Section 4

PSI-Socionics — Socionics with a Psychological Face?

(based on the book by S. Filimonov and I. Malsky)

Across the wild steppes of Transbaikalia, where gold is dug in the mountains… (Russian folk song)

Editor: The socionic work of S. Filimonov and I. Malsky is distinguished by the fact that the authors expanded the presentation of the “canonical” material which most socionists give “first priority.” They did this by adding to it a significant volume of information from books on psychological topics — in particular, on ego psychology — as well as through innovations of their own. They motivated this expansion by arguing that without such additions socionics looks too isolated from the unquestionably valuable psychological material accumulated by science over roughly two hundred years. This is probably not a bad idea, allowing a socionics instructor to significantly increase the volume of his lectures and to talk about things that in purely socionic courses are taken for granted or touched on only in passing comments.

This authorial stance gives them the opportunity to declare their course an independent educational unit, which they designated Ψ-socionics, apparently meaning psychological socionics. And while Ψ-socionics looks like an authorial innovation with an understandable desire to improve the canonical core of socionics through their own understanding, and to make it more accessible — at least as it seems to them — to a wide circle of readers varying in interests and level of psychological preparation, “psychological socionics” looks like a more serious bid to create a socionics with a “psychological face,” integrating the key concepts of ego psychology.

The book includes large anthology-style insertions from books by Burns (the “Self”-concept), Rudhyar (The Experience of Change and Order), Berne (Diagram of the Personality), Kalinauskas (Self-Awareness and the Ego), several large fragments from Jung, and other, unnamed authors.

Personally, I believe that a socionist should know and respect psychology, but socionics has no need to “curry favor” with psychology or to try to “improve” its concepts to fit those already existing in psychology. Socionics does not oppose psychology and is not opposed to it — it grew out of it and is an organic part of it. However, socionics contains within itself the potential of a unifying theory, which is precisely what psychology currently lacks, having turned out over the entire course of its development to be merely a multitude of empirical findings that can successfully be applied for practical recommendations, but behind which there stands no single cause-and-effect explanation.

The editor, having read the text of the book, believes the authors made great efforts to make their material understandable to the “wide circle.” However, in many cases their ideas — being either the authors’ own improvements, or derivatives of what exists in modern psychology (which is, incidentally, very heterogeneous in its scientific and terminological style), or of what is present in well-known spiritual teachings — take on a metaphysical character. This means these ideas lose their direct credibility for the “wide circle” and appeal to the authors’ subjective certainty and to unprovable entities. The introduction of these ideas is predominantly emotional in character and relies on NLP techniques for working with the reader’s and listener’s consciousness. Which may well be effective, but requires ethical and legal clarifications connected with intervention in the recipient’s subjective world.

At the beginning of the book the authors report that they strive “not to weary the well-disposed reader with constructions of the type ‘…psychic processes and functions, being emergent properties of brain systems at various levels of organization, are, by virtue of emergent determinism, capable of subordinating to their tasks the functions of individual components of brain micro- and macrosystems…’” and that therefore “in certain places” they “had to sin against precision of definitions for the sake of greater accessibility of the essence of the matter.” Of course, for their text this is an exaggeration, and in socionics no one uses such combinations of words. Therefore, in my view, there was no point in simplifying the socionic language and speaking of “empty-shell” selves, “Floating islands and the territory of consciousness,” “little engines and carriages,” or “crosses of functions.” Perhaps it is pretty, but within a text claiming fundamentality and scientific reliability it looks like populist decoration. All the same, the greater part of the text requires precise statements that are scientifically complete. Instead of raising the neophyte to their level — of which, as is evident from his remarks, he is quite capable — the authors play “guru and dimwit” with him (from the joke: “one day a guru met a dimwit…”), which looks rather absurd, like a kind of baby talk. As a result the text turned out uneven: complete, clearly formulated theoretical passages alternate with an imitation of childish babble as the neophyte’s characteristic. Of course, all this is the authors’ business — I have merely expressed my emotional impressions on the matter, and possibly the socionic interference of the TIMs of the authors and the editor plays a role here.

Here is an example of a well-written excerpt from the book, good and comprehensible to a modern intellectual: “If one may suppose ‘foundations’ of some general kind at the source of the human unconscious — ‘foundations’ supplying psychic contents other than a person’s everyday awareness of the stream of existential data of sensory experience — it seems probable that we should today find ideas, images, modes of thinking at least relatively identical in various cultural regions.” But it turns out this sentence does not belong to the authors — it is from the anthology insertion “Archetypes” by Jung. There are quite a few such passages in the book, but most of them do not belong to the authors.

I would not at all wish to criticize the authors — that is a thankless task and it would look quite different. I would like to sort out the particularities of their methodological complex and their understanding of socionics, since they are not the only ones proposing “refinements” of the socionic paradigm, which is presented quite distinctly in the works of Aušra Augustinavičiūtė. Therefore part of my comments relates to general methodology, and part specifically to the exposition of socionic concepts. In addition, as an editor of scientific texts, I sometimes pay attention to authorial style — but this, of course, is a trifle, and one need not take it into account. Nevertheless, the editor reserves the right to note grammatical and stylistic errors. Possibly in some places the editor becomes too ironic and sharp, but that depends on the particularities of the material. The editor apologizes in advance in every possible way and asks that his comments be regarded as friendly remarks in the hallway conversations of conferences, and he is ready for academic discussion of any problems connected with socionics.

To speak frankly, I did not like the book. What exactly is wrong with the book, in my view, I will discuss in the editorial comments. As an editor I consider it raw and therefore published hastily. It resembles raw tape recordings of “field” conversations having the character of more or less random improvisations. There are many drawn-out metaphysical monologues on the essence of man and, in particular, on the nature of the “self,” including Buddhist reminiscences about “emptiness” — which, of course, is not necessarily bad. There are many long discussions with no direct relation to socionics, such as “the movements of the ‘self’ across the territory of consciousness according to the laws of association” and the like. Here is a small fragment of such reasoning: “The question is as follows: when a movement of the ‘self’ across the territory of consciousness from one content to another occurs in us, what kind of journey is this? It is the movement of the ‘self’ across various fragments consisting of the products of sensation and intuition. At some moment I have a perception; from the perception I may jump to some image, if the function of intuition has fired; from the image I may pass to a concept, I think about it, …again a perception, some representation may be evoked — that is, a chain of elements. That is, in consciousness there is constant movement along such chains…”

I personally perceive such text as rather muddled and, in any case, poorly edited. Many pages are filled with “conversations” of this kind. Apparently the authors believe that such “chains” promote a better understanding of socionics by the “ordinary person.”

The book contains many superficial and banal discussions, probably reflecting the authors’ informational growth, and undoubtedly possessing biographical value, which may also be used for psychological research. In any case, this side of the authorial personality interests the editor, and he tries to go into all the details connected with the author’s methodological complex.

Nevertheless, not everything in the book is bad. It should be noted that an unquestionable merit of the authors is the attempt to identify physiognomic markers of TIM. This is a good beginning of a large and valuable work, but it cannot be brought to full completion without competent reliance on the achievements of modern psychology and methodology. And, of course, there are many beautiful literary passages. And quite a few plausible, credible and realistic judgments. But, alas, if for every barrel of honey there is even a spoonful of tar — or something worse — then who needs such honey?

What they write about men and women is good.

What follows is the editor’s correspondence dialogue with Borisova, the editor of “Psi-socionics,” who wrote a short introduction to the book, and with the author, who in this case is collective — that is, Filimonov and Malsky, whose percentage contributions to the concept of psi-socionics are unknown to me, and so I will treat what they wrote as a joint position.

Dialogue with Borisova, the Book’s Editor

Borisova: Over the roughly 30 years of its existence, socionics has traveled a certain path of development — and also of adaptation to the current demands of users. What is the difference and, in my view, the value of “old” socionics compared with the works of recent years? Modern socionics is regarded as an applied psychological typology that helps solve questions of people’s compatibility, career guidance, and so on; and the main problem preventing socionics from becoming a simple tool in the user’s hands is the problem of identifying the socionic type. However, the “old” socionists regarded this science not only as a tool but also as a conception helping to clarify and understand various psychological questions (the structure and functioning of the human psyche), social ones (the specialization of types within the socion), and even philosophical ones. Therefore works written in the 1990s contain, if one may put it this way, more reverence toward the subject of socionics, more respect for the complexity of the human psyche, and more indications of the unknown and unknowable within it.

Editor: I do not agree with Borisova that socionics should be divided into old and new. New generations will come, and what now looks new will become old. But socionics has an outer layer oriented toward quick practical use, and a deep core that directly touches the very foundations of the universe. And this core requires deep comprehension, regardless of how the practical road-testing of its layers most accessible to superficial comprehension proceeds. As for the underlined words: with the existence of the unknown in socionics I agree, and I think it is a matter of time and technique. As for unknowability, that is the usual agnostic illusion, connected with the difficulties of cognition and often with an inability or unwillingness to change one’s methodological positions. Attempts to “squeeze” modern socionics into the frame designated by Borisova — that of an applied psychological typology — are one of the forms of failing to understand its fundamentality, and of the desire to adapt it to the horizon of the psychologist-philistine who does not wish to part with the mastered and dogmatized space of the established image of psychology.

Borisova: Let me note certain moments in this book that please me. The meaning of the socionic type is examined in great detail — why it is needed, how it arises, and what it actually is. Thus the socionic model of the psyche does not “hang in the air” but has a grounding beneath it (and moreover an extra-socionic grounding, one that does not close the system “in on itself”).

Editor: Very well said. However, the present existence of two and a half dozen paradigmatic deviations from the classical version of socionics makes the situation considerably more complex. This situation shows that more than one explanation and grounding of socionic concepts is possible, but the question always remains how close such explanations and groundings are to the truth. Therefore a careful comparison of the existing versions of socionics is necessary in search of objective truth.

Unfortunately, the authors have a whole series of methodological inaccuracies that significantly reduce trust in their results. One also senses insufficient familiarity with the works of other authors, thanks to whom much in socionics has long since ceased to “hang in the air” and has a fundamental grounding.

Borisova: What seems important to me is the examination of the functionality of the socionic functions — not simply “how it works” but also “why this or that function is needed”; and also the manifestation of the psychotype in the deep, true values of the personality (hence the thought that to understand the socionic type one must come into contact with these values).

Editor: Here Borisova introduces a term new to socionics — “the functionality of the socionic functions” — which, as is clear from her text, she considers to be the totality of a function’s content and its purpose. However, the content and the purpose of a function constitute a single whole, and their separation is, from the standpoint of scientific methodology, inadmissible. In Jung this moment was by no means overlooked; it constitutes the very essence of his discovery, though he never fully reflected on it, leaving much at the level of empirical fact. What is at issue here are the two inseparable semantics of each socionic function: positional and aspectual. Aušra developed this theme to a constructive level, specifying the positional semantics of the functions explicitly. From the text of “psi-socionics” it turns out that the authors did not understand this and filled the resulting gap with considerations of their own. Which are, undoubtedly, of interest — but more from the standpoint of human delusions.

Borisova: The book is written in a “cyclical” form and in the form of a dialogue, which implies repetitions and clarifications of unclear moments. And this is indeed so — its language is simple and accessible to understanding, yet it is not “popular” in the way many other books on socionics are. Unlike them, “Ψ-socionics” presupposes a much greater depth of mining the useful minerals of knowledge and understanding.

Editor: Knowing socionics, one may suppose that a text written by the bearer of one TIM will not always be comprehensible to the bearer of another. Personally, I perceive the structure of Filimonov and Malsky’s book as unjustifiably overcomplicated. I even got the impression that with the reference to cyclicity they are merely masking a desire to avoid the hard work needed to eliminate the multiple repetitions that make the book’s text not merely redundant but loose and chaotic. What does cyclicity have to do with it if, for example, the book many times repeats the same kind of reasoning about extraversion and introversion? In the practice of editing scientific literature this is, at best, assessed as inexperience, an inability to build a conceptual-terminological sequence, or as the preliminary character of draft work when there is not enough time to bring it up to marketable quality. And, at worst, it is either carelessness or elementary laziness about finishing the work in order to bring it to the editorial standard. As for the language, it is, in my view, weighed down with concepts from other branches of psychology — quite effective in training workshops but lacking convincing theoretical grounding. The cause of many of the presumed shortcomings of the authors’ work is insufficient command of modern scientific methodology, as well as limited familiarity with the socionic literature.

Borisova: There are moments in the book that seem somewhat outdated, since they were later developed in more detail (for example, the semantics of the aspects), or, on the contrary, remained “overboard” from the main socionic base — and not necessarily deservedly (for example, methods of investigating intertype relations). But I do not think this harms the book; at worst, one may regard these elements as having historical value. And such details as, for example, a numbering of the functions in the model different from the one used in modern works should not trouble the attentive reader.

Editor: Here one senses limited familiarity with the socionic literature, where solutions to many of the problems the authors try to solve in their own way have long existed. As for the numbering of the functions in the model, that is of course a trifle, since the functions in themselves have no numbering, and each author introduces one according to his own understanding of Model A. Moreover, all authorial innovations in understanding Model A should be regarded as an authorial model of the socionic type, which can naturally be designated as Model “F.”

Dialogue with the Authors — Editorial-Methodological Part

Authors: The leitmotif of the proposed material is the attainment of an understanding of surrounding reality, of the other person and of oneself; the search for confidence and creative self-expression in the nature and regularities of one’s own perception, thinking, and behavior.

