Chapter 17
Socionics in the Mirror of Philosophy — Philosophy in the Mirror of Socionics
“In our conceptions the world is disclosed as an infinite diversity of things and events, colours and sounds. But in order to understand it, a definite order must be established.” — W. Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy
One would think: what can there be in common between ancient philosophy and the very young science of socionics? And yet between socionics and philosophy a whole series of particular relations can be traced, some of which have been encountered in philosophy’s relations with other sciences, and some of which have not. If some of these relations are set out as a list, it might look as follows:
- Methodological and philosophical problems of socionics.
- The philosophy of the TIM.
- Identification of a philosopher’s TIM from his philosophical works.
- A socionic classification, or typology, of philosophical systems.
- The problem of consciousness in philosophy.
- Socionics as methodology.
- Socionics as philosophy.
- Socionics as metaphilosophy.
- The realization of philosophical categories in the concepts of socionics.
- A philosophical assessment of socionics.
- A socionic assessment of philosophy.
So let us examine some of these points, though possibly not strictly observing the order outlined.
Methodological and philosophical problems of socionics
As regards this point, it is clear that socionics, like any other science, cannot exist in a methodological vacuum, and in this matter it will have to turn to professional philosophers — otherwise it is easy to land in a swamp of home-grown amateurism. Whether socionists give themselves an account of this or not, whether they wish it or not, behind their practical actions in applying socionics or behind their theoretical elaborations in this sphere there lies a quite definite philosophical and methodological foundation. Very often not only practitioners but theoreticians too simply do not think about this, and nevertheless behind their actions there stands a quite definite philosophy and methodology. However, by virtue of the existence of a certain methodological paradox, this may be, or at least may seem, of little significance, or may be perceived as self-evident. And indeed, many people often form the notion that in this world one can perfectly well get by without philosophy, and all the more so without methodology. But this is an illusion, and such an opinion is possible only because these people are not aware that they do have a philosophy and do have a methodology; and if they are told so, they will possibly be not a little surprised, or will even deny it outright. Most often such a philosophy comes down to what people call common sense — but how very different, it turns out, this very common sense is in different people and in different nations!
Perhaps, from a psychological point of view, it is better here to speak of a methodological complex, all the more so since even professional philosophers have an unconscious and subconscious part which bears directly on their philosophical views and methodological means. And socionics is already able to give a rigorous scientific answer connected with the basic attitude of consciousness of one scientist or another — something he might not even have suspected, but which was precisely what determined the features of his relation to the world and his basic methodological attitudes. Possibly it would be interesting for a philosopher to examine the methodological complexes of socionists and to assess their adequacy to socionic problematics; but here at least two difficulties may arise. First, such an assessment may depend strongly on the philosopher’s own views and his own methodological complex. Second, for a more or less adequate assessment one must have a command of socionics. However, so far there have been very few professional philosophers in the socionic milieu. It appears that a philosopher who has not mastered socionics could only confirm the existence of one or another methodological instrument used by a particular socionist, but it is hardly the case that, under conditions of worldview and methodological pluralism, his critical conclusions could not be ignored. Still, for a philosopher the worldview and methodological provisioning of scientific creativity in socionics could be of interest as empirical material for his own work.
However, a philosopher could qualify the worldview contours of various approaches to the elaboration of socionic problems. For example, he could discover relativist, positivist, eclectic and other shades in the positions of socionists, and this would be instructive. Still more topical for socionics would be a maximally complete list of the methodological problems it would have to solve in the process of its formation.
Psychologists too could take an interest in the unconscious and subconscious part of socionists’ methodological complexes. Here one might expect interesting results and productive assessments, but they would have to relate only to the psychological side of socionists’ scientific work — which is not bad either. But does socionics here have any fundamental differences from other sciences? As for methodology, socionists of course need to know this side of philosophy well; however, it is not excluded that philosophy too has something to learn from socionics.
One of the key instruments of rational science is reductionism, or the reduction of the complex to the simple, of the incomprehensible to the comprehensible. Such an obvious and in many cases entirely effective method, with the accumulation of ever new facts, began gradually to be subjected to doubt — and yet it is not so simple to think offhand what could replace it. But possibly there is no need to replace it with anything. What is needed is to find the boundaries of its applicability. In psychology the problem of reductionism stands very acutely. One of the most widespread forms of reductionism in psychology is measurement-parametric reductionism, when the whole content of mental phenomena is reduced to numerical sequences and lists of numerous parameters. Sometimes this even becomes a research fashion, when it is held that if a study contains no measurements then it is not scientific.
It appears that the solution to the problem of reductionism is the concept of an adequate element base. In our time, to reduce the cognition of an object to accidental — though perhaps convenient — elements looks primitive. But to reduce an object to elements which are adequate to its nature is an effective path to the real, and not merely formal, cognition of the object. An example of effective reduction may be the discovery of the chemical elements, when it became possible to express through them the structure of complex molecules and the reactions between them. Socionics for the first time in the history of science, and of psychology in particular, discovers an element base adequate to humanitarian phenomenology. Such a base is the set of informational aspects. Informational aspects play the same role for humanitarian processes and phenomena as the chemical elements do for the phenomenology of matter.
The structural laws which socionics has touched upon belong to the archetypal plane of our being. Being maximally generalized forms of real objects, they subtly govern the events of our life in the way that the bed of a river or brook manifests itself in the phenomenology of surface currents, in the phenomenology of the micro-events occurring on their surface. Despite the debatable character of such propositions, they are formally and logically impeccable and deserve close study.
Philosophy, having created the concept of discourse as text-generating activity, found a construct that equalizes science with all other spheres of culture. Now it is enough to say that there is a discourse of science, a discourse of politics or a discourse of art, and also many other varieties of discourse, and that these discourses have equal rights from the point of view of existence in this world — and thereby to neutralize science’s claims to a leading place in the culture of humanity.
As the authors of the monograph Contemporary Scientific Discourse [1] write: “Traditional methodological culture is, as is well known, permeated by faith in the enlightening might of Consciousness, Reason and Scientific-Technical Progress. The zealots of this culture are convinced that the boundless unfolding of scientific discourse and the ever-increasing acceleration of scientific-technical progress (STP) have for the future fate of our civilization the same significance as geology once had for the Middle Ages, or ancient Greek culture for the Renaissance. This conviction was undermined only in the second half of the twentieth century by such negative global consequences of the contemporary acceleration of STP as the Holocaust, Nuclearism, Ecocide. It was precisely these that freed the consciousness of Europe’s thinkers from the spell of enlightenment dreams and compelled them to acknowledge that in the second half of the twentieth century the methodological culture of the science of the Modern era had exhausted its potential. Thanks to this, at the centre of the philosophical discourse on the future fate of the methodological culture of science there stood the problem of the search for alternative — that is, post-enlightenment — strategies for the development of methodological culture.”
To be counted a science, socionics must, from a methodological point of view, answer a multitude of questions, among them such as the question of the reality and existence of the TIM; it must give rigorous definitions of it, deal with the problems of the uniqueness of the TIM in a concrete personality, of the universality of the TIM with respect to the numerous objects of the universe, of the diversity of personal features within the limits of a concrete TIM, and so on. And here positions of the sort “I do as I please” (methodological anarchism), “philosophers themselves have not yet come to a final conclusion” (methodological agnosticism), and “well, I didn’t know…” (methodological ignorance) are out of place.
Socionics inevitably has to touch upon the problem of information, and it is the first to pose, and to propose its own solution to, the global question of informational aspects, of which the scientists working in the sphere of cybernetics — where this concept was first introduced into scientific circulation and approaches to its assessment were proposed — had only a dim inkling. However, later scientists from the humanitarian sphere came forward with a criticism of the purely quantitative theory of information, and ideas of semantic information began to appear. And now socionics finds precise formulations for a qualitative representation of information.
This entire book is devoted to the methodological problems of socionics, although not all such problems, for various reasons, can be encompassed within the limits of a single work. And naturally, for philosophical and methodological support socionics turns to the rich experience of philosophy.
Socionics, as a counterweight to positivist approaches in some contemporary sciences, does not reject the achievements of the science of sciences, philosophy, but rests substantially upon them. No science — and of course socionics too — can exist if it has no methodology; however, it is important for a science to become aware of its methodological principles and to use them operationally. A science that does not give itself an account of its methodological instruments cannot claim maturity, and scientists who have not worked through and assimilated methodological subject matter are doomed to work blindly, relying on the “impeccability” of their own intuition. But alas, the history of science is full of examples of how intuition errs, or offers defective material which is subject to further refinement.
