Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!cmcl2!brl-adm!umd5!ames!lll-lcc!lll-winken!uunet!mcvax!prlb2!ronse
From: ronse@prlb2.UUCP (Christian Ronse)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: prickles and goo
Summary: Other polarities by Jung
Message-ID: <410@prlb2.UUCP>
Date: 21 Jan 88 09:28:01 GMT
References: <1832@epimass.EPI.COM> <4142@eagle.ukc.ac.uk>
Organization: Philips Research Laboratory, Brussels
Lines: 42

In article <4142@eagle.ukc.ac.uk>, rjf@eagle.ukc.ac.uk (Robin Faichney) writes:
> C G Jung originated the categories of `extraversion' and `introversion'.
[...]
> Seems to me that this aligns with Watts categories, the pricklies
> being the extraverts (lots of things out there!), and the gooies, intro-
> verts (I love to feel harmonious!).
> 
> I don't know enough about bi-lateral (a)symmetry to be sure, but I don't
> think that this one aligns with that dichotomy.  On the other hand, this
> one does does align with the classic division of philosophers: into emp-
> iricists and rationalists.  It also seems in accord with the nature ver-
> sus nurture controversy. 

Not quite. Besides the introvert/extrovert polarity, Jung classified
personalities according to the relative importance of 4 features forming a 
cross, that is a pair of polarities: intuition/sensation (way of grasping the
world) and thought/feeling (way of judging things). For example I am 

  I
F   T
  S

intuition top, thought right hand. One might say that intuition is syncretist
and sensation is categorist, but the polarity thought/feeling has nothing to
do with syncretism/categoricism.

A layman discussion on the two cerebral hemispheres is given in Carl Sagan's
book ``The Dragons of Eden''. I found in a 1953 book of neuropsychology the
following quote at the beginning of a chapter on hemispheric lateralization of
the brain:

``There is one principal and as it were radical distinction between different
minds ... that some minds are stronger and apter to mark the differences of
things, others to mark their resemblances. The steady and acute mind can fix
its contemplations and dwell and fasten on the subtlest distinctions; the
lofty and discursive mind recognizes and puts together the finest and most
general resemblances. Both kinds, however easily err in excess, by catching
the one at gradations and the other at shadows.''

						Francis Bacon

Christian Ronse		maldoror@prlb2.UUCP
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