Editor: In this seemingly quite harmless and understandable phrase, the reader is immediately designated as a “subject who does not understand reality, lacks confidence, and is creatively limited” — this is a covert “Ericksonian” suggestion; such are the laws of NLP. At the same time, the authors position themselves as a source of understanding and confidence, ready to enlighten the naive neophyte. The book is indeed constructed as a dialogue between a master and a neophyte — these are the authors’ own terms. From the standpoint of literary form this is a device well known since the days of Galileo, but each author’s choice of specific roles is his own and to some extent characterizes him. Clearly the authors’ self-assessment and assessment of the situation show through here. Unfortunately, the authors sometimes lose ethical tact and begin to gravitate toward the image of the Guru — in that ironic sense in which the word is used to assess the now widespread phenomenon of the preaching of spiritual teachings by people who have only lightly touched them. The authors are undoubtedly experienced socionists who have successfully conducted many classes and groups, and have of course experienced the feeling of being a “first teacher,” which brings deep satisfaction but at the same time contains a danger connected with ambition — a danger into which self-made preachers of spiritual teachings and disseminators of socionics fall so easily. I hope the authors have avoided this trap.

Authors: Since the book is addressed not to a community of narrow specialists but to a wide circle of readers varying in interests and level of psychological preparation, we have tried to simplify the language as much as possible, to make it accessible and similar to the everyday speech in which most questions of interest to the reader are discussed in ordinary life.

Editor: For “ordinary” people, around four dozen books on socionics have already been written — including in the form of dialogues between the author and a possible reader. If the authors intend to explain to people for the 41st time the same thing they have heard from others, then their book is probably somewhat overdue. It will be interesting to see whether they can say something that was not in the other popular books. Besides, there is always the danger that simplifying the language and eliminating scientific terminology may turn into vulgarization and the transformation of the fine and sensitive organism of a theory into a mechanistic conglomerate of approximations. It is hardly the case that a perfected and harmonious theory should stoop to the level of consciousness of the intellectual philistine — who, incidentally, is often quite prepared to make the necessary effort and rise to the level of a full-fledged science in order to become a professional. This is doubly expedient: the intellectual realizes his ambition and becomes a master, while science has no need to twist its own arms and stoop to the level of baby talk.

Authors: We also ask the reader to take into account that limited space does not allow us to present detailed proofs of the proposed conception. We count on his good disposition and, for our part, understand perfectly that our very first task is to present the material as clearly as possible.

Editor: The book is rather voluminous — do detailed proofs of their conception really require significantly more space? While reading the book I got the impression that the exposition of the authors’ ideas could have been more compact. For example, by removing the redundant repetitions.

Authors: Most authors demonstrate a clear ignorance of already developed ideas and theories, offering as a kind of revelation regularities of psychic activity discovered by the authors personally in the process of analyzing their individual experience; creating new concepts and abstract models that complicate the already tangled terminology.

Editor: What majority is the author speaking of? The authors of books on socionics? Among them there are not only graphomaniacs but also people sufficiently familiar with psychology and in confident command of the socionic minimum. Yes, many of them have their own understanding of socionics — but do Filimonov and Malsky not wish to offer the reader yet one more understanding of what Aušra Augustinavičiūtė proposed to us?

Authors: Man is, on the one hand, a biological being, an animal belonging to the class of mammals, distinguished by upright posture and the development of the hands, and possessing a highly developed brain. On the other hand, man is a social being. This is an important attribute, since social life and social relations have changed and subordinated to themselves man’s biological, bodily organization. The unrepeatability of the ensemble of qualities of the bodily and psychic organization of a specific person as a representative of the human species is reflected in the concept of the individuum.

Editor: This question and these definitions have already been discussed in the socionic literature. But in this excerpt there is a subtle semantic inaccuracy which I would not want to pass by. Read the underlined part of the sentence closely. It can be understood to mean that man once existed separately from social life, and that social life appeared from somewhere unknown and forcibly deformed his body. Yet it is clear that man and his social life are inseparable and evolved as a single whole. This almost imperceptible error may be understood as a symptom of the authors’ intellectual style: they do not fully hold on to dialectical meanings, which — given their intention to simplify the exposition of their conception — may turn into over-simplification.

For reference, let us recall the basic concepts relating to the human being as the editor understands them:

• human being — the general name of representatives of the species Homo sapiens;
• individual — a single specimen of Homo sapiens;
• individuality — the unity of the physical, physiological, psychic, and psychological qualities of a person in their unique combination;
• personality — individuality adapted to society;
• “self” (“I”) — a symbol of subjective self-identification at any level of the existence of individuality, and also the theoretical projection of such self-identification;
• ego — the objective equivalent of the “self,” fixed as the core of the personality or of the individuality, depending on the theoretical positions of the scholar.

Authors: There exist different points of view on the relation of biological and social factors in the development of the personality. We will treat the biological moments (meaning innate properties) as the given conditions of personality development, which do not unconditionally determine its psychological traits, but act, on the one hand, as factors structuring the individual’s interaction with the surrounding environment, and, on the other hand, as forms and modes of his existence. In this the personality is understood not as a passive result of external influence; it develops in the process of its own activity and the organization of individual experience.

Editor: This is written very precisely and very scientifically, and will undoubtedly be well received by the intellectual reader. Alas, to understand socionics one must have a sufficient level of mental development, and “socionics for the feeble-minded” inevitably degenerates into a simplified set of semi-jargon and jargon clichés.

Authors: For especially fastidious readers who demand clear formulations from the very beginning of the exposition, let us define the concept of personality as follows: the personality may be described from the standpoint of the motives and strivings that make up the content of its “personal world” — that is, a unique system of personal (individual) meanings, individually distinctive ways of ordering external impressions and internal experiences.

Editor: An especially fastidious reader — for example, myself — will not be satisfied by such a definition, simply because it does not satisfy the rules of definition. First, the genus to which the concept of personality belongs is not indicated. The format of a definition — “Personality is…” — is not maintained. And most importantly, this definition contains one of the standard logical errors — “idem per idem,” that is, “the same through the same,” or a “circle”: here personality is defined through the personal world and personal meanings — that is, through itself. So the fastidious readers remain unsatisfied, and a doubt about the authors’ logical competence creeps in on them.

Authors: In psychology there are numerous attempts to single out the structure of the personality. Correspondingly, many existing psychological conceptions claim to describe structural features, although in practice they deal with what may be called the “shell” — the particularities of behavior, perception, thinking, and other directly observable manifestations of the personality.

Editor: The fastidious readers are again unsatisfied: no definition of the structure of the personality has been given, since each scholar may develop his own views on the structure of the personality and use his own definitions. Therefore the authors’ critical remarks about existing psychological conceptions turn out to be superficial.

Authors: The study of the structure of the personality appears extremely productive, since it stands in the same relation to the shell as cause to effect. At the same time, the shell too is of no small applied interest, if one focuses attention not on the laws organizing the psychic life of the individuum but on concrete, particular manifestations.

Editor: The authors intend to study something they can name but cannot define. It is also unclear why the structure is opposed to the shell — does the shell not enter, or can it not enter, into the structure? Perhaps the authors identify the structure of the personality with the core of the personality, but then that is what should be said. These particularities of the authors’ thinking arouse in the fastidious reader the suspicion that the authors’ thinking belongs to the category of the fuzzy. And such people cannot be trusted in theory. Though it is not excluded that they are remarkable practitioners. Well, we shall see…

Authors: The goal we pursue in writing this book may be designated as the identification, classification, and description of the various structures of the personality, and of their determining role in human behavior, motivation, and perception of the surrounding world, of the other person, and of oneself.

Editor: From this quotation we learn (indirectly) that, it turns out, there exist “various structures of the personality,” and consequently, the fastidious readers conclude, there are several of them. That is, at least more than one. Now one wants all the more to learn what the structure of the personality is, and how the authors manage to criticize others regarding something they cannot define.

Authors: Ψ is a letter of the Greek alphabet (psi). According to legend, it symbolizes the trident of the sea god Poseidon, whose cult was widespread in Ancient Greece. It was believed that with his trident Poseidon tore the earth and, ripping deeply into its body, created bays and straits. The trident itself symbolizes the division of the world into three spheres — the earthly, the heavenly, and the spiritual — and is the union of three primary elements: air, water, and earth.

Editor: Aha — it appears the authors have mythological thinking, and that is somewhat different from what a rationally thinking scientist requires. The fastidious readers fear they are going to be told myths and fairy tales. In any case, they have not been given a definition of the structure of the personality, though the authors have demonstrated decent erudition regarding the Greek alphabet.

Authors: As is well known, the term “psychology” is of ancient Greek origin.

Editor: Here we go… It is known that this word is composed of Greek roots, but its origin is European, since it was proposed not in Ancient Greece but in Europe in the 16th century, and its inventor was a philosopher, in 1590. The fastidious readers note the possibility of a certain confusion in the authors’ minds. A socionist has the right to suppose that the authors are probably not logical types but ethical ones.

Authors: …after psychology became a science, this word came to be used much more often. According to one version, the use of the Greek letter Ψ to denote the term “psychology” was first employed by students of philosophical institutes to speed up the note-taking of psychology lectures.

Editor: We learn much that is new and interesting about the history of the use of the letter psi — whereas at the very beginning the authors complained that the volume of the book did not allow them to unfold a full-fledged grounding of their conception. The fastidious readers wonder what all this might mean…

Authors: Socionics was born at the junction of three sciences: psychology, sociology, and informatics.

Editor: This sounds beautiful and scientific, but it is not quite true. Or rather, there is something in it, but it is written with a kind of semantic skew. There simply was no such concrete junction and intersection of these sciences. Anyone who remembers the history of the discovery of socionics knows that Aušra Augustinavičiūtė, being an economist, was head of a department of the family. She was specially interested in the typology of the human being, and when the authorities in the country permitted the reading of Jung’s “Psychological Types,” she, having read this work, intuitively penetrated the meaning of Jung’s typology and on this basis reconstructed a possible model of Jung. What she built is not Jung’s model, since Jung did not use such terminology, but his thought was close to it. Therefore it is more correct to call this model the “AJ” model — Augustinavičiūtė–Jung. So the psychological component is plainly present. As for the informational idea, Aušra took it not from informatics but borrowed it from the Polish psychiatrist Kępiński, who specialized in schizophrenia and who, apparently by analogy with physiological metabolism, and not being a specialist in informatics, began to use the expression “informational metabolism” approximately and in a simplified way, though with originality. Moreover, he used this term not at all in the way Aušra came to. He employed the word in a very narrow sense to designate a certain intellectual function responsible for the assimilation of concrete information connected with schizophrenia. Aušra transformed this term into a scientific category with an extremely broad meaning. Thus IM in Kępiński’s mouth and in Aušra’s are homonyms — they merely sound the same, but different concepts stand behind them. Unfortunately, “official science” has to this day not grasped the scale and significance of this concept. As for the sociological contribution to Aušra’s discovery, it played only the role of background. In any case, Aušra nowhere cites the research of, say, Shibutani, Mead, or Strawson. So Aušra Augustinavičiūtė’s discovery belongs entirely to her extraordinary genius — though sociology and informatics could draw much from it. And there is no need to “put the cart before the horse.”

The fastidious readers here too discover the approximateness and a certain optionality of the authorial text. Editors call this phenomenon “diluting a text to increase its volume” and resolutely cross out such places, which raises the target informativeness of the text and does not lead to its worsening.

Authors: Using the concept of informational metabolism introduced by A. Kępiński, A. Augustinavičiūtė proposed structural models of the psychotypes.

Editor: The fastidious readers perceive this assertion within the frame of the saying “elderberry in the garden, but an uncle in Kyiv” [i.e., a non sequitur]. Apparently the authors do not understand that the structural models of the psychotypes proceeded directly from Jung and in no way from Kępiński. And it happened in this order: Jung’s schema → the “AJ” model → Model A → the realization that Model A represents a generalized schema of IM in the human psyche. As for Kępiński, Aušra, having rethought his term (not even his idea) to the scale of a universal process, crowned the typology she had created with the concept of IM, transforming it from one particular case among many typologies into a fundamental theory with enormous methodological potential. The authors’ assertion is wrong in substance: Aušra created the models of TIM not at all on the basis of the concept of IM, but proceeding from Jung’s key ideas about the positioning of functions in the psyche and the basic set of four generalized psychic functions. It was only afterward, after building the model, that she named the corresponding types “types of informational metabolism.” Out of ignorance or carelessness the authors draw together meanings that are in reality not directly connected with each other.

Authors: Thanks to this, it proved possible to describe a significant part of the processes of perception and behavior of a person as the bearer of a specific type of informational metabolism (TIM — a more precise variant of the term “psychotype”), as well as his strong and weak sides.

Editor: After the previous inaccuracy, this assertion is almost correct. The point is that, looking back, one may say that Jung’s types were of course also TIMs — only Jung did not know it at the time, and if he had been told, he might not have understood or accepted it: the times were different. Aušra, having built the models of all the psychological types without at all relying on the concept of IM, was able in this connection to rethink Kępiński’s attractive term, which had become heuristic for her. This is an example of the work of the intuition of the brilliant discoverer of socionics — like a flash of lightning that drew together in Aušra’s consciousness two concepts which until then no one had perceived as related to each other. In any case, it is interesting that the authors understand this differently. As for the term “psychotype,” its use is incorrect without an indication of which typology is meant — in different typologies one and the same person may belong to different psychotypes.