Socionics, in the search for its own foundations, comes out onto the fundamental problems of science in general and of philosophy in particular. In socionics there are several examples relating to the exceptionally delicate methodological theme of the formation of concepts — and concepts highly important both for science and for philosophy. What is meant are the informational aspects, intuitively divined by Aushra Augustinavichute but, by virtue of their archetypal nature, left insufficiently clarified. As a result her followers (Medvedev, Shepetko, Filimonov, Gut, Yermak, Prokofieva and others), feeling the insufficiency of her explications and trying to make sense of them, undertook several attempts to explain them in their own way and to present their point of view to other scientists. Thus we now have several explanations of one and the same phenomenon. One of the philosophical points of view holds that one and the same phenomenon, fact or event may be explained in different ways. At the everyday level this is well understood. However, with the maximal generalization of this point of view, first, there may arise — and does arise — the notion of the relativity of any point of view, and second, we find ourselves on the threshold of philosophical relativism, sharply deforming the notion of truth in general and of absolute truth in particular.
The relativity of points of view is entirely explained by the concept of the criterion employed in epistemological contact with any object. However, the totality of all such criteria can and must be regarded as a higher level, a meta-level, of relation to the object. This level optimizes the understanding of the assessment and thereby, by definition, represents a truth of a higher order. This makes it possible to speak not of the relativity of truth but of a hierarchy of truths. Besides, a level is possible at which description, definition or categorization attain an optimum by virtue of their maximal adequacy to the object, in the sense that they express its essence.
In the attempt to solve the problem of the IAs (informational aspects) — a problem not only scientific but also philosophical — Aushra and her followers use one and the same methodological device. To explicate the eight IAs they use three pairs of polar categories whose combinatorics generates eight semantic combinations. And these can then be put into unambiguous correspondence with the IAs. The difference lies only in the choice of polar categories. For example, Prokofieva chooses as such categories ex-in, st-di, ve-vu, which means extraversion–introversion, statics–dynamics and external–internal. As a result she obtains what she wanted, but the question arises: “How and why did she choose precisely these categories?” Semantic combinations sufficient for establishing a suitable correspondence could also be made up by other triples of Augustinavichute–Reinin traits (ARTs). Thus, instead of statics–dynamics one might have chosen strategy–tactics, positivism–negativism or, for instance, questimity–declatimity. The point is that all the ARTs can themselves be represented as the result of the combinatorics of the IAs. Thus the IAs themselves could be taken as basic concepts, and their explication through their own derivatives represents a circle in the representation. In the chapter on the semantics of the IAs the author offers his own solution to this problem, without, however, claiming that it is final.
Socionics revives the hope that in time, on the path toward absolute knowledge, we shall not have to consider separately physical phenomena and the phenomena accompanying thought, forgetting, in the analysis of the one, the means used in the analysis of the other. The remarkable mathematician E. Wigner, in his theoretical reflections on the essence of mathematics and physics, and of science in general, dreaming of a synthesis of scientific knowledge, says: “I must confess that I have not the slightest notion of the structure of this more complete science. I should be surprised if in this structure there were discovered a hierarchy analogous to the one described above, and if invariance and the principles of symmetry occupied definite places in it. The need for a stronger integration of science is apparently best confirmed by the fact that the basic concepts of intuitionist mathematics are physical objects, that the basic concept in the epistemological structure of physics is the concept of observation, and that psychology is not yet in a position to give us concepts and idealizations possessing that degree of precision which is required in mathematics and even in physics. Thus the shifting of responsibility from mathematics to physics, from physics to psychology, has no end. Only a closer union of these now disparate disciplines can remedy so lamentable a situation” [2]. And further this remarkable scientist expresses the hope that then “it will prove possible to overcome the wall between the physical, the biological and the humanitarian sciences…“. A remarkable idea — and it appears that socionics is a substantial step along this path.
The philosophy of the TIM
In elaborating socionics, the theoreticians (A. Bukalov, V. Gulenko, V. Yermak, V. Pavlov, S. Savchenko, S. Churyumov and others) discovered that many philosophical problems become clearer if one takes into account that behind every TIM there stands a quite definite philosophical position. Thus V. V. Gulenko, in his work devoted to the philosophy of the socionic types, correlates each type with a definite philosophical direction and sets in correspondence to it a generalized philosophical attitude. Extraverted intuitives he assigns to the category of objective idealists, extraverted sensorics to objective materialists, introverted intuitives to subjective idealists, and introverted sensorics to subjective materialists.
That there are typological grounds behind the correlation proposed by V. V. Gulenko is beyond doubt. It is another matter that a concrete bearer of a type may, depending on personal circumstances, profess any philosophy whatever — but possibly, given a free choice, he would sooner attach himself precisely to the direction indicated by V. V. Gulenko. However, without statistics and experiment we here step onto the unstable ground of intuitive insights. The facts, though, tell a different story. Thus, for example, as we now know, K. Marx, an intuitive-logical extravert, was the founder of dialectical materialism, while G. W. F. Hegel, an intuitive-logical introvert, unfolded his philosophical constructions in the field of objective idealism. And very many such examples could be adduced.
The strength of socionic generalization here could manifest itself not at all in the fact that a definite variety of philosophical and political views is prescribed to every bearer of a type. One must not forget that in a bureaucratic variant this will be imposed on scientists — we have already been through that. The strength of socionic generalization here lies in the fact that the typological structure of socionics points to the possibility of the existence of a definite type of philosophies which under definite conditions may appear in society, although their generators need by no means be bearers of one strictly defined type.
Table 17.01. Possible gnoseological formulas of the TIMs
| T | Gnoseological formula | Nearest substantive interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| Il (ILE) | Abstract perception of the object | Holistic perception of internal structure and potential possibilities; construction of a theory of objects or processes of arbitrary nature. Cognition of the essence of the observed world |
| sE (SEI) | Materialization of the subject’s concrete sensation | Rendering of the elements of the externally perceived cohesion of individual bearers of subjectivity in a concretely tangible form. Subjective reflection of the attractive appearance of the world. For example: impressionist painting, the adventure novel, pop-art design |
| Es (ESE) | Concrete perception of the subjective process | Rendering of typical emotional states of people and of their simultaneous coexistence. Subjective discovery of the optimistic side of existence in this world |
| lI (LII) | Materialization of the abstract perception of the object | Creation of an object with new potential possibilities on the basis of its abstract-theoretical image; practical implementations of theoretical results |
| Ei (EIE) | Abstract perception of the subjective process | Perception of the emotional states of people in time, in the process of the dynamic transformation of these states |
| lS (LSI) | Materialization of the concrete perception of the objective process | Creation of a new social structure or of its elements on the basis of pragmatic notions of its effectiveness |
| Sl (SLE) | Concrete perception of the object | Control of the kinetic energy and external form of objects of arbitrary nature |
| iE (IEI) | Materialization of the abstract sensation of subjective states | Creation and outward projection of a lyrical image of the intuitively perceived interaction of individual bearers of subjectivity |
| Li (LIE) | Abstract perception of the objective process | Creation of fundamentally new technological processes and their elements on the basis of the materialization of their abstract-theoretical images. Objective reflection of the dynamic side of the world |
| eS (ESI) | Materialization of the concrete perception of the subjective process | Creation and outward projection of an ethical-normative image of the directly perceived interaction of individual bearers of subjectivity |
| Se (SEE) | Concrete perception of the subject | Control of the kinetic energy and external form of individual bearers of subjectivity and of their various associations |
| iL (ILI) | Materialization of the abstract perception of the objective process | Creation of theoretical and practical models and methods realizing theoretical notions of their effectiveness |
| Ie (IEE) | Abstract perception of the subject | Holistic perception of the internal structure and potential possibilities of living beings |
| sL (SLI) | Materialization of the concrete perception of the objective process | Creation of maximally optimized technological processes and objects. Aesthetic minimalism |
| Ls (LSE) | Concrete perception of the objective process | Creation of maximally effective technological schemes or their elements with the aim of ensuring maximum comfort, taking into account simultaneously coexisting and interacting objective processes. Highly effective production |
| eI (EII) | Materialization of the abstract perception of the subjective process | Creation and outward projection of an ideal image of the intuitively perceived interaction of individual bearers of subjectivity. Accent on the humanistic aspect of this world |
(In the author’s notation a capital letter denotes an extraverted element, a lower-case letter an introverted one: I/i — intuition, S/s — sensorics, L/l — logic, E/e — ethics. The first letter is the programme function, the second the creative function. Standard type abbreviations are added in brackets.)
Therefore, turning V. V. Gulenko’s constructions around, one may assert that potentially there exist only sixteen types of philosophical views, which can be grouped into materialist or idealist, objective or subjective directions. But just as, for all the diversity of characters, people are distributed among sixteen types, so philosophies may differ among themselves in details however one likes, but will never go beyond the limits of sixteen basic varieties. And this is already a fundamental and by no means trivial assertion. At the basis of any philosophical position there lies a quite definite gnoseological formula. A preliminary survey of such formulas is presented in Table 17.01.
