzing the abstract idea
of the problem. This can give the impression of cold heartless calculation,
as this is the ideal for the objective evaluation of a thinker. However,
no thinker is heartless, just as no feeler is thoughtless. In cases
of a strong preference for thinking, the thinker may consciously use
thinking almost exclusively. In this case feeling doesn't go away,
it functions unconsciously as moods or overwhelming emotions.
This is what happened in the case of Abelard, he became overwhelmingly
attracted to his student. In spite of her powerful and overprotective
uncle. And in spite of the fact that the only future he could hope
for as a mediaeval intellectual was in the church. Surely, it was
not a logical decision. Great thinkers are too often victims or their
undeveloped hearts.
The imbalance of over-reliance on thought is not the only possible
deficiency, the thinking function can also go undeveloped. A preference
does not entail an ability, e.g., my right-handedness doesn't guarantee
that I can draw with that hand, nor even print legibly. Undeveloped
thinking is likely to revolve around personal opinion, following the
credo 'everyone is entitled to my opinion.' Frequently referred to
as pseudo-intellectuals, such individuals may have elaborate reasons
for their opinions, and may think themselves 'objective,' but they
fail to be trans-subjective. A notion which we will return to.
The feeling function should not be confused with emotional states,
e.g., moods, affects, etc. Jung considered emotions to be 'contaminated'
feelings, contaminated, that is, by our personal complexes. Of course,
the feeling function cannot be adequately characterized in the terms
of the thinking function, but we can give some indications in the
form of clichés. Feelers are 'following their heart,' 'being
true to their feelings,' 'following their bliss,' 'being true to themselves,'
etc. In problem solving the feeler also has a tendency to make an
unconscious first step of 'how do I feel about that?' or, 'how would
I feel if that where to happen to me?' So that the problem is evaluated
in terms of its subjective consequences. This gives rise to views
that the feeler is not being rational, not being objective, not thinking,
etc. This is further complicated by the fact that the thinking side
of feelers is often undeveloped, leading them to give arguments in
support of their conclusions, which frequently fail to satisfy thinking
types.
Undeveloped feeling tends to revolve around the act of being emotional,
treating personal emotional states in the same way that the undeveloped
thinker treats personal opinions. Such a state indicates a 'preference,'
in that thinking or feeling is the basis of evaluation, but not a
'function' in the sense that there is no process of discernment. What
both undeveloped attitudes share is a failure to be trans-subjective,
which is not a term from Jung but is from my own work. Objectivity
may be heralded as an ideal, but it is an abstract and ultimately
metaphysical ideal. Due to its nature anyone may make the claim that
they are being objective, and the further claim that they are the
only one being objective in the whole world.
The notion of trans-subjectivity gives a much stronger criterion
by which either function can be evaluated. Thinking is a function
of reason, consistency, soundness, valid arguments, logic, etc. These
means of evaluation are trans-subjective in that if an argument is
the result of a highly developed thinking function, then any thinker
applying these criteria can arrive at the same conclusions. For example,
Abelard's developments in syllogistic logic are still taught today.
The same is true of the feeling function, it is trans-subjective in
empathy, sympathy, compassion, understanding, etc. , and if a poem
or piece of music is the result of a highly developed feeling function,
then a feeler can feel not only their own reactions, but also the
original feelings, and further, the emotions of other listeners. For
example, Heloise's letters still show the wisdom of her heart, and
the depth of her feelings for Abelard.
Abelard and Heloise are further illustrative in that differences
in these functions are often the sources of conflict in relationships.
Some studies show that approximately 3/4 of men are thinking types,
and the reverse is true of women. But more than that, we are most
often attracted to people of opposite psychological types, because
they are our compliment and the missing pieces we need to become whole.
The problem is that we expect this wholeness to come about from our
relationships, when it does not exist within ourselves. Awareness
of the differences is the first step. While seeing the opposite, or
secondary function, within ourselves in order to develop it is the
second. Remember, the opposite in ourselves is not only undeveloped,
it is also to a large extent unconscious. Our relationships will be
enriched to the extent that we relate through a more developed secondary
function, rather than reacting from an unconscious undeveloped function.
© -1997 Troy W. Pierce