Authors: Thanks to the models of the psychotypes it became possible to describe and predict both the behavior of the personality in standard situations and interpersonal (intertype) relations.

Editor: Of course, here one must write “socionic psychotypes” or, better, “socionic types” — though TIM, as a more precise variant of the term “socionic psychotype,” is preferable.

Authors: Almost immediately the enormous practical importance of socionics became evident. For while classifications of characters, however incomplete, do exist, the possibility of precisely describing and predicting human interrelations is absent in traditional psychology. It proved possible to solve problems of the compatibility of partners in marriage, in the work collective, in business, and purposefully to form stable, cohesive groups for solving various tasks in any sphere of human activity.

Editor: Here is an example of an almost correct set of assertions. Only a small inaccuracy darkens its laudatory pathos. First, traditional psychology has a large set of means for describing and predicting human interrelations. Even without socionics, problems of partner compatibility in marriage, the work collective, and business were being solved effectively, and stable groups were purposefully formed — for example, in cosmonautics — though there were errors; but errors exist in socionics too. Moreover, the clumsy application of socionic knowledge can cause and has caused harm to people, and this has actually been noted in socionic practice. It is known, for example, how in the Kyiv socionic milieu its activists undertook special efforts, relying on their “knowledge” of socionics, to prevent the marriage of two people in love solely because they were not duals. These activists not only impressed upon the unfortunate pair that their marriage was inadmissible, but also exerted “socionic pressure” on the pair’s parents, and did in fact destroy the love. As for the precise description and prediction of human interrelations in socionics, the authors somewhat distort the emphasis here. The point is that socionic relations — like TIM — are only types of relations, whose character may be as varied as the characters of the bearers of identical TIMs. Therefore the prediction of the dynamics of relations in a pair or a group must rely, besides theoretical considerations, on knowledge of the characters of the specific people. And here one cannot do without psychology.

As for the precision of the “description and prediction of human interrelations”: not knowing how to measure it, there is nothing to talk about. Here socionics surpasses psychology not in precision at all, but in cause-and-effect groundedness.

Authors: So then: socionics is a conception asserting that every person is the bearer of a specific psychotype, unchanging over the course of life. Socionics describes these types, intertype relations, and interactions within a group of people with specific types.

Editor: Socionics is a science at whose foundation lies the modeling of informational processes in the psyche. In socionics, humanity for the first time received a basic typology rather than a “typology by occasion.” The authors’ sentence points to one of the consequences of socionic theory. Moreover, they do it with a certain violation of the scope of concepts. For a person, from the standpoint of different typologies, is the bearer of many psychotypes. From the standpoint of socionics, a person is the bearer of a single TIM that does not change over the course of life — which underscores its difference from other typologies. Having used the expression “intertype relations,” there is no point in adding the synonymous and duplicating expression “interactions within a group of people with specific types” — for that is precisely what “intertype” relations are. But apparently most socionists do not understand that what they call intertype relations are not such — they are interfunctional relations.

Already from the several remarks made above on the authors’ text one may conclude that the authors are inexperienced in stylistic matters, and with their not always precise expressions significantly worsen the perception of the meaning which, presumably, ought to be contained in their text.

Authors: Like any other conception of the personality (the “Self”-conception), socionics extends the boundaries of its own applicability to all possible aspects of individuality.

Editor: Of course, in the parentheses one should have written not simply (“Self”-conception) but (for example, the “Self”-conception), since the subject is any conceptions of the personality and only one is mentioned here — unless, that is, the authors consider all typologies to be “Self”-conceptions, in which case their punctuation corresponds to their convictions. Furthermore, every conception has boundaries of its applicability, and here, instead of the universalizing expression “to all possible…,” it would have been appropriate to apply a limiting assertion — that is, to indicate exactly which aspects of individuality the competence of socionics extends to, and at the same time to enumerate the entire set of aspects so that the assertion would be concrete. Otherwise the text turns into talk about something optional. Even for a popular text this is too extravagant.

And in any case, one does not “extend boundaries” — one pushes them apart or widens them.

Authors: Over forty years socionics has won itself an extremely ambiguous reputation. Popularized by followers differing in professional, social, and geographical affiliation, it has absorbed the corresponding extremes. Today some scold it for primitivism and similarity to “tabloid” horoscopes; others extol it as a universal instrument for describing the world. Numerous socionic schools offer their own interpretations of the models of the psychotypes and their characteristics, descriptions of intertype relations, and methods of determining (diagnosing, identifying) a person’s belonging to one or another psychotype.

Editor: The authors apparently fail to take into account that what they wish to say about others applies to them as well. And conversely: just as the authors wish “at last” to bring clarity to the understanding of socionics, so do others strive for the same. And so it turns out — “everyone wants the best, but it comes out as always.” What is currently happening in socionics must be assigned to the category of the “wild primitive accumulation of knowledge,” since official science has not taken this process under its control — but under conditions of the total corruption of science, that is even a good thing.

Authors: Antoni Kępiński (1918–1972) — Polish psychiatrist and psychologist. Known for his works on the theory of informational metabolism, and also on psychiatry.

Editor: Again an inaccuracy. Yes, Kępiński has a certain number of articles and a book on psychiatry; but as for IM, he has no theory on that account. There is simply a beautiful term — fashionable in relation to cybernetics, used more or less haphazardly and understood very narrowly in relation to schizophrenia, which he explained as a disturbance of IM — employed by him as a particular function of the intellect.

Authors: We offer for the reader’s judgment a psychological (Ψ) conception of socionics. The book analyzes step by step the entire toolkit for investigating the personality; psychic phenomena that do not fall within the field of socionics are separated out, and conversely — the “building material” from which the new “edifice” grows is fixed. Socionics appears as a comprehensible and fascinating guidebook: for some — into the world of one’s own “Self”; for others — along the road of professional growth.

Editor: The fastidious reader, in the person of the editor, accepts the authors’ challenge and is ready, as far as his powers and possibilities allow, to discuss several of the most essential authorial propositions, in his view. First of all: the distinction between the psychic and the psychological, the concepts of function and role, and the semantics of the functions and of the informational aspects.

It is a great pity that the authors did not give explicit definitions of several fundamental concepts. This makes their text, in the logical sense, blurred. Absent is a definition of the concept of function, key for socionics, around which a large quantity of the authors’ reasoning is constructed. Though it is a general scientific term, in each subject area it acquires specific shades of meaning. In a scientific investigation where these concepts prove basic, all the clarifications must be made. In particular, the socionic functions belong to the category of maximally generalized psychic functions. Thus socionic sensing generalizes all the sense organs. In connection with the concept of function, several levels of generalization can be distinguished. The first level of generalization includes the 8 functions represented in Model A. The next level — the second — includes Jung’s 4 functions. The third level is represented by two functions: irrationality and rationality. The fourth level is one function, which is the entire psyche. The content of this function is the survival of the living being.

Nor do the authors give a definition of the informational aspect (IA). This concept is used as self-evident, and with the authors it is very blurred. Definitions of the psyche and certain others are absent. This is a serious methodological gap which makes the discussion of theoretical results meaningless and also raises doubt about the adequacy of most of the authors’ constructs. Therefore in what follows I will analyze the authors’ concepts from the standpoint of the classical socionics of Aušra Augustinavičiūtė.

Authors: By psychological functions we designate those possible roles which the above-mentioned psychic functions perform.

Editor: A serious error of the authors is that they understood the functions of Model A as psychological, whereas they are psychic. An important question: what is a psychological function, and are the functions of Model A psychological or psychic?

Authors: We have eight psychic functions, and we designate eight roles — one for each of them. We have already partly touched on these roles: for example, in speaking of dominance, or of the second, auxiliary function. Those are two roles out of eight. In each type these roles are performed by different psychic functions.

Editor: The authors do not use the concepts of positional and aspectual semantics, but have substituted for them the roles of the psychic functions. As a result they ignore the positioning of psychic functions discovered by Jung and introduce the concept of the psychological function, which belongs to the social level of the individual’s existence as a personality. By identifying psychic functions with psychological ones, the authors reduce the psychological to the psychic, which is inadmissible. Psychic functions do not perform psychological roles; they function as such.

Recall that Jung first indicated the four primary functions, and then designated the semantics of the places. After that he inserted the primary functions into these places and obtained a hypothetical structure of the personality which, in appearance, differed from Freud’s structure of the personality. However, as was established in socionics, these were two modifications of one and the same model — namely, the future Model A. Jung’s structure united the mental and the vital, while Freud’s represented three of the four horizontal blocks of Model A.

The difference between the editor’s theory and the authors’ consists in this: with the editor, the psychic function remains itself but has two parameters — the positional (what the function does, occupying a concrete place in the model) and the aspectual (what information the function processes). With the authors, the psychic function has no positional semantics but performs “psychological” roles. Yet in that case one must still explain why the function standing in this place plays precisely this role. This is a rather strange use of the concept of role. For a role is a variety of functioning, and hence a role in the structure of the model is a synonym of function. If one now performs a synonymic substitution in the authors’ definitions, it turns out that the psychic function performs a psychological function. Then the question arises: what sort of construction is this? Why should not the psychic functions do their own work, and the psychological ones theirs? Otherwise one function of the model performs two functions — its own, psychic one, and additionally a psychological one.

So which functions in the socionic model are psychic, and which psychological? To somehow motivate the psychological character of such roles, the authors choose names for them that partly imitate people’s psychological behavior: dominant, auxiliary, ignoring, blind spot, creative, suggestive, LPS [least point of resistance], mobilizational. But can one call these roles? Call them one may — but one must turn to the definition of role, and then it becomes clear that it is a synonym of function. By replacing one word with an equivalent one, the authors mislead themselves regarding the meaning of the words they use. A socionic function, like any instrument, has two parameters: 1) what it does; 2) what material it processes. The first parameter determines the function’s place in the model, and the second indicates the IA with which the function works. Since the concept of place is connected with topological semantics, this gives the right to speak of the positional semantics of the function.

Authors: The architecture of the psychological functions — the model of the type.

Editor: One may perhaps say of the model of the type that it has an architecture, although in this context the term is a synonym of structure. But “architecture” is, in a certain sense, prettier. Which term to choose is the author’s business. However, a term must be used correctly. The model of the type, from the side of form, is a structure consisting of psychic functions. Of this structure one may speak as an architecture. But the authors have written “The architecture of the psychological functions” — note: the authors want to tell us about the architecture of Model A, yet they write something quite different. Presumably psychological functions may also have a structure-architecture, but it hardly coincides with the structure of Model A.

Authors: Our next task is the description of the model of the type. We need to understand exactly which roles the psychic functions can play, and to describe these roles. All eight (S, s, I, i, L, l, E, e) informational spheres, spheres of activity, are distributed and engaged differently in each type.

Editor: The editor has commented above on the authors’ opinion regarding the roles of the functions. But here the authors also speak of informational spheres and identify them with spheres of activity. Apparently, for some reason, the authors have thus renamed the informational aspects. It is not very clear why one should replace a solid and established term with something else. Furthermore, the informational aspect includes the concept of a sphere of activity as a particular concept, but is not identical to it, since it includes not only spheres of activity. Why do the authors speak of the roles of the psychic functions? For a role in this context is a synonym of function. Perhaps for literary-stylistic reasons…

Authors: …the psychological type. This is a description of how the eight psychic functions (thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition, each in extraverted and introverted variants) are ranked in the psyche — what role they play. Some of them dominate; some are auxiliary; some perform the function of linking the conscious and the unconscious; some form unconscious attitudes of behavior and perception. All eight psychic functions exist in every type, but they are represented differently.

Editor: The psychological type is a characteristic of the manifestations of the personality. It is the result of the realization of the psychic functions in society. One may perhaps say of the psychic functions that they play roles, but this sounds figurative. Psychic functions function. It also looks strange to define the psychological type as a description of how the eight psychic functions (thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition, each in extraverted and introverted variants) are ranked in the psyche. The “ranking of the psychic functions” belongs to the description of the structure of Model A, not to the description of the psychological type.

Authors: I generally hold to the idea that the concept of qualities of character is a fiction.

Editor: Here is an example of the authors’ light-handed attitude toward what they say. And what, in their understanding, does fiction mean? Does it mean that qualities of character do not exist? Or that they exist but are inessential? Or that they are, for example, an illusion? Without giving a definition of qualities of character, it is meaningless to make any assertions. In psychology, incidentally, one speaks not of qualities of character but of traits and particularities of character. For example, carelessness, thoughtlessness, self-assurance — these are traits, not qualities.

Authors: Research shows that people’s existence in a group can facilitate the manifestation of any qualities. It is no longer a matter of there being honest and dishonest people, people with initiative or without it, responsible or irresponsible… A group can do much to a person. In it he may be responsible or irresponsible, display honesty or dishonesty — up to the point that the group can provoke a person, say, to murder.

Editor: From this excerpt it follows that the authors have in mind that under the influence of a group, for example, an honest person may become dishonest and vice versa.

Authors: Another matter is that it is impossible to re-educate a person from one type into another. But within the frame of the type a person can be brought up.