It is curious that an analogous result, in a different conceptual framing, was obtained in Indian philosophy, whereas European philosophy has unfortunately stopped at an empirical enumeration of the varieties of philosophical views discovered within it. This may be understood in the sense that European philosophy, prior to socionic developments, did not possess a full-fledged generalized classification of its own possibilities, and consequently its development too proceeded to a significant degree spontaneously. Of course, “there is a charm of its own in this,” but all the same it points to a certain still initial — though protracted — stage of its formation. So from socionic positions one may predict a new stage in the formation of philosophical systems: the technological one, when such systems will be manufactured “as occasion demands.” Incidentally, a prototype of this stage can already be observed now in PR technologies.
Proceeding from the above, one may draw the conclusion that, independently of a philosopher’s TIM, he may profess or become the founder of any philosophical system, but the generalized type of such a system will never go beyond the limits of sixteen varieties. On the other hand, having in hand the text of the philosophical reasoning of a concrete philosopher, and regarding such a text as a projective test, one may establish the philosopher’s TIM — which undoubtedly may be of interest both to philosophers and to representatives of many other sciences. We do not here set the task of fully solving problems of this kind; what is at issue is merely the setting of the task. Therefore the two tables offered here, with the gnoseological formulas of the TIMs and their interpretations, are of an approximate character and are intended for further criticism and fundamental elaboration.
Let us also recall Descartes’s famous “Cogito ergo sum” — “I think, therefore I exist” — when he was trying to find reliable foundations for the scientific search for truth. However, he found nothing better than to rest upon the intuitive perception of his own thinking. After all, as a bearer of a definite TIM he simply had no other way of proving the existence of his own existence. However, socionics gives grounds for holding that bearers of other TIMs may have entirely different notions on this score, but Descartes did not think of this. These other notions may be presented in the following tabular form (Table 17.02). Of course, the maxims given must be regarded as particular cases — other formulations are also possible.
Table 17.02. Typal statements about existence
| T | …therefore I exist |
|---|---|
| Il (ILE) | I comprehend the laws of nature… |
| sE (SEI) | I feel comfortable… |
| Es (ESE) | I assert myself emotionally… |
| lI (LII) | I think… |
| Ei (EIE) | I dramatize… |
| lS (LSI) | I control the environment, establishing order… |
| Sl (SLE) | I dominate on a concrete territory… |
| iE (IEI) | I freely give myself over to lyrical self-expression… |
| Li (LIE) | I experiment and invent… |
| eS (ESI) | I adhere to moral-ethical norms… |
| Se (SEE) | I manipulate people… |
| iL (ILI) | I freely give myself over to creative labour… |
| Ie (IEE) | I help people realize their potential possibilities… |
| sL (SLI) | I achieve maximum effect with minimum effort… |
| Ls (LSE) | I guarantee a high standard of living for myself and those close to me… |
| eI (EII) | I contribute to the spiritual elevation of my immediate surroundings… |
Identification of a philosopher’s TIM from his philosophical works
We proceed from the assumption that a philosopher’s socionic type is a quite definite magnitude. Part of the information needed here can be obtained by studying his biography and physiognomic features — if, of course, an image of the philosopher and a sufficiently full account of his biography are available. But should not the philosophical system itself contain signs of the socionic type of its creator? Apparently the answer to this last question is after all not unambiguous. In a philosophical text one may distinguish at least two sides: the text with its lexicon, grammatical features and figurative structure, and the philosophical ideas expressed by means of this text.
Lexicon, grammatical features, figurative structure — all this is undoubtedly a set of testing indicators of socionic type. The only additional condition here is that the text must be sufficiently full. It is understandable that overly short fragments of text may be unrepresentative.
As for the testing possibilities of a philosophical idea, here certain difficulties may arise. The point is that one and the same philosophical idea may be conveyed by different texts — texts with different typological indicators. In particular, one person’s ideas may simply be retold by another person. Moreover, this retelling may be very different in essence: benevolent and adequate; ironic; hostile with conscious or unconscious distortions; or, say, presented in a good-naturedly humorous key. And here the question naturally arises: what remains in such a retelling of the original idea, what is not subjected to deformation, what is invariant? Moreover, the deformations and transformations of an idea in such a retelling need not necessarily be negative. It may be a development and improvement of the idea, or a critical exposition which tries, without distorting the idea itself, at the same time to reveal its defects, as these at least appear to the critic. So as a working hypothesis one may accept that the ideas belonging to a concrete philosopher do not necessarily correspond unambiguously to his socionic type. This supposition may be designated as the typological paradox.
One may only suppose that the informational-metabolic sieve, or filter, of a philosopher ought to select ideas of the corresponding sort. Of course, this makes sense when what is at issue is philosophical ideas, that is, ideas actively influencing informational-metabolic processes, since, generally speaking, a philosopher may think about anything at all and have ideas in various fields of knowledge. Thus, for example, the intuitive-logical extraverts (presumably) Mendeleev, Marx, Kurchatov, Freud, Vernadsky, Tsiolkovsky and others advanced ideas of differing informational quality depending on the scientific field in which they worked. And if we take, for example, the philosopher Marx, then it turns out that the main field of his interests lies in economics. It was precisely with this that he occupied himself in most detail, and to it that he devoted the systematic work that is Capital, whereas he left no systematic exposition of his philosophical views. Economic ideas reflect concrete operation with concrete things (“commodity–money–commodity”) and in their basic mass may be assigned to the sensory-logical introverted type (“Gaben”). Marx’s philosophical ideas clearly gravitate toward politico-economic problems and serve economics and sociology, and in a socionic key may be expressed as the striving to improve people’s well-being in society by providing them with material goods. In socionics such a tendency corresponds to the sensory-ethical introverted type (“Dumas”). Thus one can see that Marx expressed ideas corresponding to the semi-dual and the dual of his own socionic type.
Freud’s works may in a socionic key be characterized as “profound understanding of ethical processes,” which corresponds to the ethical-intuitive introtim (“Dostoevsky”); and it turns out that he generated ideas consonant with the supervisor of his own socionic type. Is it not this that explains the shocking, épatage character of his theoretical constructions?
Tsiolkovsky’s ideas and developments may be characterized as “practical mastery of a somewhat abstract (cosmic) space,” which corresponds to the sensory-logical extravert (“Zhukov”). Many years after Tsiolkovsky’s death his ideas were carried through to practical completion by Korolyov, whose type, if I am not mistaken, is sensory-logical extraversion. In that case Tsiolkovsky’s ideas stand in “business” relations to his own type.
Einstein’s ideas, from a socionic point of view, are “subtle processual correlations between time and space,” which ought to correspond to the intuitive-logical introvert (“Balzac”). Some socionists assigned him to the type Don Quixote. If that is so, then he expressed ideas of “complete opposition” to his own socionic type. However, I hold to the hypothesis that Einstein belonged to the type Balzac, and in that case his type corresponds to the type of his ideas.
Common to all the thinkers listed above is the capacity to disclose the potential possibilities of those objects to which their efforts are directed, and to communicate this to others in a structural-logical, theoretical form. The works of all these scientists are marked by literary merits, in which no small role is played by the somewhat unusual, unexpected, sometimes almost fantastic (irrationality!) character of their ideas.
A socionic classification, or typology, of philosophical systems
Let us see how legitimate the use of the socionic typology is in the field of the classification of philosophical systems. Is it possible to ascribe a definite socionic type to one philosophical system or another, and what sense may be connected with this?
If philosophy is defined as the teaching about the most general principles of being and cognition, then a concrete philosophical system operates with a concrete set of principles which within such a system are perceived as fundamental concepts — fundamental in the sense that they are laid at the basis of all thought-activity which, in the end, directly or indirectly, turns out to be connected with, or generated by, the surrounding environment. And although such concepts, in themselves, may be anything whatever, within the philosophical system they are used as ultimate, indecomposable, absolute, and everything else must in the last analysis be reduced to them. These principles function as an instrument by means of which the selection and explanation of the facts of surrounding reality is carried out, together with orientation in social processes, the determination of life goals, the formation of ideals, decision-making and so on.
Let us proceed from the assumption that a philosophical system represents a certain abstraction in comparison with the concrete knowledge circulating in the mental structures of one individual or another, and that part of this knowledge turns out to be beyond conscious control. However, it is presumed that, by observing a person with the use of the arsenal of contemporary means of identification, one can reveal the whole set of fundamental ideas which in the final analysis determine that person’s behaviour. This fundamental knowledge may be regarded as a mental organ whose work is directed at satisfying certain criteria determining the features of the individual’s interaction with the environment. As experience shows, what is at issue here is not necessarily optimization in the narrow sense of the word, that is, the creation of the best conditions for the functioning of the organism in concrete circumstances.
The dynamic forms of manifestation of the knowledge circulating in the mental structures correspond to what in socionics is defined as information metabolism. The most general forms of manifestation of information metabolism are the processes of the perception, accumulation, processing and issuing of information, and the features of these processes in a concrete person are precisely what determine his socionic type.