Editor: A new turn of the authors’ thought. If I understand them correctly, they consider that typological traits are unchangeable, while non-typological ones may change within any limits, up to full opposition. As an example they cite a case of cannibalism, when a group of rugby players flying in a helicopter [sic — airplane], having crashed high in the mountains and remained there until the arrival of rescuers for more than two months (more precisely, 80 days), found themselves in a hopeless position. At some point the people, driven to despair, resolved to begin eating the corpses of their comrades. Here one may speak of the destruction of a moral barrier under extreme conditions. But can one conclude from this that “qualities of character are a fiction”? I wish only to underscore that making scientific judgments without the necessary definitions is inadmissible.

Authors: …man, unlike the “lesser brethren” and all the more unlike inanimate objects, possesses a psyche — that is, he has a certain part which lives a psychological and social life.

Editor: How easily the authors dispose of the psyche! This is because they define it as “the part (of a person) which lives a psychological and social life.” Note: the authors define the psyche through psychology, apparently without giving an account of the defectiveness of such a definition. Of course, everything is exactly the other way around: it is psychology that received its name from the psyche.

And indeed if, in accordance with socionic concepts, one defines the psyche as an energy-informational complex governing the physiological and physical processes of a living being and facilitating its survival, then one will have to admit that a psyche exists in all living beings. But since the authors’ definition does not withstand criticism, all their reasoning that relies on it loses its foundation. Do the authors understand this? Defects of this kind in the construction of thought cast doubt on the truth of any conclusions the authors may draw at all.

Authors: As for the doctrine of temperaments — I have not yet encountered proof that the four types of temperament have a right to exist.

Editor: Well now! Incidentally, ignorance is not proof — if a person does not know something, he needs to go and find out. Do the physiological results of Pavlov and Simonov not provide sufficient grounds for answering the author’s question? Perhaps the authors simply do not know of the existence of such proofs — but they do cite Pavlov, do they not? Well, that is, as they say, their problem.

Incidentally, the authors’ negative assertions about temperaments are preceded in the book by extensive background material on the subject, which in the circles of the presumed consumers of socionics looks redundant — like hackneyed truths that have long since set one’s teeth on edge.

Authors (on temperaments): …such a typology is a serious delusion, because in life everyone inevitably encounters the fact that, first, the above-mentioned temperaments are represented by descriptions that are too general, and second, almost all of them overlap.

Editor: Just so… From antiquity to our days people have used the notion of temperaments; psychologists have built their methods of working with people on temperaments. I. P. Pavlov conducted experiments on dogs to determine the properties of the nervous system and to explain, by the combination of these properties, the very possibility of the existence of temperament. The Teplov–Nebylitsyn Institute for decades conducted scientific research on topics directly connected with notions of temperaments. And now look — not merely a delusion, but a serious one at that… why, all of a sudden? Without any proofs… Read the underlined part of the text closely. “…in life everyone inevitably encounters” — in logic such assertions are called universal affirmatives. For it to correspond to truth, one would have to check everyone — did the authors really do this? As Stanislavsky loved to say: “I don’t believe it!” And moreover encounters it inevitably — that is, obligatorily. On what statistical sample did the authors convince themselves of this? Even if all their students experienced it, that would still be insufficient to assert such a thing categorically. “…the temperaments are represented by descriptions that are too general” — yet a little earlier the authors wrote that “any typology is nothing other than a generalization.” That is, the authors understand that descriptions may be less general and more general. The greater the set of people satisfying some attribute, the more general its description will be. The four temperaments divide all people into roughly four parts. There are now more than 6 billion people, so the people of one temperament will number roughly 1.5 billion. To encompass such a multitude of people, the attribute must be very general. “…and second, almost all of them” (that is, the four temperaments)… think about this!… “almost all”… how many out of four is that? Two, or three? But besides, this means that some of them nevertheless do not overlap… do the authors really think that the “ordinary” reader — and all the more the fastidious one, whom they do not want to overload with “too clever” expressions — is so dim that he will not notice the illogicality of such a text? A scientist, of whatever type he may be, must not write this way — even for the sake of the text’s popularity, and all the more for the sake of the text’s popularity…

Authors: In one life situation a person behaves as is “prescribed” by the type, and in another — differently. That is, these types occur in pure form very rarely, and assigning a person to one of them can be problematic.

Editor: The authors can conduct such reasoning only because they give no definitions of the concepts they use. But the main thing the authors do not understand is that, besides narrow frames, there are wide and very wide frames into which human behavior may fit. Temperaments are precisely such very wide frames. Yes, they are not very informative — but that is because they are wide. If you are looking for a person and are told he has left for the Far East — is that very informative? Not very. But it is already something. There is a game of 10 questions, which one may ask in order to guess the word the partner has in mind. And you ask him, for example: “Living or non-living?” — and he answers: “Living.” Have you learned much? Not much, but already something…

— Plant or animal? — Plant… — Edible or inedible? — Edible… — Small in size or large? — Large… — Round or elongated? — Elongated… — A melon? — You guessed it.

Only five questions, and out of an infinite multitude of objects you have selected a single one.

Each of the questions sets very wide frames, but their intersection with each step makes the region of existence of the sought object narrower and narrower.

Therefore the authors’ philippic against temperaments is out of place. Yes, the theory of temperaments is imperfect. Yes, it can be criticized — but to deny the reality of the phenomenon of temperaments is, of course, pointless. Moreover, at present the notion of temperaments can be significantly expanded by including in it the socionic types and their derivatives.

Author: It is presumed that typologies must take into account the realities of the human psyche. In fact everything depends on the precision with which the researcher intuitively matches the attributes (or types) he has singled out with the existing psychological reality — that is, with those psychological and social laws which we are only just beginning to learn. If he really “hits the target,” a phenomenon arises. Such types — it may be unclear why — exist, since the phenomenon is observed, though its proposed explanations may be very approximate. And only later will someone else discover new laws or facts that make it possible to explain the existence of these types.

In other words, everything comes down to the personality of the researcher, to his genius. And that means, as any adherent of the canon would say, this is not science, since it is based not on reality but on the personality of the researcher. Hence: the experiment is unrepeatable, there is no rigid regularity confirmed by the data of other sciences, and so on and so forth. Subjective mythology?

Not at all. The degree to which other researchers (or users) prove capable of seeing, recognizing, and understanding the types in a given typology and thereby establishing repeatability — this can be the measure of the practical result. Indeed, a typology is always the product of the work of a specific personality. But nonetheless, some typologies remain at the level of laboratory studies or monographs, while others live on for centuries and are used in their work by a great many scientists, as well as by ordinary people in everyday life.

Neophyte: So the typology of the four temperaments lived for centuries, and it turns out it does not correspond to reality…

Authors: Well, that typology lived a very long time simply as a historical legacy. The authority of Hippocrates weighed on it. Perhaps five centuries ago it could really have helped someone. Now, when science has reached entirely new frontiers, to use “temperaments” is simply incorrect.

Editor: As we see, the authors persist in their denial of the reality of temperaments. Possibly this is because they do not remember the definition of the concept. If the socionic type is innate, one may even redefine such a type as a temperament. This is quite possible, since temperament is defined as “the innate particularities of a person which condition the dynamic characteristics of the intensity and speed of reaction, the degree of emotional excitability and equilibrium, and the particularities of adaptation to the surrounding environment” [11]. This most complete of the definitions of temperament encountered in the literature permits one to raise the question of expanding the concept of temperament, and — without at all abolishing the four classical temperaments — of adding to them a further sixteen concretized temperaments, which are the socionic types.

Let us try to assess TIM as temperament. First: thanks to the aspectual determinacy of the type, the future personality from the very beginning has at its disposal a program of generalized social specialization. This generalized social specialization can precisely be called socionic specialization. And it is against the background of the socionic specialization that a more concrete social specialization occurs, with the appearance of the social type, or sociotype. Further specialization of the sociotype leads to the formation of the specialist. In particular, this is why it would not be entirely correct to correlate — much less rigidly link — concrete professions with one or another socionic type without taking the sociotype into account. For example, a clown or variety-stage comedian can, apparently, be a bearer of any TIM, but not of any sociotype. The “Jester,” the “Buffoon,” or the “Mocker” may claim that role, but by no means the “Hero” or the “Sage.” On the other hand, some TIMs are probably better fitted for their bearers to become the sociotypes of “Jester” or “Mocker.” In this case, it seems, the maximum falls on the TIMs of Yesenin and Huxley, to whom it is initially easier to “fire up” people with their jokes. However, the example of the remarkable Soviet clown Nikulin shows that representatives of the Don Quixote TIM (unless, of course, there is a diagnostic error here — I personally think Nikulin is a Dumas) can also cope splendidly with the role of “Comedian.” Another matter is that the humor of Shifrin (Huxley) will differ from the humor of Petrosyan (Gabin) or the humor of Zhvanetsky (Dumas), and all the more from the humor of Zadornov (Robespierre). All the existing comic styles are easier to assess if one uses the socionic paradigm.

To become a singer, one must be born a “Singer.” That is, to establish oneself in the profession of singer, one must first acquire the sociotype of “Singer,” and for that one needs, at the very least, vocal endowments. Pugacheva and Kirkorov not only have singing talent from birth but, being Napoleons, possessed an initial — likewise innate — socionic ability to charm the corresponding part of the theatrical public. Their realization-technological function (RTF) is tuned to the production of emotions — and specifically of tonicizing emotions, since these are colored by the adjacent introverted sensing connected with their imperative-temporal function (ITF). However, socionics is capable of contributing to the understanding of why there nevertheless exist people who do not take to these singers, each remarkable in his own way.

If the psychic configuration is provided genetically and has physiological correlates, then it is quite natural to define it as temperament. With all that has been said taken into account, temperament may be redefined as the innate capacity of a human being or animal to react to the influence of the surrounding environment with a specific dynamic, including such parameters as intensity, speed, strength, stability, equilibrium, degree of emotional excitability — and with generalized individual particularities of adaptation to the surrounding environment. The last, in accordance with the concepts of socionics, includes the generalized informational dominant.

By supplementing the category of temperaments with the socionic types, socionics in no way replaces or rejects the classical temperaments, whose totality constitutes an entirely independent fractal group of psychological parameters superimposed on the TIM. Psychologists know perfectly well that pure temperaments are encountered extremely rarely. In most cases one has to deal with a combination of temperaments in one person, and there even exist formulas and graphic diagrams for calculating and representing such a temperamental composition. Moreover, one may assert that pure classical (Hippocratic) temperaments do not exist at all, but there are compositions in which one of the temperaments not merely dominates but dominates significantly. One may suppose that this temperamental fuzziness — the blurredness of the boundaries of the temperamental fields — has as its cause the superimposition of the “temperamental fractal” on the fractal of the socionic type. Then, by virtue of synergy or antagonism, a strengthening or weakening of various personal properties occurs, which is perceived as fuzziness of temperament.

The idea of correlating temperaments and socionic types is simple and easily occurs to beginning socionists — which indeed happened somewhere around 1987. However, statistical verification quickly showed a significant blurredness of such a correspondence, which is not surprising, since the Hippocratic temperaments themselves, by the admission of psychologists, are rarely encountered in pure form; hence it is proposed to determine a personal temperament formula into which, in one or another percentage ratio, all four components of the temperamental vector enter.

But a deeper working-through of this theme by V. V. Gulenko allowed him — as now becomes clear — to approach an understanding of the deeper truth standing behind the concepts of the Hippocratic temperaments. One of the substructures of the socion singled out by V. V. Gulenko proved to a significant degree analogous to the group of classical temperaments (CT) [2]. However, first, socionic concepts are unambiguously tied to groups of TIMs and, perceived through the concreteness of the socionic types, acquire the character of far more precise working categories than their Hippocratic analogues. Second, the semantic fields of the Hippocratic temperaments are, in keeping with psychologists’ assessments, very blurred, and therefore this undoubtedly attractive construct yields results whose practical value is small.

The group of V. V. Gulenko’s socionic temperaments (GST) can be correlated with the classical temperaments (CT) in such a way that to the invariant characteristic of each of the quartets of TIMs forming the temperamental substructure of the socion according to Gulenko there corresponds one CT. Here the choleric temperament can quite satisfactorily be correlated with the linear-assertive, the sanguine with the flexibly-maneuvering, the phlegmatic with the steadily-stable, and the melancholic with the receptively-adaptive socionic temperament. V. V. Gulenko, as is evident from his work [3], considered CT and GST identical. However, despite the fact that the semantic fields of CT and GST coincide to a significant degree, such a correlation cannot be recognized as one hundred percent unambiguous — it only indicates a synergy of the classical temperaments and V. V. Gulenko’s socionic temperaments (GST). When a classical temperament coincides in one bearer with its socionic analogue, one may observe a vividly expressed CT. In the case of non-coincidence, we are dealing with a more or less blurred temperamental composition. In any case, Gulenko’s find in the theory of temperament is an important step in the cognition of this ancient construct and will forever enter the treasury of science. Later Gulenko realized that GST and CT are not one and the same.

However, in the development of the theory of temperament one may go further. Recalling the typological temperaments of Dionysus (sensing combined with impulsiveness), Epimetheus (sensing combined with judiciousness), Apollo (intuition combined with emotionality), and Prometheus (intuition combined with intellect), singled out by Jung and, following him, by Keirsey — from which V. V. Gulenko apparently took his point of departure in his work — it is difficult to rid oneself of the thought that this was a deep idea and a serious contribution to the theory of temperament. However, the insufficient elaboration of the Jungian typology and its American analogue led to a serious logical error, to this day unrecognized by either typologists or psychologists: in the course of the classification, a change of the basis of classification occurs. As a result the seemingly homogeneous series — which the set of temperaments ought to be — turns out not to be such, since the first two Jung–Keirsey temperaments (JKT) are obtained as a combination of an irrational function with a classificatory characteristic of the functions (impulsiveness and judiciousness), while the next two JKT are obtained as a combination of an irrational function with a rational one — and that is illogical.

Nevertheless, the JKT quite satisfy the classical definition of temperament — it is the totality of particularities of the personality, or more precisely even of the individuality, “which condition the dynamic characteristics of the intensity and speed of reaction, the degree of emotional excitability and equilibrium, and the particularities of adaptation to the surrounding environment” [11]. First, it should be noted that such a definition of CT proves too broad, since other varieties of combinations of psychological qualities can also be subsumed under it. Second, one should recognize the existence of other varieties of temperaments. And finally, third, one may suppose that all the “regular” quartets of socionic types correspond to special varieties of temperaments. Of course, such a hypothesis requires special grounding, but it is in any case sufficiently plausible. On the basis of the proposed hypothesis one may say that temperament is the adaptational-dynamic characteristic of the human being as a specimen of the species Homo sapiens. By combining adaptational and dynamic characteristics in different ways, one can obtain an expanded set of temperaments. As a result one may speak of the existence of 4 (Hippocrates) + 16 (TIMs) + 35×4 = 140 (regular Reinin quartets) + 120 (pairwise combinations of Reinin attributes) + 30 (monotemperaments, by the number of RAs) = 310 temperaments. Given the proposed redefinition of the concept of temperament, one must conceive of character as a superposition (overlay) of the fractal of temperaments, the fractal of meridional accentuations acquired as an imprint of parental influence (or its equivalent), the caste fractal (in the broad sense), the small-group fractal (A. V. Bukalov), the manipulator-actualizer fractal (Shostrom), and, possibly, many other fractals. Such an understanding of the structure of the personality corresponds to the complexity of human nature and outlines an approach to its unsimplified and adequate description.

Authors: In biological organisms one observes variants of adaptation to the physical environment in which they live; in exactly the same way the psyche has its versions of adaptation to the surrounding environment.

Editor: “The comrade does not understand” that it is precisely the psyche that is the instrument of the living organism’s adaptation to the environment — though this, it seems, official scientists do not understand either. Every living being is a version of adaptation. Every biological species is simultaneously also a psychic type. It is precisely this that gives grounds for “animal” and “plant” typologies of the human being.

Authors: …the types discovered by Jung are types of adaptation to the psychic and social environment.

Editor: The social environment is understandable — but what is the psychic environment?

Authors (on the types): Strictly speaking, Jung did not even discover them — they always existed; one only had to grasp the principle…

Editor: All one can say here is: sancta simplicitas! (holy simplicity). What, in the authors’ opinion, is a discovery? There is a generally accepted use of words. Of course, universal gravitation always existed, but its law was discovered by Newton. Did Jung not discover his typology in exactly the same sense? So why introduce distortions into already established truths? All the more since, as the previously noted examples showed, the authors do not command the ability to give definitions.

Authors: …Jung established the existence of two variants: the extraverted and the introverted. Unfortunately, the essence of the idea was subsequently badly distorted by numerous researchers, and thereby the phenomenon of psychic reality which Jung discovered and described was lost.

Editor: Colleagues! What sort of expression is this — “Jung established the existence of two variants…“? Is this a simplification of speech for the sake of popular exposition? A suitable expression here might have been: “Jung discovered the existence in people of two psychological attitudes — the extraverted and the introverted.” Unfortunately, he never managed to give them explicit definitions, and only described them approximately. Several psychologists began to use the terms Jung proposed, but they all did it differently.

Authors: The eight types according to C. G. Jung:

Editor: There follows an enumeration cited many times in the socionic literature. What new, special, original thing, developing Jung’s ideas, does the author wish to say? So far — nothing new… Why not proceed at once to the heart of the matter and tell of one’s own discoveries?

Authors: The extraverted type, according to Jung, is a person whose consciousness (interest, attention) is omnivorous. It spreads over the entire surrounding world and constantly tries to “grab hold of” everything around it. At the same time the extravert’s inner world is for him “under seven locks,” remaining in many respects vulnerable, incomprehensible, even alien. In the introverted type all attention is concentrated on the inner world, on the processes taking place there: feelings, experiences, thoughts, ideas. And the external world for him is not exactly hostile, but in some sense hidden. The life of the introverted type passes in contemplation, cognition, and the becoming of his inner world.

Editor: Those who have mastered socionics well know that everything the authors have written about extraverts and introverts contains almost no truth. What is true here is only the fixing of the difference — that is, that these types are different. Socionics has proven that each type is not omnivorous but selective. Each type forms its notions of the world in the modalities connected with the IA of its PPF (program-potential function). Don Quixotes choose the cognition of the laws of the world, and Hamlets — the experiencing of their presence in the world in the modality of dramatic emoting. The cited opposition of extraversion and introversion creates the impression that feelings, experiences, thoughts, and ideas exist only in introverts. What rubbish! As if the Zhukovs, Huxleys, Hugos, or Don Quixotes had no thoughts, felt nothing, experienced nothing, and never had any ideas. All people — extraverts and introverts alike — are capable of working, resting, loving, rejoicing, and suffering, but they do all this in accordance with their type. Introverts interact splendidly with the external world — they gather mushrooms and berries, fish, fight enemies, ride motorcycles and drive cars — but they do it just slightly differently from extraverts. And vice versa.

Authors: …a person has a certain cycle of the directedness of attention (of psychic activity). One half of the cycle is the directedness of attention outward — awareness of the external world, concentration on what is happening there. The second proceeds in the concentration of attention inside oneself, on one’s feelings and experiences. The directedness of attention outward is called extraverted perception, and inward — introverted. Correspondingly, to the extraverted type belongs the person who is aware predominantly of the part of the cycle directed outward; to the introverted — the one aware of the part directed inward.

Editor: This invention of the authors is rather witty, but here too their inability to give definitions works against them. Alas, it is not enough to voice an idea at the level of words that may make an impression on the ear. One must describe the mentioned cycles in detail and demonstrate this with examples. As soon as the authors try to do so, they will see that both parts of the cycle have the same structure in both attitudes, and both parts of the cycle are lived through in full by both attitudes. Besides, as I understand it, a cycle is a uniform repetition with a change of parameter values to their opposites. In the given case this would have to mean that the directedness of attention changes with some constant frequency, while only the variant of directedness corresponding to the leading attitude is made conscious. I have not encountered in the literature any mentions of uniform cycles of change in the directedness of attention. It happens situationally. And what becomes conscious is precisely that to which attention is directed, independently of extraversion or introversion.

Let us discuss the authors’ idea a little more closely — an idea which is in essence a ruse. What does directedness of attention outward mean? For example, the performance of physical work. Say, washing floors. And, for example, a Hugo (extravert) and a Dumas (introvert) wash floors — and within the limits accessible to observation, they do it while conscious. I, for one, have not seen people washing floors while unconscious, though I admit it is possible — somnambulists, for example, might act that way. Representatives of all the other types can likewise wash floors only while conscious. But people of each type do it a little (and sometimes quite noticeably) in their own way. And all of them have attention directed outward — that is, at washing the floor — even though at the same time they may sing songs, watch television, or talk to one another. What does directedness of attention inward mean? Say, a witness’s recollection of the circumstances of a crime. Suppose a Zhukov and a Yesenin are summoned for questioning and asked to recall how many attackers there were. Do the authors really think the Yesenin does this while conscious, and the Zhukov in a deep faint? Perhaps the authors have some other cycles in mind — well then, let them describe them explicitly. At the level of the NLP meta-model one can narrate anything at all.

So the fastidious readers have for now not believed the authors’ reasoning — though it is not excluded that the authors are very pleased with themselves.

Authors (a fragment of the declared dialogue between neophyte and guru):

Neophyte: So each person is simultaneously both an extravert and an introvert? And besides, what does “aware” mean?

Authors: Let “aware” for now mean “knowing.” For some reason — by some caprice of nature — a person cannot be aware of the entire cycle of the process of perception, but “knows” only half.

Neophyte: You mean that the division of people into extra- and introverted rests only on their self-perception? Or after all — on perception from the outside?

Authors: That is not a simple question. And we will return to it repeatedly later.

Editor: Fine — the neophyte is dim, and the guru’s tangled explanations reach him with difficulty. But it seems the guru is a fine one too — he can say nothing definite, plays for time, and dodges in every way. Here even a clever neophyte would understand nothing…

Authors: Well then, now you know that an extravert is the type of person who directs his conscious attention into the external world; the other part is also present in him, but at a semi-conscious level. In the introverted type it is the other way around.

Editor: The guru is clearly trying to suggest to the neophyte that he already knows something. But, as the editor showed above, the directedness of attention inward and outward has, in all types, within the limits of observational possibility, analogous parameters: all people perform both physical work and recollection while conscious, not in a state of semi-faint. Though that too is encountered — but here again neither of the attitudes has any advantage. So if the authors conduct their classes with their students in this spirit, they are misleading them. Furthermore, we learn from the authors’ explanations that attention can be conscious and semi-conscious. Psychology knows nothing of this — there one speaks, for example, of voluntary and involuntary attention.

Authors: But here is what is interesting: when one of the psychic functions dominates, the remaining functions bear a compensatory load. Suppose, for example, that in an extraverted type the function of thinking dominates. Then his thinking is arranged in such a way that it uses the external world as its source of information, and the result will necessarily be production likewise “issued” into the external world. Well then: in such a type the remaining three psychic functions (sensation, intuition, feeling), which are in a subordinate position, have an introverted directedness.

Editor: At last we have reached something interesting. The authors have definitively entered the state of the Delphic oracle and are simply issuing truths in the final instance. The cited excerpt is a specimen of this type of thinking. It would be interesting to know how the authors know that “when one of the psychic functions dominates, the remaining functions bear a compensatory load.” They read this in Jung and uncritically accepted it as truth. What does this compensatory load mean? What do the functions do during this time? How do they compensate the work of the dominant function? By having an introverted directedness? But that is pure rubbish. One must describe this work explicitly. In the given case the authors have in mind the “AJ” model, which is built on a certain assumption: the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th functions have the vertness opposite to that of the 1st. If, however, one turns to Model A, there the vertnesses alternate, and consequently a different conclusion can be drawn. But the main thing in this excerpt is the concept of compensation. To compensate means to make good, to recompense. What do the functions recompense to one another?

Neophyte: So if we say a person is an extravert, this does not mean that all his psychic activity is oriented outward?

Authors: Correct. And we may speak, for example, of an introverted type who, from the standpoint of the ruling function of the psyche, spends his life in contemplation of his own thoughts: a sort of “thinker within himself.” But at the same time he may turn out to be a rather sociable person, because his emotional sphere is subordinated to the external world — it has an extraverted directedness. On the one hand the person seems an introvert, and on the other — an extravert. Differences in manifestations here arise depending on what dominates. And the descriptions of extraversion and introversion that appeared after Jung are too primitive.

Editor: Jung nowhere gave explicit definitions of extraversion-introversion, though he did try to reason on the subject. Now we know that this is impossible — the corresponding archetype does not lend itself to full verbalization (see the section on Jung in the first volume). Nevertheless, one can work with these concepts. I do not agree with the author’s ambivalent position: “On the one hand the person seems an introvert, and on the other — an extravert.” A person is an extravert or an introvert not by particular functions but as a whole. It is an integral characteristic of the type. Whatever an extravert does, he always acts as an extravert. Only imprecision of definitions pushes the authors toward a double understanding of the person. As for the descriptions of extraversion and introversion that appeared after Jung — among them there are primitive ones and even more elaborated ones than in socionics. For example, Eysenck’s. Yet nonetheless incorrect.

Neophyte: So real extraversion and introversion cannot be identified by external attributes? And it may turn out that a person who is the “life of the party” in fact is not one?

Authors: He may be the “life of the party” and at the same time be an introverted type. So what? The attribute of extraversion/introversion in itself is not yet a person’s behavior. We can say whether an individual is extraverted or introverted only if we know how his attention is arranged, what his motivation is, how the activity of his psyche proceeds. There is no other way: tests that unambiguously determine extraversion/introversion have not yet been created.

Editor: And from where, then, will we learn how his attention is arranged, what his motivation is, how the activity of his psyche proceeds? With sufficient practical skill an expert can, by external attributes, quickly and unambiguously — or at least with a high degree of probability — determine extraversion/introversion. The authors are simply muddling the neophyte’s head — it is a kind of manipulation. Though it is true that tests unambiguously determining extraversion/introversion do not yet exist.

Neophyte: So “thinking introversion” does not exist in ideal form? A person’s striving for self-expression makes itself known after all?

Editor: The neophyte has been definitively misled — he thinks that self-expression is extraversion, and that if a person has written and published a book, he has acted as an extravert. The answer here is this: if the book was published by an extravert, he acted as an extravert; and if by an introvert, he did it as an introvert.

Authors: Aušra Augustinavičiūtė, relying on the works of Jung, reproduced from Jung’s sketches and presented in a more accessible form the typology that received the name “socionics.”