Philosophy as a form of social consciousness or as concrete personal knowledge undoubtedly imposes limitations on the informational flows between the environment and society, between the environment and the individual — moreover, in this case the concept of environment may have a non-linear character, when society itself or the individual are parts of it. From reality, perception selects and accumulates only those facts which the social-gnoseological system, equipped with ideological filters, lets through. The selected facts are formed into an aggregate and receive explanation and further processing in accordance with the fundamental ideas underlying the given system. In this same key proceeds the issuing and further use of the information obtained. Thus, for example, the Soviet variety of dialectical materialism which prevailed in our country as an ideological foundation did not permit the examination of certain sides of reality, whether in economics (the case of Voskresensky and his book The Economy of the Soviet Union in the Patriotic War), in foreign or domestic policy, in social relations and so forth. Especially telling here are the well-known cases of the ideological filtration of facts in the fields of biology, cybernetics and physics. On the basis of the above one may suppose that a philosophical system is capable of setting and determining the features of information metabolism both for a concrete person and for society. But do the types of such metabolism coincide with those singled out in socionics? In particular, in connection with the foregoing, one may pose the question whether a philosopher’s socionic type coincides with the type of information metabolism induced by the philosophical system he has created.
Let us approach the question of the socionic typology of philosophical ideas and systems from another side. Let us try to construct deductively socionic specifications of philosophies of different types, proceeding from the typological indicators of informational flows.
In accordance with the Jungian typological basis one could distinguish philosophical systems as rational and irrational, extraverted and introverted, intuitive and sensory, logical and ethical.
Let us see how such systems might look.
In philosophy there exists a division of systems into rationalist and irrationalist ones. Does this division correspond to the Jungian concepts of rationality and irrationality? A priori one may say that part of the volume of these concepts undoubtedly coincides, if only because they belong to one and the same culture. To rationalist systems are assigned systems resting on formal logic and common sense and using reason, reasonableness, as the criterion of truth. In Jung the corresponding concepts are used in the same sense, but somewhat more narrowly, as applied to the content of the first function of the socionic model “AJ”, and correspondingly of the fourth. A type, according to Jung, is considered rational if the content of one of these functions is logic — that is, if the dominant of behaviour or its correction is bound up with reliance on logic, on tried and adapted knowledge. To such systems one may assign, for example, the philosophies of Leibniz, Spinoza, Descartes, James, Dewey and many others.
Descartes
Let us examine Descartes’s philosophy a little more closely. His key work here is the Discourse on Method, in whose full title there follow the words “for rightly conducting the reason and seeking truth in the sciences.” Even in the very title of the work practically all the words — discourse, method, rightly conducting, reason, seeking truth — have a rationalist shade. In the first part of this work Descartes gives a definition of reason as the capacity to judge rightly and to distinguish the true from the false. Definitions are not disputed, although other definitions of reason are of course possible; but Descartes chooses one in which the semantic stress falls on the words “to judge rightly” (i.e. to judge by rules, on a previously agreed basis), while the remaining part of the definition, “to distinguish the true from the false,” represents a supplement to the preceding. It is not even excluded that this is simply a rhetorical extension of the semantic core, that is, that the stylistics and rhythm of the sentence require it. Here “to distinguish the true from the false” may be regarded as a synonymic equivalent of “to judge rightly,” i.e. the true is distinguished from the false on the basis of certain indicators, of rules defined in advance. From this point of view these words may also be regarded as a commonplace characteristic of texts of this kind.
The semantic core of the definition of reason — “to judge rightly” — Descartes further develops in the rules of the scientific method, where as the first rule he adopts the principle of evidence, clarity and distinctness in judgements and notions about objects. Although these three words have their own shades, in the context of Descartes’s rules they are perceived as very close in meaning, as mutually refining one another. In a philosopher of an irrational-intuitivist bent — for instance, Bergson — there may also be talk of evidence, but it will be an intuitive evidence personally for him, and one which, as it later turns out, is very hard to convey to another. In Descartes, however, evidence functions as a common denominator for all who turn to a common object of research and make use of rational means.
The second rule prescribes dividing the difficulties encountered into particular problems. Such a division pursues the aim of making the parts more surveyable, more evident, more convenient for forming a common opinion about them for all who are occupied with the problem. In the third rule — to observe order in thinking, passing from less complex things to more difficult ones, from the proven to the unproven. Here the key words, “to observe order in thinking,” have a vividly expressed rationalist sense, and from the point of view of socionics they quite definitely point to a rational component in the determination of the type of information metabolism. The fourth rule is to survey carefully the field of research and the order of one’s advance through it, in order to avoid omissions and the dropping out of logical links. Here all the elements point to socionic rationality.
In these rules there is distinctly traceable that which in philosophy is correlated with rationalism and, as we see, corresponds to rationality in socionics. This is the emphasis on distinctness in judgements, which corresponds to a logical filling of the first function of the model “AJ” (hereafter 1l, that is, the role of the first function is performed by introverted logic, and analogously in what follows). The division of difficulties and the observance of order in thinking — again 1l; the surveying of the field of research and the avoidance of omissions in logical links may also be assigned to 1l.
In this same work, in its third part, Descartes speaks of the moral rules necessary in using the rules for the methodical mastery of nature. These are moderation and law-abidingness — the normative character of the ethics is obvious (4e, or ethics in the place of the fourth function); the following of generally accepted models of behaviour (4e); firmness in the realization of decisions taken — here firmness (S — extraverted sensorics) is directed at the executor himself, a demand made upon oneself, which in the model “AJ” corresponds to the third function; and thus one may say that here extraverted sensorics is in the place of the third function (3S).
Already from these observations one may draw the conclusion that Descartes’s philosophy is rational in the socionic sense. Incidentally, Descartes’s physiognomic features — a lean face, a gaze concentrated on the inner and somewhat closed, a severity of appearance and so on — incline one to the conclusion that he was a logical introvert, and most probably a logical-intuitive introvert (LII), whose model “AJ” has the form [l–I–S–E]. So in this case one may speak of a coincidence between the socionic characterization of a philosophical system and the type of its creator, and not merely of the presence of the rational pole in both characterizations. From the fact that Descartes’s philosophy is directed at the invention of means for systematic discoveries in science, one may conclude that its socionic characterization is logical-intuitive introversion. But is Descartes himself a logical-intuitive introvert? This needs to be investigated specially.
Schopenhauer
In philosophy, rationalism is opposed by irrationalism as having a shade of unknowability, incomprehensibility, often of the mysterious and the enigmatic. In socionics the pole of irrationality is associated with the axis “intuition — sensorics,” distinguished by the fact that the manifestations belonging to it do not bear a logical character but approach or coincide with inspiration, revelation, impulsiveness, spontaneity and so on; and the same or similar characteristics are associated in philosophy with irrationalism.
In philosophy, to irrationalist systems are assigned, for example, the views of Schopenhauer. His basic work — The World as Will and Representation — already contains in its title the key words of his philosophy. All the rest is merely the development, confirmation and grounding of the philosopher’s chief conviction, so aphoristically framed.
Statements characteristic of Schopenhauer: “…the world exists only insofar as we represent it…” (1); “…the subject is the bearer of the world, the pervasive, constantly presupposed condition of every phenomenon, of every object, for it is only for the subject that whatever exists exists” (2); “Every organism, including the human one, life as such, represents nothing other than the manifestation of will” (3); “This will as the sole thing-in-itself, as the sole reality, the sole primordial and metaphysical principle in a world where everything else is only appearance, i.e. no more than representation” (4); “To admit the existence of things as such, outside our consciousness and independently of it, is truly absurd” (The World as Will and Representation, St. Petersburg, 1880, and Collected Works, Moscow, 1990).
When a person utters words such as “the world exists only insofar as…” — he is pointing to the area of greatest confidence, i.e. to 1f(J) or to 3/1f(A) — the third half-beat in Model A. In this case Schopenhauer directly indicates that his first function in “AJ” is connected with representations: he represents, senses the world, feels it, and insofar as he does so, it exists. In socionics such a relation to the world corresponds to introverted sensorics — 1s; and since the irrational pole is bound up with sensorics in the first function, one may here speak of a coincidence between the general philosophical and the socionic assessment of Schopenhauer’s philosophy.
The subsequent statements, from the point of view of testing the type of information metabolism, may be interpreted as follows. The expression “to admit the existence” points to a creative attitude, in the socionic sense, toward the content of the subsequent category, which corresponds to 2f(J); and its content turns out to be the “thing,” that is, something set apart and amenable to technological manipulation. This must mean that in the position of the creative function of the model “AJ” Schopenhauer must have extraverted logic (L). That is, one may say that Schopenhauer’s philosophy induces a type of information metabolism in whose model “AJ” the creative function will hold extraverted logic, or technology; in other words, this means that since the world — and consequently everything that happens in it — is entirely determined by the will of the subject, we can produce anything we like, provided only that we need it.