Editor: The authors, using an “evasive” syntax, once again mislead the trusting neophyte. It was Aušra herself who named her development of Jung’s typology socionics — it was not that her work “somewhere out there” received this name. But “from Jung’s sketches” — that is something new. Jung discovered what he called the psychological types. And these were not sketches — it was a thick book of about 600 pages. It was a serious step in psychology. But only a step. The next step was taken by Aušra.

Neophyte: And what is a model of the type?

Authors: Well, suppose we have an automobile. How does it differ from an automobile of another make? To describe the type of an automobile having only a description of its external appearance or the particularities of its running is empiricism — in a certain sense, primitivism. For there exists also the internal scheme. Well then: socionics possesses a description of the type that is akin to a description of the internal scheme, the construction, of the automobile.

Editor: The authors remain faithful to their “evasive” manner of exposition and, to the neophyte’s direct question, have very deftly dodged a direct answer. Yet one could have said directly: the model of the socionic type is a description of the structure of the psychic functions and of the possible result of their functioning. But that, of course, is a matter of the authors’ technique of presenting material.

Authors: …socionics makes it possible to become aware of the fact that understanding another person is impossible in principle. It shows the diversity and depth of the differences in motivation and behavior of different people.

Editor: Well now! It turns out that thanks to socionics we learn that “understanding another person is impossible in principle”! Is this a slip, or is it such a method of explaining things to neophytes? Possibly, however, the authors are using a different understanding of understanding, of which they give no definition. For there are several levels of one person’s understanding of another, and at least at the level of “close the door” people are quite capable of understanding one another. So psychology knows of no “impossibility of understanding in principle.”

Authors: A certain semblance of mutual understanding is possible only between people of identical (identity) types.

Editor: One can see that the authors insist on the fundamental impossibility of one person understanding another, provided they are of different types. All this is rubbish. People of any types are capable of understanding one another. Not always, not everywhere — but capable nonetheless. This applies, of course, to identical types as well: they are far from always capable of understanding each other. Though, naturally, it would not hurt here to define the concept “to understand.”

The point is that there is no single way of understanding; there is a whole spectrum of levels of understanding.

— Did you understand what I said? — Yes… (in the sense: I heard all the words) — Ye-e-es… (in the sense: leave me alone, I’m sick of it…) — Yes-yes. (in the sense: I am listening attentively)

A person may understand nothing of foreign languages yet successfully work at the post office sorting letters by address, simply distinguishing them by the graphics of the letters.

A person may not really understand what is being discussed, but be able to repeat all the words…

A person may understand perfectly what is being discussed, but disagree.

A person may be capable of translating what has been said to him into another language without really understanding what it means or why it is needed.

A person may, without a single word, not only understand what must be done in a given situation, but also precisely carry out everything required of him…

Authors: It is hardly right to say that something is true and something is not true. This question can be considered in two ways.

Editor: An example of “evasive syntax”… Surely the authors want the neophyte to understand them. For whose sake are they exerting themselves, if they know in advance that he will not understand them, since “understanding is impossible in principle”?

Authors: And here is another point of view: in their practical work psychologists and psychotherapists use the socionic method and obtain results. That is, the method works. And since it works, then, by and large, what difference does it make what it is?

Editor: It would be interesting to learn what “by and large” means in the authors’ rendition. But one is unlikely to get that out of them. They will raise such a fog…

Authors (on socionics): Perhaps it is a game, perhaps a myth (though I do not think so). But this “myth” helps people rid themselves of problems, makes their life more joyful, more pleasant.

Editor: This is the authors on socionics. With this level of knowledge of socionics — they do not know whether it is a game or a myth — the authors go out to people. It is not difficult to show that socionics is a science [2], but to understand this the reader needs to use his own intellect.

Authors: …it would now be more correct to speak of a whole psychological direction called “socionic psychology.” The edifice of socionic psychology is founded on fundamental concepts of the workings of the psyche.

Editor: And so the authors have introduced the term “socionic psychology.” How, then, does socionic psychology differ from socionics? By the authors’ inventions? But we have already seen what sort those are. In that case each author has his own “socionic psychology.” So, as I understand it, the authors superstructure their psychological observations and theories on top of socionics. Undoubtedly the authors have the right to develop their own notions on any subject. However, the authors have no right to distort socionic concepts, damaging the authorial right of Aušra Augustinavičiūtė. To perfect — yes; to distort — no. And the high-flown words about the “edifice of socionic psychology” have no foundation beneath them.

Authors: So then: within socionics as a model there is embedded the notion of sixteen types of the perception, processing, and output of information — and nothing more. It is merely an informational model, a toy. Partly for this reason the introduction of socionics at first suffered shipwreck, for it was entirely unconnected to psychology and had no outlet to its basic concepts: the notion of the psyche, of the personality, of what the “Self” is…

Editor: The authors grossly distort the teaching of Aušra Augustinavičiūtė. It is not “merely an informational model, a toy,” but a brilliant discovery of an adequate representation of the structure of the psyche. And there is no opposition here to “the basic concepts of psychology.” They are all presupposed and used. However, thanks to socionics these concepts acquire their essence. And although a toy is always a model, a model is not a toy. And socionics suffered no shipwreck — that is rubbish. It is true that the official bosses of psychology did not recognize it from the very beginning — but they do not recognize it now either. Whereas in the circles that accepted it, it was successful at once.

Neophyte: So the subject we are discussing…

Guru: …has gone far ahead compared with the original idea, and it would now be more correct to speak of a whole psychological direction called “socionic psychology.” The edifice of socionic psychology is founded on fundamental concepts of the workings of the psyche.

Editor: The authors are suggesting to the neophyte that thanks to them, the author-gurus, a whole psychological direction called “socionic psychology” has appeared and flourishes. Alas, its foundation, as is evident from the analysis of the authors’ inventions, rests on home-grown revelations which, as an independent attempt to sort out difficult psychological material, are not bad in every respect, and as hypotheses they might have a right to exist. But there is a problem with modesty, when the authors get carried away with a high assessment of their own contribution. It is clear that the inserted texts from Jung are a stage socionics has passed through, since it grew out of Jung but long ago outgrew him. The inserted texts from Eric Berne are a productive development of that part of the structure of the personality which Freud discovered. And although Berne categorically denied any connection between his elaborations of personal positions and the elements of the personality structure discovered by Freud and so felicitously supplemented by Aušra, the semantic analysis of his construct unambiguously points to their genetic connection. Therefore Berne’s find, valuable in itself, simply cannot — by its instrumental scale — be either compared with or opposed to socionics.

Burns’s discussions of the territory of consciousness, presented in the very first insertion, are an attempt to lean on an artistic metaphor in the striving to comprehend one of the most complex psychological problems, farthest from any fundamental solution. Of course, belletristic passages of this kind have very little relation to serious science. They might still be regarded as a popular exposition of an important psychological theme, as an introduction to it — but unfortunately they rather mislead, creating the impression of the utmost elementariness of the task that might stand before the authors. Let us examine a fragment of this text as given in the book under analysis.

Burns: Let us imagine the “self” in the form of a little man who, like all of us, lives in a certain territory. He is surrounded by forests, fields, mountains, rivers, and lakes. He walks certain routes; he has his favorite places. Each place is some feeling or sensation, thought or memory, knowledge or action. The little man comes to a clearing called “joy” and becomes joy; he sits down under a tree called “regret” and turns into regret; he scrambles up a hill called “chemistry” and is filled with knowledge of chemical elements and reactions. All those sensations, feelings, knowledge, memories, and fantasies which are in principle accessible to this little man at the present moment of time are called the territory of consciousness. What does “in principle accessible” mean? There are certain places the little man could reach, but for a number of reasons he does not look in there, or looks in rarely.

Commentary: What a delight! A beautiful metaphysical picture! Very popular — but it misleads at once. This is the old metaphysical idea of the homunculus — the “little man” who sits in the spermatozoon and grows into a “big man” in the womb, and then outside it into an adult human. And though his body becomes big, as the bearer and equivalent of consciousness he remains a “little man,” capable of evoking in the reader the sympathy we feel for children abandoned by their parents. This idea bears a metaphysical character because thinkers of this stripe understand change purely quantitatively, mechanically — apparently not even suspecting that in nature quantitative growth is constantly accompanied by qualitative metamorphoses.

In the given case the homunculus lives inside the cranium, and there one finds everything imaginable: the clearing of joy, the tree of regret, the hill of chemistry. The development of scientific genetics and dialectical logic destroyed the mechanistic notion of the homunculus, but, as we see, the idea of the homunculus finds application in metaphysically simplified psychology.

Of course, the authors might say this is an artistic device — to ease an ordinary person’s understanding of a complex theme. For it is for him that the authors write. Alas, this is not even fit for a schoolchild, since one of the principles of instruction is its scientific character. And in some countries, for such science one would simply be taken to court for misleading people. And perhaps it might even be acceptable if the authors knew “how it really is” and at the suitable moment explained everything “like adults.” As it stands, it seems the authors really do think that somewhere in the head — or perhaps somewhere else — there really is this “little man” or some equivalent of him; and that is too much even for popular science.

Burns: Two different people, say A and B, are sitting on one and the same sofa. A feels that the sofa he got is extremely uncomfortable: his back is stiff, his lower back aches, the seat has some protruding lumps. So at the present moment A perceives the sofa from the standpoint of sensations from the sofa. A’s self-awareness is identified with sensation. Using the illustration of the territory given above, we could say that little man A is located in the place which is “the sensation from the sofa,” and this sensation of A’s is conscious. B, sitting on the same sofa, is immersed in thoughts about the raise promised by his boss. His self-awareness is identified with the place “fantasies on the theme of finances,” and the sensations from the sofa which his organism receives remain unconscious. At the next moment the sensations from the sofa evoke in A associations with the furniture in his grandmother’s house, and he sinks into memories of her. The little man leaves the lawn “sensations from the sofa” and comes to the forest edge “grandmother.”

Commentary: Here we have a vivid example of “sofa science” — how simple it all is: observe people sitting on a sofa and describe how the “little men” stroll about the “territory of consciousness.” Incidentally, let us note that in this excerpt Burns uses the concepts “consciousness,” “self-awareness,” and “awareness” (in the form “conscious”) as practically interchangeable, and it seems he really sees no fundamental difference between them. The point is that the concept of “consciousness” does not lend itself to definition at all. The concept of “self-awareness” gravitates toward the concept of “interoception” — the experiencing of the “body schema” and of one’s own personality. While the concept of “awareness” is close to the concept of “intuition.”

Authors: A person switches every second from one perception to another. To understand how this is possible, one must recognize that the “self” in itself (not as the expression of the fact that I am doing, thinking, remembering something) is absolutely empty.

Editor: It is strange that the authors can offer only a single explanation of a person’s ability to “switch from one perception to another” — namely, that for this one must recognize that the “self” in itself is “absolutely empty.” It appears the authors are trying to adapt to socionics and socionic psychology certain elements of the teaching of Buddhism. Within the frame of the Buddhist teaching the notion of emptiness (śūnya) is understandable — it is an ultimate metaphysical essence, accessible to perception only by initiates. To cognize this essence and have the right to operate effectively with its concept, one must undergo spiritual preparation according to Buddhist programs. What the emptiness of the “self” might mean in the terms of scientific psychology is not clear. Here again we are dealing with the authors’ unwillingness or inability to operate with definitions. To the same category belongs the reliance on random images.

And of course, from a scientific standpoint, to say that “a person switches every second,” ignoring the concept of attention known in psychology, means using the rhetorical figure of metonymy — that is, replacing a concrete word or term by another word connected with it by contiguity or similarity. For popularity this is perhaps suitable, but strict scientificity is thereby lost. If only, in addition, the authors were not proposing to a reader presumably unfamiliar with the subject a notion — supposedly current in scientific psychology — of an absolutely empty “Self.”

Authors: Speaking the language of information, it is a zero which has the possibility of being filled with something.

Editor: So that is our language of information. This is the first time I have heard that in the language of information one speaks of a zero as something that has the possibility of being filled with something. Strange notions the authors have about the language of information and about zeros. After this one has the impression of dealing with some dreadful vulgarization or misunderstanding.

Authors: One may imagine an enormous field of thoughts, feelings, sensations not called upon at the given moment — the entire volume out of which the situation is created. And the “self” “strolls” through this volume. When the “self” lands on a point filled, say, with a feeling of physical comfort — the emptiness is filled with comfort, and at that moment I experience it; the “self” has shifted into the region of mental work — and I no longer track physical comfort…

Editor: What can one say — a vivid image: a field on which thoughts, feelings, sensations lie scattered about, and a big bucket strolls across it, and now one thing, now another falls into it by chance… And this is said by people who claim knowledge of psychology and the creation of a new direction in psychology. True, the authors warned that they would not use scientific terminology so as not to overload the neophyte… But not to this degree.

The authors believe that “the entire volume out of which the situation is created” is thoughts, feelings, sensations… There is no objective world, no real human life; a “situation” is nothing more than a random set of thoughts, feelings, and sensations. There you have it… Idealism, mechanicism, primitivism… In any case, in philosophy this is a long-passed stage.

Authors: …I follow a thought. Whatever I may be experiencing at a given moment, the “self” is always able to shift to another position. This phenomenon can be designated as the switching of attention, or the shifting of the focus of perception.