Let us note, in order to underline once more the opposition of the two philosophical systems examined above, that Schopenhauer replaces the Cartesian “Cogito — ergo sum” (I think, therefore I exist) with “Volo — ergo sum” (I exercise will, therefore I exist).
Thus, preliminary analysis shows that all the philosopher’s key statements are distributed quite unambiguously among the functions of the socionic models, and the socionic type of this philosophy may be determined as sensory-logical introversion.
A little about Schopenhauer’s own socionic type. From the biographical data one can extract testing indications. This was a decisive, impulsive man who never stopped even before a scandal. Talk of will here had a direct bearing on the chief features of his behaviour. Incidentally, this cost him dearly — in the literal sense of the word. Once, in a fit of irritation, he pushed a neighbour, a seamstress, down the stairs because of the noise in her room, and afterwards, by court sentence, paid her compensation for many years. Contemporaries spoke of his character as vile, insufferable, obstinate, irritable. This may be understood as an indication of the absence of socionic ethics in the first functions of the model “AJ” of his type. He was also considered unsociable, gloomy, sullen — such characteristics are more inherent in introverts.
His doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, may be interpreted, in the socionic sense, as the presence of a strong interest in and inclination toward logical research and constructions; and the content of this work indicates that his logic was by no means formal but bore a creative character: he builds the logical structure of his system as it suited him, and does so with great sophistication, which may quite well be interpreted as an indication of 2L(J). And taking into account his interests and abilities in medicine, philosophy, natural science, physics, chemistry, botany, astronomy, meteorology, anthropology, his musical ability (he played the flute all his life), his capacity to organize domestic comfort, the health and vital tone he preserved into deep old age, as well as his ability to dispose economically of the inheritance he received from his father, and moreover the remarkable literary abilities noted by contemporaries, and such a phrase said in passing as “…the inestimable advantage of living for oneself without obligatory labour…” — all this creates the image of a sensory-logical introvert (“Gaben”) and does not contradict the notions of this type in socionics and in the Jungian typology in America. The physiognomic data incline one to the same conclusion: shapely lips, an aquiline nose, slightly protruding eyes, curly hair — all this fully confirms 1s(J).
Thus, in Schopenhauer’s case one may speak of a coincidence between the socionic characteristics of his personality and those of his philosophical system.
An analogous analysis shows that, for example, Hegelian philosophy belongs to the intuitive-logical introtim type (“Balzac”) — this is the sensation of the continuity of processes with their complex structure and varied mutual transitions, pure intuition of time and definiteness of result: here everything begins with indefinite (intuition!), immediate being and ends with the absolute idea. That is, a certain object has been obtained, produced, but at the same time a highly global and qualitative one, which may correspond to 2L(J). I consider that Hegel’s character likewise belongs to this same type — intuitive-logical introversion (iL) — which is confirmed also by the stylistic features of his texts: viscous sentences and periods flowing smoothly one into another, sophisticated logic and reflection, the use of a mass of words with very blurred, non-rigid meanings, including pronouns. Consider, if nothing else, the expression “The nothing of a certain something is a certain determinate nothing” — here even the word “determinate” becomes blurred!
It is interesting to note that Marx, accepting Hegel’s philosophy as one of the sources of his worldview, speaks of turning the Hegelian approach from its head onto its feet — this is, on the one hand, a confirmation of the relation of complete opposition, and on the other, a transfer of irrationality. Thus, contrary to the notions of the Marxists, Marxism should be assigned to the irrationalist philosophies, as indeed turned out to be the case in practice.
If as one more example we take Kant’s philosophy, then it should be assigned to the rationalist philosophies, to which corresponds the socionic logical-intuitive introverted type — this is, above all, critical analysis (corresponding to socionic introverted logic) and the obtaining of an antinomic result: a rationalist opposition of two equally acknowledged possibilities which reason (read here: logic) is unable to penetrate and before which it halts with an admission of its own impotence, while at the same time an awareness of the potential possibilities of each of the parts of the antinomy is preserved (socionic extraverted intuition). Incidentally, one of Kant’s intellectual merits is the recognition of the right of the “thing-in-itself” to remain unknowable and thereby to remain inexhaustible, which socionically may be interpreted as an intuitive grasp of the potential possibilities of the given object.
The brief and quite superficial analysis carried out shows that to philosophical constructions one may set in correspondence a socionic type as a type of information metabolism. Proceeding from this, one may suppose that when a philosopher expounds his philosophical views, the socionic relation of the philosophical construction to his type of information metabolism will be identical, or will gravitate toward that; whereas if he works in another subject area, this relation may take the most varied forms: from dual and identical to conflicting and supervisory, with all the socionic consequences that follow from this.
The “coolest” philosophical school at present — analytic philosophy — rests on the psychology of scepticism. The basic idea of philosophical scepticism is doubt as to the possibility of “deep” cognition. Scepticism admits the possibility of “superficial” cognition (though with numerous reservations), but finds a mass of arguments asserting the impossibility of deep, universal, full-fledged cognition. Scepticism is universal; scepticism is easy and convenient. It is easy to hold a sceptical position: subject the evident to doubt, assert the non-evidence of the evident and the evidence of the non-evident. This is a no-lose strategy, but it is a strategy of short distances and quick results. No, it is not always bad. There are moments, periods and epochs when doubt (the working form of scepticism!), sometimes like a scalpel and sometimes like a drill, is able to open up stagnant dogmatic accretions and open the way to a creative breakthrough. But when doubt turns into scepticism — its lazy and stagnant form — and itself acquires the form of a dogma, it becomes worthy of scepticism and must be subjected to doubt. Such is one of the links of the dialectic of doubt.
Any philosophy represents a response to a social commission, and it is on the whole clear who commissions the sceptical shade in philosophy: it is a class that has attained domination or relative well-being and wishes to preserve the status quo. The representatives of this class are subconsciously prepared to accept the impossibility of changing the level of understanding attained and, emanating this readiness in the form of not always conscious thought-forms, contribute to the crystallization of an ideology with a sceptical potential.
Scepticism is a philosophy of irrational introversion; it is a limitation to what has been attained, a subconscious wish to protect oneself from an excessive dissipation of energy and a risky expenditure of resource.
At the foundation of socionics, however, lies the psychology of the creative breakthrough, which does not doubt the possibility of deep and fundamental cognition, which dares and discovers truly fundamental structural foundations forming the world at any of its moments and in any of its periods. The philosophy of the creative breakthrough is a philosophy of irrational extraversion; it is an expansion of cognition, its extension beyond the limits of what is available.
And what do the other combinations of extraversion–introversion with rationality–irrationality offer us? It is entirely plausible, at least according to socionic concepts, that irrational introversion gets on well with doubt and scepticism, which above all may issue in a critical attitude toward what has been attained by others. Such, apparently, was Socrates. Incidentally, socionists almost unanimously define his TIM as the type Balzac. Rousseau, very plausibly a Yesenin, criticized what were in his opinion the distorted forms of humanism and proposed his own attitude toward the human being.
To rational extraversion pragmatism is closest (James, Dewey), while rational introversion will seek a philosophical framing of ethical humanism. At any rate F. M. Dostoevsky, who quite possibly belongs to the type Dostoevsky, was one of the founders of existentialism, a philosophical direction with a strong sounding of the ethical and humanistic principles.
The problem of consciousness in philosophy
In socionics the question of the mental substrate — that is, of the real bearer of mental phenomenology — stands acutely, perhaps even more acutely than in psychology, and socionics offers its own answers on this score. The problem of the correlation of the ideal and the material was first formulated in philosophy. This problem has several equivalent formulations, for example: how are spirit and matter, or psyche and body, connected? In psychology one speaks of the psychophysiological problem. In Marxism this theme was considered the fundamental one, which from other philosophical positions may look at the least strange, since this theme sets only a demarcation between philosophies of different type. With the discovery of socionics the theme of philosophical demarcation acquires an entirely different — technological rather than politico-ideological — sense.
Philosophy occupies itself with the intellectual investigation of ultimate and maximally generalized problems which arise before humanity in the process of its formation. One of these problems is the problem of consciousness. However, the attempt to solve this problem within the framework of philosophy looks rather strange, for this is not a philosophical problem at all but a natural-scientific one. It is absurd to solve this problem at the level of axiomatics, that is, to acknowledge without proof one or another variant of its solution — direct observations and experiments are needed. Therefore when, for example, materialists declare that they solve the “basic question of philosophy” in favour of the primacy of matter over spirit, this looks like simple voluntarist arbitrariness. It is as senseless as deciding scientific questions by voting. In any case, in the spiritual teachings, where their founders went out onto the higher spiritual levels and came into direct contact with subtle spiritual entities, there is no problem whatever connected with the nature of consciousness.
At present there exist in philosophy several conventional formulations concerning consciousness which some scientists consider to be definitions of consciousness. However, a closer analysis of such formulations compels one to doubt this status of theirs.
In philosophy it is acknowledged that consciousness belongs among the basic concepts of philosophy, psychology and sociology, as indicating the “highest level of the mental activity of the human being as a social being” [4]. It is clear that the formulation cited is not a definition, since it indicates only the genus to which this entity belongs (“the highest level of mental activity”) but does not specify the species of this activity. In this formulation it is implicitly presupposed that animals, since they are not social beings in the human sense, do not possess consciousness. But with what, then, are their states of waking and sleep to be connected? Are they, when awake, in an unconscious state?
Further in the same source it is said that the peculiarity of “this activity consists in the fact that the reflection of reality in the form of sensory and mental images anticipates a person’s practical actions, lending them a purposeful character.” It is obvious that what is at issue here is the filling of consciousness, not its essence. But this is not surprising, since the positivist-pragmatic approach to the understanding of consciousness, resting on a fundamentally limited sensory-empirical base, simply does not possess sufficient data and possibilities for this.
Examining the sociological approach to consciousness, the source indicates that in this case consciousness “is regarded above all as the reflection in people’s spiritual life of the interests and notions of various social groups, classes, nations, of society as a whole.” As we see, in this explanation too what is at issue is not the essence of consciousness but its filling. However, in this case there appears a semantic shade connected with the notion of “consciousness” as a greater or lesser reflection upon one’s class affiliation.
And finally, describing the attitude toward the concept of consciousness in psychology, the source [4] notes that in “psychology consciousness is treated as a special, higher level of organization of the mental life of a subject who distinguishes himself from surrounding reality, reflecting this reality in the form of mental images which serve as regulators of purposeful activity.” Here, besides an indication of the genus to which consciousness belongs, we have an indication of the instrumental character of consciousness, but we learn nothing about its essence. This is the limit before which materialism halts — to acknowledge the reality of consciousness as an independent entity proves beyond its powers. Possibly materialism, in the person of its adepts, fears that in that case it will have to sacrifice its own fundamentality.
The natural-scientific approach to the understanding of consciousness is at present being raised by many scientists. The most striking among them are the works of G. I. Shipov, A. E. Akimov, V. I. Volchenko and I. P. Volkov. These scientists raise the question that the bearer of consciousness is a concrete, entirely material, but subtler kind of material field than those given in sensory experience. Such works can only be welcomed; however, this does not free them from the methodological requirements made of science. What is at issue here is above all the correctness of definitions and the qualification of one’s own statements. Thus, for example, when Volchenko writes that “We understand consciousness as a certain sum of interconnected elements: Intellect + Soul + Spirit” [8], doubt at once arises as to the correctness of this statement. It sounds like a definition, but by formal and substantive criteria it is not one. Formally, here one unknown — consciousness — is reduced to three others, since their definitions are not given. And to imply that everyone perfectly well knows what Intellect, Soul and Spirit are means to disregard the methodological achievements in the field of philosophy, logic, linguistics and psychology. Substantively, consciousness is of course neither intellect, nor soul, nor spirit, nor any variety whatever of their sum (and by the way, what would that mean?). Intellect is the capacity to process information purposefully. Therefore, in particular, one may speak of artificial intelligence. Soul is the individual subtle-energetic bearer of mental processes which governs the body. Spirit is the primary substrate of the world. Consciousness, however, is not Spirit itself, but is its basic capacity to reflect upon its own presence. This is not a definition — it is an explication, because consciousness belongs to the basic concepts which cannot be defined, although it is directly experienced by the subject.
When the outstanding physicist G. I. Shipov, director of the Centre for Vacuum Physics, which is engaged in research on the Subtle World, and academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, says: “I assert: there is a new physical theory, created as a result of the development of A. Einstein’s ideas, in which there has appeared a certain level of reality whose synonym in religion is God — a certain reality possessing all the signs of Divinity. I assert only this. I do not know how this Divinity is constituted, but it really exists. By our methods it is impossible to know Him, to ‘study’ Him. And besides, Science does not prove but only points to the existence of God” — this is a very contradictory statement. It is entirely plausible that a certain new physical theory has been created. It is entirely plausible that this theory develops certain ideas of the famous and authoritative scientist A. Einstein. It is entirely plausible that this theory points to some level of reality previously unknown to science. But to identify this level of reality with God there are no grounds whatever, simply because a definition of God is lacking. This is precisely what the scientist himself asserts in the second part of his statement: “I do not know how this Divinity is constituted…” [cited from 10]. And then he says that “it really exists.” The expression in quotation marks is called an existential judgement, that is, an assertion of the existence of something. However, in the given context this judgement belongs to the category of the blurred and indeterminate, because the predicates “really” and “exists” are not defined. These predicates have been a stumbling block throughout the entire history of the existence of European philosophy. And when the scientist concludes his phrase with “By our methods it is impossible to know Him, to ‘study’ Him,” he in fact crosses out everything he has said before. So what, properly speaking, was he talking about?
That Shipov discovered torsion and inertial fields possessing a whole series of astonishing properties does not yet prove that he has discovered God. God was discovered by people several thousand years ago, but this does not make Him something easily accessible, and a hasty identification of Him with newly discovered fundamental objects, though tempting, is insufficiently grounded. At the level of a hypothesis the supposition under consideration is admissible, but as an existential judgement it lacks sufficient grounds.
In the Tikhoplavs [10] one encounters the phrase “Consciousness should be understood as the highest form of the development of information — creating information.” This is a very effective phrase and a very tempting definition: here the concept of consciousness is reduced to the concept of information as its highest form. But from a logical point of view this means that information is acknowledged as a more fundamental entity than consciousness; however, information can only be the filling of consciousness, not a less developed form of it. Consciousness precedes information and makes information conscious. And once again consciousness eludes definition — this is because it gives definitions to everything, while it has nothing with which to define itself.
Let us consider the following statement by A. E. Akimov [9]: “The physical nature of the Absolute and the physical nature of consciousness is the torsion field.” If Akimov had qualified this assertion as a hypothesis, then all would be in order. A hypothesis is a hypothesis: it needs to be substantiated. But if it is presumed that this statement is an absolute truth, then one may at once ask the question: “And where is the proof?” There is no proof, and therefore this statement may be criticized. Let us note that, according to this assertion, the torsion field is the physical nature of two ultimate entities at once: both of the Absolute and of consciousness. In connection with this, clarifying questions arise. “The Absolute and consciousness — are these one and the same or are these two different entities?” It is simplest to hold the opinion that they are different, but this is merely an opinion. For a scientific assertion definitions are necessary, but these two entities do not lend themselves to definition, although of course they may be furnished with numerous elucidations. “Does the physical nature of the Absolute differ from the Absolute itself, or does it coincide with it exactly?” As an elucidation of this last question there may be, for example, an indication of the difference between a person’s personality and his physical body. It is obvious that these are two different entities. Without answering the questions posed, one cannot consider Akimov’s statement correct. Of course, the high motivation of the statement under consideration is understandable — people have devoted much time to knowing the nature of the Absolute. But will the Absolute permit this to be done?
But of course, the very fact that physicists acknowledge the existence of the Absolute and are seeking a field substrate corresponding to it speaks of a substantial change in scientists’ paradigmatic attitudes.
The starting point of contemporary philosophical materialism for further theoretical constructions connected with the understanding of consciousness may be considered naive. This is on the grounds that its sole means of cognition, as for the overwhelming majority of philosophers of the European type, is intellectual reflection, or the all-round consideration not only of the data of external experience but of how this consideration proceeds at the level of the subject himself, with the use of introspection. The integral experience of humanity acknowledges that intellectual reflection represents merely one of the subjective levels. It is preceded by variants of the processing and generalization of information at the level of perception and imagination, characteristic of the early stages of humanity’s development; and it is followed by levels of transcendent transition, at which the intellect ceases to be an ultimate self-sufficient medium and appears as something made and consisting of parts.
Let us consider only one entirely contemporary introspective testimony [5]. “One day, sitting at the table after supper, I discovered that I had imperceptibly passed into a very pleasant state of contemplation… My breathing changed, but not in the sense of a noticeable slowing or acceleration, except that it was a little slower than usual. The chief change consisted in some subtle property connected with the air. It seemed that some subtle substance of indescribable sweetness was diffused in the air… Breathing was no longer a purely physical process but seemed to penetrate the whole organism like a tender caress, bringing pleasure and peace.” Thus Franklin Merrell-Wolff [5] begins the description of one of his transcendental transitions, in which he became acquainted with special states of consciousness. Of course, all his descriptions cannot be considered any kind of proof of the existence of parallel worlds and of higher levels of consciousness in comparison with that which is characteristic of the average person. However, their realism, sobriety and documentary quality deserve that scientists should relate seriously to this problematics, and not connect it by default with disorders of the psyche, or start branding the author a “dyed-in-the-wool” idealist.