Editor: …the “self” still remains without a definition, though it “is able to shift to another position, and this can be designated as the switching of attention”… So much for knowledge of psychology… In psychology it is well known what attention is and what its switching is — and ordinary people know it too — so why raise a fog and profoundly call it “the shifting of the focus of perception”? Who is it that perceives? Is this a way of simplifying the exposition so as “not to burden the ordinary person,” or is it needed for psi-socionics? But the ordinary person they have, alas, overloaded with their home-grown adaptations of psychology to the emptiness of the human “Self.”

Authors: So it turns out: in using the word “self,” a person thereby designates his inner gaze, the inner observer, attention — which, like the beam of a flashlight, illuminates something on the boundless field of psychological states and processes. At that moment I feel this “something,” perceive it, and it happens to me.

Editor: Have the authors really given a definition of the “self”? And it immediately turned out to be the inner gaze = the inner observer = attention = the beam of a flashlight… But of course such statements cannot be considered definitions, because they do not satisfy the corresponding requirements. They are nothing more than a list of metaphors.

Authors: …the “emptiness” of which we spoke is the first important concept of socionic psychology. The concept of the “self” not as a personality but as an instrument which a person constantly uses, and which is identical in all people.

Editor: So the masks are off… what remains is one emptiness as “the first important concept of socionic psychology.” So that is what was hiding behind the appeal to the basic concepts of psychology. But an emptiness lying at the foundation can support only emptiness.

Let us listen once more to a fragment of the guru’s dialogue with the neophyte.

Neophyte: “Inner gaze,” “inner observer,” “attention,” “empty ‘self’” — so many names one can easily get confused!

Guru: True. Therefore in what follows we will call this “self” the focus of consciousness, or simply attention. By this we designate that the “empty-shell”-“self” is the capacity to know oneself and about oneself.

Editor: The poor neophyte could not withstand such richness of the guru’s vocabulary, but the guru reassured him that he would call all this merely the focus of consciousness (that is for simplicity of exposition) and — apparently for the connection with scientific psychology — even more simply, with the simple and comprehensible word attention. But how much imagination, eloquence, and recourse to Buddhism was required, and how much paper was covered, in order finally to obtain what was known from the very beginning. That is how the ideology and technique of “emptiness” work.

Authors (on extraversion/introversion): In discussing attention and interest directed outward or inward, we had in mind the “self,” which is filled either with information about the object (if you receive information from the external world) or with the effect this object has upon you (if you are concentrated on the inner world). And your morning sausage is either a partner equal in rights with you, whose weight, color, composition, and finally price you perceive; or food being consumed by you — and then you sense less its qualities independent of you, but from the anticipation that it is now about to be eaten by you your mouth waters. This is what extraverted directedness is (in the first case) and introverted (in the second).

Editor: The authors discussed this theme at some length, relying on the concept of attention — whether it is directed outward or inward. Here they return to the theme, apparently believing they have obtained new arguments for explaining extraversion/introversion. However, there is nothing new, since replacing attention with the “self” clarifies exactly nothing — all the more so given that the “empty-shell”-“self” was again equated by them with attention. However, the example they chose with the morning sausage leads one to reflect that extraverts think of it as an equal partner and “their mouths do not water,” while introverts are not interested in its external data and always “anticipate.” It is hard even to believe that this is the “last word” in the definition of extraversion/introversion.

Authors (quoting Rudhyar): The nascent consciousness of primitive man, or of a child, may be said to flow in the stream of existence.

Editor: From this one may understand that the authors agree that in primitive man or in a child consciousness is absent and only gradually, taking shape over time, reaches the maturity of the consciousness of an adult Homo sapiens. The editor holds the opinion that consciousness has many forms and exists from the very beginning both in primitive man and in the child. Only its content changes, and the capacity to make use of its presence.

Authors (quoting Rudhyar): In the structure of consciousness we must first of all single out the totality of knowledge about the surrounding world and about oneself. It is a whole, ordered, and structured totality of the experience assimilated by a person.

Editor: The authors, together with Rudhyar, confuse consciousness with its content, whose structure is what they describe. For me personally this is inadmissible, and I will not further analyze anything connected with this misunderstanding. As for the “totality of knowledge about the surrounding world and about oneself” — it is a patchwork, partially ordered, weakly structured totality of assimilated experience, strongly blurred at the periphery. This example shows how relative the truths formulated by an intelligent and self-confident person can be.

Authors (quotation from Rudhyar): The arising filtration of external influences and internal experiences singles out in a specific way that which is accepted by the existing experience and order. Some part remains outside attention, does not enter the field of consciousness: it remains extra-conscious, subconscious, unconscious. External reality, the stream of existence, is transformed and narrowed according to the forming model of the world, uniting the available experience and the structure of its interdependencies. Individual consciousness proves to be a prism, transmitting and refracting the perception of reality according to the structure of the available experience (knowledge) and of the needs satisfied by means of it.

Editor: An example of beautiful metaphysical constructions and reasonings. Even though the authors warned at the very beginning that they would not make use of “emergent properties of brain systems of various levels,” so as “not to weary the well-disposed reader.”

Authors (quoting Rudhyar): Generalizing and classifying, speech is in essence the first elementary form of knowledge. Through the medium of the sign and of speech, society forms the child’s thinking and in large measure determines the structure of his consciousness.

Editor: Since Rudhyar, and following him the authors, gave no definition of knowledge, their assertions remain without an object — this is one of the marks of metaphysical thinking.

Authors: There are very many kinds of defensive reactions. You have just named one of them — to give this “something” a form that allows it to be inscribed into the laws of the structure. For example, “to supply a theoretical basis”: why I have the right to give this particular person a smack on the neck. This is called rationalization.

Editor: Comments are superfluous.

Authors (quoting Kalinauskas): Consciousness develops when, out of the totality of activities of the existing whole, there arises a feeling of structured order in the reactions of this whole to the impulses of everyday life.

Editor: A very beautiful turn of speech with a vividly expressed metaphysical coloring. That is, it is a highly abstract judgment which obliges the authors to nothing and is difficult for the ordinary person to understand. Almost the same as the reasoning, rejected by the authors, that used the word “emergent.” Consciousness — the main concept of this reasoning — is not defined; but if one takes this phrase as a definition of consciousness, one may conclude that the authors, following Kalinauskas, consider consciousness a developing entity. And at once the question arises: does it develop from zero or from some positive level — though within the frame of metaphysics one may speak also of negative levels, down to minus infinity. However, as a definition this judgment fails one logical requirement: the unknown must be defined through the known, but “the totality of activities of the existing whole” is difficult to perceive as known — and moreover as more fundamental than the consciousness being defined.

Authors (quotation from Jung): Intuition is a special type of perception, proceeding not directly from sensations but from unconscious experience. It is a special type of reflection in consciousness of fragments of chronologically preceding contents that are at the given moment not conscious.

Editor: Here intuition is defined by Jung close to how it is done in psychology. Strange as it may seem, psychologists have to this day failed to sort out the concept of intuition. That is, they fix some part of its phenomenology, but its essence eludes them. Yet intuition is a psychic function with which people deal constantly in their lives, as with something taken for granted. Let us try to find a Russian equivalent for this Latin word. For example, grasping. Not physical, of course, but intellectual. Intellectual insight. But that is nothing other than the understanding well known to every person. Note that the mechanisms of understanding are as unknown to psychologists as the essence of intuition. One might try to oppose intuition to understanding by tying it to such parameters as instantaneousness, spontaneity, independence from volitional control. But these parameters apply to understanding as well. Only in the case of understanding can they be tracked more concretely, and then the identity of intuition and understanding becomes still more obvious. Sometimes people try to attach understanding to thinking — in particular, to logic. Naturally, thinking without understanding is hard to imagine. But it is just as hard to imagine without understanding the other generalized functions — emoting and sensing. Whereas intuition is understanding; it simply coincides with it. The difference lies only in the use of these terms. The term intuition is used, as it were, for special cases of understanding; but on closer analysis it still turns out to be that same understanding — merely motivated by a more complex situation, and this complexity has a purely quantitative meaning. Understanding occurs instantaneously, though this instant may be preceded by a stage of tuning, and its duration may prove as long as you like. But in a familiar domain understanding occurs instantaneously or with small delays.

Understanding is spontaneous — strictly speaking, people do not understand how it is accomplished. As for the will, it can be used to create favorable conditions that improve understanding.

Authors (quotation from Jung): The psychic functions sensation and intuition may be considered as peculiar poles of the axis of perception (if by perception one understands in the general sense the receiving of information about the surrounding world and about internal organic and psychic processes). At the base of their opposition lies the fundamental impossibility for attention to concentrate on the content of a concrete sensory perception and at the same time to listen to the “inner voice.” Both these functions are conductors and transformers of initial contents of various kinds. They do not produce evaluations and do not establish the specifics of relations between elements.

Editor: Possibly in Jung’s time the literary style of the cited reasoning was within the norm, but now it looks ornate: “…may be considered as peculiar poles of the axis of perception… if by perception one understands in the general sense… of initial contents of various kinds…“. As for “the fundamental impossibility for attention to concentrate on the content of a concrete sensory perception and at the same time to listen to the ‘inner voice’” — this opinion of Jung’s does not seem strictly grounded: in many cases both processes can run in parallel.

Authors: …the function of thinking is not identical to the process of thinking. That is, given a ruling function of feeling, the thought processes may quite well be trained up — as a result of mental work.

Editor: Here we are dealing with one of the authors’ key delusions, formulated rather paradoxically. To convince ourselves of the absurdity of this judgment, let us pose a simple question: by what means is the process of thinking accomplished? It is the process and result of the work of the function of thinking — that is, these two concepts are synonymous. But what is the nature of this delusion? An indication of it can be found in the second, explanatory sentence, from which it is evident that the authors connect thinking with the “ruling” — that is, in Jung’s terms, the leading — function. From this they apparently arrive at the thought that if the leading function is, for example, emoting, then thinking will be emotional and not “thinking-like.” In the subsequent text they on this basis introduce a distinction between scientific and artistic thinking. However, as I have said before, these modalities lie below the level of socionic generalization. The authors’ delusion can most simply be connected with the high complexity of socionic concepts, many of which at first glance seem elementary.

Authors: …feeling and thinking realize different paths of cognition. There exist two modes of cognition: the artistic and the scientific; there are two forms of “thinking-over”: the imagistic and the logical. Art and science, as two forms of cognition, mutually complement each other.

Editor: Aha! An identification is taking shape: imagistic “thinking-over” → art; logical “thinking-over” → thinking. Possibly the authors believe they are making a discovery, and what they write here looks not only plausible but beautiful. However, at the level of socionic generalization it is an error. Socionics deals with thinking and emoting as such. Positionally, the PPF in all types is not a thinking function but an intuitive one, which provides the bearer of the TIM with free handling of the material by means of which the specific person models his own reality, and which is represented by the corresponding IA.

Authors: For example, public speech may be regarded as a peculiar work of art, which acts simultaneously on the feelings and on the reason.

Editor: What does “peculiar” mean? Apparently the authors are, after all, not 100% sure that public speech is a work of art. And what about belles-lettres? For it is traditionally assigned to art.

Authors: The mastery of public speech consists in the skillful use of both forms of influence: the logical and the imagistic. If a speech acts only on logical perception, without touching the sensory spheres, it is incapable of producing a strong impression. Art is a kind of thinking in images — and this applies to oratory as well. Such thinking in images is a rational cognizing function, but it is more correct to call it by its real name — feeling.

Editor: So then: feeling = imagistic “thinking-over.” Apparently this is the authors’ definition of feeling. This is an example of yet another authorial muddle. Apparently they have never understood that socionics deals with psychic functions of a high level of generalization, and they continue to wander in the darkness of home-grown psi-socionics. In its primitive form, feeling is the immediate reaction to a sensory message. In its developed form, as in the human being, it remains a reaction — but a developed, differentiated, refined reaction.

Authors: Feeling as a function of adaptation (not specifically to the human world — society — but to the world in general) is evidently more ancient. Knowledge expressed by feeling is always individual and ambiguously transmissible; the transmission of such knowledge is possible only in certain domains. Thinking as a function is connected with abstraction from the human being and the depersonalization of knowledge; the depersonalization of knowledge is connected with its transmissibility in generally accepted symbols and signs, with the unambiguous interpretation of such recorded knowledge.

Editor: The authors wander “like a squirrel through the tree” in search of a solution to the problem of opposing feeling to thinking. Whereas the difference between them comes down to this: emoting evaluates information, while thinking brings it to algorithmic form and realizes its potentials in the form of technology.

Definition of Aspectual Semantics (Table Fil.01)

	Extraverted functions	Introverted functions
Sensing	Perception of external pressure from the environment; withstanding pressure	Perception of the parameters of a resource — its consumer qualities, usefulness, aesthetics
Intuition	Penetration into the essence of an object; understanding of regularity	Tracking of internal meanings, i.e., those formed inside the psyche
Thinking	Direct manufacture or procurement of a resource	Processing of information by means of logical operators (fixing, naming, comparison, generalization, etc.) with the aim of forming an algorithm
Emoting	An externally observable process of change of bodily state with the appearance of energetic phenomena, accompanied by characteristic facial expression and body movement	Internal fixing of an attitude toward a phenomenon, object, or partner, with readiness on a suitable occasion to bring it outside in the form of an extraverted emotion

Authors: With what, then, do the types with a predominant function of feeling think? Undoubtedly, in the process of becoming aware of something they perform the same thing as the “thinkers” — that is, they are conscious of the content of their experience, measure it by their own satisfaction (the criterion of feelings), and work out skills of adaptation. But these skills forever remain subjective, since the evaluation of feeling is strictly individual and firmly tied to a person’s personal experience. The feeling types, however much they try to spread and generalize their experience to other people, always speak only of their own experiences.