Taking into account the limited empirical base of European philosophy, one may say at once that it is simply beyond its powers to give an adequate definition of consciousness. The limitedness of the sense organs makes it impossible to observe the whole set of parameters of our cosmos. If this were possible, science would be superfluous. Possibly philosophy too would be superfluous. Of course, if a philosopher is not restricted in his investigation of the world by ideological and bureaucratic assignments — and in Soviet times such made up at least 90 per cent — then he could become aware of the existence of entirely different horizons than those often highly sophisticated schemes of European philosophy, limited by the absence of transcendent experience.
Unfortunately, within philosophy as a social institution there are likewise many unsolved problems. In this it does not differ from all the rest of science, or from all the other spheres of social life. And here socionics could render philosophy such help as it can, for philosophers, like other scientists, are not free of ordinary human shortcomings, which makes the environment of their professional habitat, with its intrigues and unproductive struggle of scientific schools, no less irrational than, for example, the environment of art.
Socionics as methodology
That socionics possesses methodological potential with respect to a number of humanitarian disciplines became clear after its concepts began to be effectively used in sociologists’ recommendations to the victims of the Chernobyl catastrophe, in the formation of working groups in business and in cosmonautics, in literary studies for the analysis of works of art, and in other subject areas — for example, engineering! However, the question remains how universal the methodological potential of socionics is, what the boundaries of its methodological competence are, and whether it is capable of rendering methodological help to the science of sciences, philosophy. The preceding reflections on the philosophy of the TIM, on the socionic classification and typology of philosophical systems, and on the identification of a philosopher’s TIM from his philosophical works give grounds for holding that socionics has means which may prove useful for philosophy as well.
The question of the methodological potential of socionics is examined in more detail in the chapter on socionics as methodology.
Socionics as philosophy
Alongside the signs of a science, socionics has signs of a philosophy. It poses a number of maximally general questions which by default have always lain within the competence of philosophy. These are questions of an ontological, gnoseological, logical, ethical and aesthetic character. But it is especially important that it is the first in the history of philosophy and science to discover elementary informational entities, which opens unique possibilities for an adequate reduction of many complex phenomena in the humanitarian sphere. However, all such declarations require deep elaboration and grounding. All the objections against the methodological and philosophical potency of socionics have so far borne a primitive and unfounded character, up to and including outright slander, and have been accompanied by the malicious intonations so readily used by dogmatists or by chancers who have found themselves a berth in science.
By its parameters socionics is closest to the structuralist directions in philosophy; however, unlike the latter, its basic concepts do not have the arbitrary character of axiomatic assumptions but rest on generalized experimental and empirical facts, which lends its reasonings and constructs a fundamental character.
Socionics is not simply some structuralist trick, merely convenient for representing the mental functions, as rational-logical dogmatism might perhaps like to think. Behind it stand really existing objects, processes and phenomena. And still socionics is not a philosophy. It is a concrete science which proves able to solve part of the problems that have always belonged to the competence of philosophy. And this is a remarkable example of how concrete knowledge gradually masters and solves problematics once posed by philosophy.
Socionics as metaphilosophy
Philosophy is an ancient science, and not everything about it is as simple as it may seem, not only to people far removed from philosophy but also to some philosophers. Its name was given to it by Pythagoras, and it very much looks as if he invested in it an ironic shade, having in mind that it is not enough merely to reason — one must attain real achievements. It appears that by philosophy he understood a love of amateur, home-grown ratiocination as opposed to a love of the Higher Knowledge which only an initiate can obtain.
In their thoughts philosophers rise above the everydayness of daily life, above the regularities and laws of physical nature and human society, and attempt to penetrate the most secret mysteries of the world. And in this sense they rise above all the sciences, which permits one, at least partially, to speak of philosophy as a metascience. However, socionics, without being a philosophy, is able to point to certain specific features of philosophizing and of philosophical systems. These are features which the philosophers themselves were perhaps not intending to think their way through to, but which quite definitely point to the generalized subject matter of philosophical thought and delineate the boundaries of philosophical discourse. And this at once places socionics in a special position with respect to philosophy.
There are also other sciences which are potentially able to turn their attention to philosophy and to work with it in some way, including assessing it. This could be done, for example, by psychology and sociology. The first could analyse the psychological features of the process of philosophizing, could assess philosophizing thinkers psychologically and, in particular, try to peer into their subconscious; while the second would point to the place and features of the functioning of philosophy in society. Undoubtedly this is needed, important and interesting; and yet such information lacks fundamentality — it does not touch the deep foundations of philosophy itself. Here it is entirely appropriate to reproach philosophy with not being a science, since all its assertions bear a purely speculative character and may easily be assessed as subjective; but it is clear that such a qualification of philosophy depends on definitions. Husserl once dreamed of turning philosophy into a science, but alas, he did not manage to solve this task. Incidentally, before him this was dreamed of by, for example, Lull and Leibniz. Both of them dreamed of reaching a computational level in philosophy and did much toward this. True, Leibniz in the end invented the differential calculus, which is not bad either.
The chief defect of European philosophy may be considered the limitedness of its observational base to the human sensory system. Transcendent experience, which of course existed in Europe in large volume, was almost never drawn upon for the formation of philosophy. And therefore European philosophy has as its limit intellectual reflection — something like ever more refined categorial lacework which sharpens the intellect but does not make it possible to grasp the Absolute.
It appears that it is precisely the limitedness of the empirical basis to the sensory possibilities of the human being that generates science, as a striving to see what lies beyond the bounds of sensory perception. However, the sensory capacities of the average person, including the average philosopher, are by no means an absolute limit. I knew a musician with absolute pitch who distinguished six sharps and six flats between two notes (V. A. Matviyenko). Another feature of his hearing was that he perceived musical tone absolutely, that is, analogously to the way a normal person perceives colour. The average person, however, perceives absolutely only the intervals between tones. As a result it turns out that different people may perceive music differently, among other things because they have different capacities. Later, however, I learned that there exist people with still more phenomenal hearing. In the remarkable book-testimony of Anastasia Tsvetaeva, sister of Marina Tsvetaeva, A Tale of the Moscow Bell-Ringer [3], an account is given of a real person (Saradzhev) who possessed unique hearing. He heard 121 flats and 121 sharps from a reference tone. This is one more example of absolute pitch, although absolute pitch is not reducible merely to acoustic discrimination. Saradzhev not only heard sound — he also saw it. Psychologists know this phenomenon of synaesthesia. And when he heard the sound of a bell, then aurally and visually he perceived a picture so structurally rich that it bears no comparison with the timbre of any other instrument. For this reason he devoted his whole life to bells. These examples contain a hint at the existence of a richer sensorics which makes it possible to perceive aspects of the world inaccessible to the average person and, correspondingly, to the average philosopher. Therefore one may assert with full argument that different philosophers in their inferences arrive at different conclusions, which they, by virtue of the peculiarities of the structure of the average human psyche, passed off as truths. And indeed these were truths — truths limited by the cognitive capacities of these people. Truths as the cognitive limits of concrete bearers of intellect.
Of course, for people who have no transcendental experience of their own, such talk may seem at the least unserious. But this is no longer a question of personal opinion but of painstaking scientific research.
If the methodological competence of socionics in the sphere of philosophy is substantiated, then one may raise the question of its metaphilosophical character, which apparently ought to mean that socionics has the possibility of describing not only the typological contours of philosophical systems but also their subtler structural, semantic and pragmatic characteristics.
Still, it is entirely plausible that socionics does not quite “measure up” to metaphilosophy, if only because it has a different subject, because it does not deal with philosophical problematics systematically, and because it turns to philosophy only as to an auxiliary theme. Nevertheless, socionics contains within itself elements which may be used by metaphilosophy.
The various philosophies are merely attempts to compensate for absent knowledge, and as science advances in its cognition of the world the need for a philosophical compensation of human ignorance will diminish and possibly some day fall away entirely. If it is ever scientifically proved that what in the various religions is connected with the concept of spirit represents “no more than” a — however superfine — yet still material medium, possessing the primary capacity of consciousness, and permeating all the objects, processes and phenomena of our world; and also that this medium possesses inexhaustible creative potencies — then thereby faith in the existence of Higher Powers may be replaced by knowledge and by corresponding technologies of interaction with them, with all the consequences that follow from this. What then will any philosophy whatever be needed for?
Sceptical or nihilist types of philosophies denying the possibility of reliable cognition, or sophistical philosophies engaged in the open or more or less disguised manipulation of consciousness, or narrowly pragmatic philosophies limiting cognition only to what is directly perceived by the sensory systems, will simply fall away as unnecessary.
Of course, philosophies also contain intellectual-aesthetic components which may be attractive to a person independently of the other aspects of philosophical knowledge, and therefore philosophies will always be in demand — but that is quite another side of the matter.
Philosophers of the European type, acting within the framework of intellectual reflection and having brought its possibilities to their maximal limit, found a large number of all manner of approaches and categories permitting the human conception of the world to be divided up and structured in various ways; but apparently because philosophy represents an almost unrestricted stream of consciousness in which ideas are continuously born and vanish and a continuous transformation of information goes on, it was unable to discern its own foundation — the processes of the transformation of information, information metabolism. But of course philosophy is not obliged to be metaphilosophy; this role ought to have been fulfilled by a positive science, and socionics could quite well have proved to be one. The concept of information was prepared and introduced by the positive science of communication theory. On its basis cybernetics developed the theory of control and prepared systems theory. But all of them lacked a very precise and key concept — the concept of information metabolism. This concept even now cannot (or will not?) be accepted not only by philosophers but by representatives of such a science as psychology, where it could have played a revolutionary role. Be that as it may, socionics found this key concept, and together with the method of modelling it determined its methodological might and universality.
The physiological metaphor of metabolism here proved to be not simply a beautiful expression but a concept expressing very precisely the essence of real phenomena. The concept of information metabolism (IM) is comparable with the concept of gnoseology, but is considerably more concrete. As for a comparison of the volumes of these concepts, additional research is needed here.
The realization of philosophical categories in the concepts of socionics
This section ought to illustrate the phenomenology of diverse philosophical concepts within the limits of the subject area of socionics. I do not consider such a possibility especially important; however, in a didactic sense it might have a certain significance.
What could be at issue here is the reflection in socionics of such philosophical notions as the existence of a universal or at least quasi-universal categorial network, the presence of a fundamental semantic basis, the transition of quantitative processes into qualitative changes and vice versa, the presence of special relations between polar categories and so on; however, everyone who becomes acquainted with socionics can, if he wishes, carry out such work independently. Besides, illustrative work of this kind has too often degenerated into mere “illustrationism,” into the reduction of subtle and profound theoretical concepts to a sum of examples.
A philosophical assessment of socionics
Philosophy could limit the philosophical claims of socionics — but how can it do so? By means of a direct prohibition? But at present, under conditions of freedom of speech and a fashion for pluralism, this is simply absurd. By means of an indication of its lack of the corresponding possibilities — for such a remarkable subject area as mathematics, for instance, is not a philosophy, by virtue of its lack of the corresponding possibilities? But socionics does have such possibilities. By means of irony and other forms of ridicule? But this is not scientific. There remains “black PR,” but here science crosses the line beyond which begins the lawlessness of scientific banditry. Simplest of all is to acknowledge socionics’s right to pose a number of fundamental questions of being and to offer its own answers to them. But will socionics not in that case be supplanting philosophy? By no means. For in the end all the sciences arrive at the posing of fundamental questions of being by their own means and, within the limits of their subject competence, offer more or less grounded answers to them, without infringing philosophy’s corresponding rights. Fundamental scientific directions have their own philosophical aspects.
A socionic assessment of philosophy
From a socionic point of view, the majority of philosophical systems, as units of a hypothetical typology, are far from equivalent. This means that they cannot be interchanged without a loss of specific meaning. Philosophers’ reasonings often represent merely private opinions which one may trust or not trust, which one may accept or not accept depending on the degree of their subjective plausibility. Philosophical products are objects of faith, not of knowledge. Such a logical procedure as proof is not applicable to them. Their implantation in people’s consciousness is based on suggestion, and at times on violence as well. Such, for example, was dialectical materialism in the USSR. Some philosophers attempt to apply proof to the grounding of their conceptions, but their demonstrative schemes do not withstand logical criticism.
With a suitable choice of definitions, philosophy cannot be assigned to science — for example, if one requires in the definition the presence of an experimental base and the reproducibility of results. Philosophy is closest to an intellectual art which discovers and propagates the aesthetico-gnoseological ideals of an epoch, ideals capable of inspiring whole generations of people to the search for truth, though often directing them along a false path.
Taking the above into account, philosophy has to be assessed as an intuitive-ethical extraverted entity (Ie), asserting maximally generalized ideals as programmes of behaviour for large groups of people.
Attempts to turn philosophy into a science (Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Husserl and others) did not end in success. Under any framing, even the most logical, it remained a totality of intellectual ideals capable of captivating and leading people after them, and sometimes merely of throwing them off course. Moreover, logical means functioned here as material for the formation of an intellectual-aesthetic image. This assertion may seem debatable, but one must not forget that conceptual art can use any material for its purposes.
Very close to an ultimate reformation of philosophy came the remarkable Soviet philosopher G. P. Shchedrovitsky (a logical-sensory extravert) with his unique reflexive intuition; but his attention was concentrated on the methodological potency of philosophy, and moreover, under the conditions of Soviet totalitarianism, it was dangerous to one’s life to deviate from the “sacred dogmas” of the official diamat, which had dialectically undergone self-negation. As a result Shchedrovitsky’s searches, as an attempt to do something genuine, proved limited by the framework of “Sovietness” and degenerated into the philosophizing games of the ODIs.¹ These games, remarkable in themselves as technologies for solving practical problems, were not a solution to the problems of philosophy itself.
Another remarkable Soviet philosopher, E. V. Ilyenkov (an intuitive-logical or ethical-intuitive introvert?), may serve as an example of the limit to which, within the framework of a repressive ideology, an exceptionally talented person in the philosophical respect was permitted to go. As a result his works turned out to be a talented apologia for the Marxist-Leninist instrument of the destruction of civilization as it was ending its earthly path. Now one can only shudder to imagine what would have happened if the “Soviet order” in its Leninist-Stalinist variant had triumphed throughout the world. Of course, one may attempt to defend Marxism by emphasizing its positive sides, which were not realized by “bad executors.” However, one cannot deny that Marxism proved to be a time bomb which, to the delight of the world’s leading mafias, blew up one of the greatest civilizations, which had begun to take shape on the territory of the Russian Empire in the middle of the nineteenth century, and which led to a hitherto unheard-of genocide of the East Slavic peoples.
Perhaps contemporary philosophical ideals are most fully expressed in the works of the remarkable Ukrainian philosopher S. B. Krymsky (an intuitive logical type) [6]. His thought that “it is precisely the human being who is both that system which recognizes information and at the same time turns out to be its recipient” [6] belongs among the key ones in socionics’s understanding of human individuality. Krymsky’s conception of the human being as an essential link of the value-semantic Universe poses in a new way the question of the functioning of information in our world. When Krymsky says that “The unity of being and of the informational preconditions of reason is realized in the noospheric necessity of the Logos” [6], this is consonant with the socionic approach to personality as a synthesis of the informational aspects of various sides of the environment of human habitation. And Krymsky’s idea of the “informational aspects of interaction in the very foundations of being” [6] is almost a direct acknowledgement of information metabolism at all levels of the existence of the Cosmos.
The author by no means insists on the finality of his notions on the subject matter proposed, but would like philosophers to respond to the “claims” of socionics and to take part in a discussion concerning its methodological possibilities — if, of course, they do not haughtily consider this beneath their dignity.
Conclusions to the Seventeenth Chapter
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Socionics cannot exist in a methodological vacuum, and in the search for its methodological foundations must naturally turn to the rich experience of philosophy.
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Socionics possesses means allowing it to solve the problem of a typology of philosophical systems and the identification of a philosopher’s TIM from his philosophical works, and also to act in part in the role of a metaphilosophy.
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The breadth and volume with which socionics is able to answer a number of practical and “eternal” questions permits it to lay claim, at least within the limits of its competence, to a philosophical level of fundamentality.
Literature
- Luk’yanets V. S., Kravchenko O. M., Ozadovska L. V. Contemporary Scientific Discourse: A Renewal of Methodological Culture. A Monograph. — Kyiv, 2000. 304 pp. (in Ukrainian)
- Wigner E. Symmetries and Reflections, “MIR,” Moscow, 1971.
- Anastasia Tsvetaeva. A Tale of the Moscow Bell-Ringer, Moscow, 1988.
- Philosophical Encyclopedic Dictionary, Moscow, 1983.
- F. Merrell-Wolff. Pathways Through to Space, Kyiv, 1993.
- Krymsky S. B. Inquiries of Philosophical Meanings, Kyiv, 2002. (in Ukrainian)
- Akimov A. E., Shipov G. I. “Consciousness, the Physics of Torsion Fields and Torsion Technologies” // Consciousness and Physical Reality. 1996. Vol. I. Nos. 1–2.
- Volchenko V. I. “An Informational Model of Consciousness in Nomogenesis: Philosophical, Natural-Scientific and Social-Psychological Aspects” // Consciousness and Physical Reality. 1999. Vol. 4. No. 1.
- Akimov A. E. “Torsion Fields of the Subtle World” // Terminator. 1996. Nos. 1–2.
- Tikhoplav T. S., Tikhoplav V. Yu. The Physics of Faith. — St. Petersburg: Publishing House “VES’,” 2002.
Notes
¹ Organizational-activity games (ODI).
Figures
- Fig. 17.01. R. Descartes.
- Fig. 17.02. A. Schopenhauer. Two ages.
- Fig. 17.03. G. Hegel.
- Fig. 17.04. K. Marx.
- Fig. 17.05. I. Kant.