Editor: This is what always happens when exhaustive definitions were not made at the start. Of course, all types think with their brains. As for awareness-understanding, it is accomplished by intuition. Let us present the corresponding definitions in the form of a table (Table Fil.01, above).

Compare these definitions with those widely presented in the numerous books on socionics, and you will discover essential divergences. This is especially vivid with respect to thinking. The existing intellectual prejudice hinders the understanding of extraverted thinking as the direct obtaining of a product with the use of muscular effort and the necessary tools. However, the proposed definition also presupposes recognizing the material product, as the result of human activity, as the result of the work of a psychic function.

Some socionists, admittedly, may say that this is exactly what they had in mind, and that there is no semantic difference between their definitions and those given in the table. However, the matter here lies not only in the words but in their mutual arrangement. The same words, arranged differently, can yield very different meanings.

Relying on the proposed definitions, one may assert that all works of art — including, for example, a variety-stage song being performed — are a product realized by the function of extraverted thinking. Therefore both the emotionally saturated speech of an orator and a literary work, including one performed orally, are the result of the work of thinking — first introverted, and then extraverted.

Authors: Any topic — for example, the extraction of minerals in the depths of Everest — touches only the individual “buttons” of the feeling types. Very often this causes total mutual incomprehension. The feeling types are never interested in depersonalized truth; depersonalized knowledge is devoid of meaning for them, and a thinking type defending some point of view is perceived by a feeling type as a self-asserting, insulting interlocutor. The feeling type is for knowledge with a human face! But logical judgments, arising as depersonalized knowledge, make their demands on formulation — a definite language (for transmissibility), laws of the extraction of knowledge (methodology), rules of transmission. Scientific knowledge is depersonalized — and thereby objective!

Editor: Evidently the authors have never experienced the acute emotional inspiration that may accompany the perception of a mathematical formula or a geometric figure.

Authors: In any process of cognition — of the generation and fixing of logical knowledge — the author is merely a vessel for this knowledge. Therefore for the feeling type the use of logic (thinking as a function) — for example, a trip to the library for needed information, or learning a new technology — is forced labor (sometimes bringing pleasure, and sometimes fatigue and irritation). For that time they freeze themselves personally, as it were, and turn into a little calculating machine.

Editor: Written vividly and beautifully — that is how ethical types write! However, it corresponds to reality only in part. Let us first turn to the models of the emotional types and see how thinking works in them. In the rational ethical extraverts (Hugo, Hamlet), extraverted thinking stands in the position of the adaptive-load function (ALF). This means that when an extreme situation arises, they throw themselves into physical work with maximum dedication, which of course helps overcome difficulties. Recall, for example, the two remarkable Russian singers Klavdiya Shulzhenko and Ryazanova (both Hugos). They were physically strong and not only put themselves — to the point of exhaustion, with great physical dedication — into the performance of songs, but were also ready to do any work simply to survive, as indeed they had to do in the hard times of their lives. The rational introverted ethical types (Dostoevsky, Dreiser) in extreme situations rely substantially on their intellectual knowledge, and in school and university they study diligently and rarely fall out of the range of good grades. Therefore the authors’ vivid excerpt must be regarded as a half-truth — that is, as something of little reliability.

Authors: The thinking type is designed for work with objective cognition. His original sensory category of world- and self-evaluation is “buried” somewhere in the depths of the psyche; he has stepped over it and depersonalized himself in the sea of objective knowledge, turned into a thinking unit of the world of objective understanding. He has become an adept of the great idea of the cognition of truth and of objective adaptation, and as a sacrifice he has given up his individuality.

Editor: Here it is — the distorted but very beautiful understanding of socionics! The socionic type has no fixed social predestination. The bearers of all TIMs are not only capable of performing any work but have actually performed it in human history. And work should be offered to a person not by type but by real abilities. Goethe and Vavilov (both Hamlets) were great scientists. And, on the contrary, Lysenko (Gorky) preached scientific nonsense. Socionics speaks only of statistical predisposition, and it would be regrettable to use it as an instrument of a formal-bureaucratic verdict. And bureaucrats will use any opportunity to assert themselves at the expense of those below them on the social ladder. Therefore a scientist must be extremely cautious with categorical judgments. One must always remember that behind the types and aspects stand archetypes, which lend themselves only with difficulty to verbal description.

Authors: Feeling types find it easy with one another; they gather into clusters (hangouts) and hang out, without, it would seem, any objective aim or benefit. The “thinkers” unite into clubs of interests and pick over the bones of the battered Universe.

Editor: In this excerpt the beauty of the exposition is brought to the level of an aphorism, but behind it stand archetypally blurred meanings. Both feeling and thinking types find it both easy and extremely hard with one another. One might think the feeling types do not quarrel, fight, intrigue, or commit acts of meanness. Little ethical angels! What naivety, what simplification! And the thinking types can feel very good with one another, when in their insights they reach intellectual ecstasy and the whole Universe opens its secrets before them.

Authors: Glancing at each other with longing, a feeling type and a thinking type sometimes “lock together” into an organic unity, but quickly forget the impulsive side of their meeting and begin to “steam each other’s brains.” One implants world laws into the running of the “household,” and the second begins to grasp that he has brought a stranger into his “home,” to whom he must either adapt or throw out.

Editor: So much for duality, so much for activation! And of course it does happen as the author has described. But possibly the authors have still not understood that socionic relations are only types of relations, and their characters are as varied as the characters of the real bearers of the types.

                 intuition (spirit)
feeling (heart)                     thinking (reason)
                 sensation (body)

Fig. Fil.01. The cross of functions

Authors: Let us schematically represent the four psychic functions in the form of a cross, placing the irrational and rational axes perpendicular to each other. The dominance of one of the four functions means: 1) the predominance in the field of consciousness of the products of this function; 2) conscious control and management of the function’s activity; 3) in his life a person predominantly orients himself by this function and is guided by it.

Editor: The cross scheme fits easily into the socionic material. In the given case, the perpendicularity of the axes indicates the independence, irreducibility, and inexpressibility of each pair of poles through the other. As for the specification of dominance, it is not written very precisely. The first point, up to synonymic substitutions, coincides with the third. And in the second point it is not taken into account that fully conscious work of the functions does not occur. Still, I ask you to pay attention to Fig. Fil.01 — it sheds some light on the particularities of the authors’ thinking. Note what is written in the parentheses — this is what, evidently, in the authors’ opinion, the human being consists of: spirit, reason, body, and heart. Comments are superfluous.

Authors (quotation from Jung): Every person possesses both mechanisms.

Editor: By the two mechanisms Jung means the subject’s capacity to direct his attention separately to the external world and separately to internal mental-psychic processes. Here it must be especially underscored that if attention is concentrated, for example, on the work of the stomach or on the relaxation of the musculature, then although these organs are located inside the human body, they still belong to the external world. However, an abundance of opinions is possible here: where does the boundary between the internal and the external run? In the given context this is not an idle question, since the understanding of extraversion and introversion depends on the answer to it. So from what moment does introversion begin? If someone examines the surface of his skin and concentrates attention on its pattern — is that extraversion, whereas if his attention is concentrated on a sensation, say, of warmth or coolness, then it is introversion? It seems that is the author’s position.

Authors (quotation from Jung): The rhythmic alternation of both forms of psychic activity corresponds to the normal mode of existence. But our individual psychic predisposition favors one mechanism and places obstacles before the other. Therefore a preponderance of one of the mechanisms exists, and a type arises — that is, a habitual attitude in which one mechanism constantly rules.

Editor: The assertion about the rhythmic alternation of extraversion and introversion in a specific person does not correspond to the observed facts. There is no rhythmic alternation — there is an arbitrary change of the directedness of attention outward or inward. As for the predominance of one of the directednesses, here too precise definitions and experimental statistics are needed. Such work has still not been done by anyone. Therefore the authors’ optimism regarding the solvedness of the problem of extraversion and introversion has no sufficient grounds.

The same applies to the “preponderance of one of the mechanisms.” Though it is clear that a preponderance of something must exist, since extraversion and introversion are stably observed, it is very doubtful that the matter lies “in the rhythmic alternation of the directedness of attention.”

Authors (quotation from Jung): While conscious representations, desires, and actions are subordinated to the ruling attitude, the opposite one determines the compensatory activity of the unconscious. Speaking now of types, we have in mind the following: given a conscious extraverted attitude in an individual (the extraverted type), the attitude of the unconscious has an introverted character; a conscious introverted attitude specifies the introverted type (with the compensating unconscious attitude possessing extravertedness).

Editor: Here we are dealing with Jung’s theoretical notions of the interaction of the conscious and unconscious attitudes. These notions have never been tested in laboratory experiment, but they may be regarded as a hypothesis. Behind this reasoning of Jung’s one may discern a formula built according to the scheme: “C(ra)—U(oa)” — that is, “if the conscious is subordinated to the ruling attitude, then the unconscious is subordinated to the opposite attitude.” Such a formula makes a plausible impression, though it bears a merely speculative character, since it has never been proven either in Jungian analytical psychology or in Freudian psychoanalysis. The well-grounded notion available in socionics — that both in the zone of the conscious and in the zone of the unconscious there exist both extraverted and introverted functions — renders such formulas doubtful.

Furthermore, Jung speaks of the “compensatory activity of the unconscious.” But of what does such activity consist? To compensate means to make good a loss. In a broader sense, compensation may be understood as the counterbalancing of any deviation from the optimum. One of the forms of universal compensation is the oscillatory process, when a deviation from the neutral position in one direction is counterbalanced by a deviation of the same magnitude in the other. In physiology, one may assign to such processes, for example, the cycle “performance of work — compensation of the expended effort.” Psychic activity is connected with the large cyclic process of the alternation of waking and sleep. And if waking corresponds to a significant degree to the zone of consciousness, then sleep for the most part belongs to the subconscious and the unconscious. But can one consider sleep merely a compensation of activity during waking? Apparently not, since, according to the available notions, sleep is not reducible merely to the restoration of working capacity. Some part of it constitutes, for example, the ordering of the impressions received during waking, which may be regarded as a continuation — not a compensation — of daytime activity.

However, Jung further concretizes his formula in application to the typology, asserting that “given a conscious extraverted attitude in an individual (the extraverted type), the attitude of the unconscious has an introverted character” — and analogously for the introverted attitude. Yet proceeding from Model A, one may assert that in the unconscious and subconscious zone there are functions of both vertnesses. Discoveries made in dreams may serve as an example here. Thus, it is known that Mendeleev saw the table of the periodic law in a dream — yet this law belongs to the domain of extraverted essences, and consequently an extraverted function is at work here.

Authors (quotation from Jung): A conscious extraverted attitude by no means signifies that the individual always and everywhere acts according to the extraverted scheme. In various circumstances manifestations of an introverted character may be observed in an extravert.

Editor: Here it is immediately unclear what “a conscious extraverted attitude” means. Surely not that the extravert consciously adheres to the typological stereotype? A significantly more plausible hypothesis is that the typological stereotype is neither fully conscious nor fully unconscious. The same characterization must be applied to all the socionic functions, though the conscious–unconscious balance within each function must be established in special investigations — and it is quite plausible that it will differ across functions.

However, what is more important in the cited quotation is that Jung does not understand that a type is always realized typologically, and any type always behaves precisely as such, and, by force of typological determination, cannot behave as some other type. Extraversion–introversion is a sufficient criterion for typological opposition, and this means that an extravert always behaves as an extravert — and the very same can be said of the introvert.

One must also take into account here that Jung does not distinguish two different shades of meaning in the terms “extraverted and introverted attitude” — to say nothing of the fact that these words themselves contain a semantic error. First, a general-scientific meaning can be found in these words. Thus, extraverted behavior can be understood as behavior turned outward, without any connection to typology. For example, a person digs a vegetable garden or slices bread. If a person recalls a recent trip to the forest for mushrooms, then, independently of type, the recollection is an introverted activity. Second, extra-typological extraverted or introverted activity cannot be regarded as an attitude, since the latter presupposes a stable stereotype, which may be absent in a random one-time extraverted or introverted act. One could speak of an attitude only in the case of a stable stereotype — for example, manifested in the habit of digging the garden every year or reading books several hours a day. Jung used this term in application to typological determination, considering that the basic difference between people discovered by him was connected precisely with an attitude. Whereas the concept of “attitude” contains the seme of acquiredness — and the socionic type is innate. Of course, the concept of attitude can easily be redefined to include innate stereotypes in its scope, but that would already be a stretch.

One may also suppose that in the Russian translation “conscious extraverted attitude” there is a semantic distortion — this terminological group looks too odious. Possibly Jung had in mind that one or another extraverted function stands in the leading position. The translators, following Jung, may have considered that the leading function is wholly conscious; and since Jung regarded extraversion and introversion as attitudes of consciousness rather than innate typological stereotypes, this fully explains the appearance of such a strange term in the Russian translation.

Authors (quotation from Jung): In various circumstances manifestations of an introverted character may be observed in an extravert.

Editor: Of course this is a misunderstanding, since the extravert, by force of typological integrity, always behaves as an extravert, however his actions may look to an external observer. But if the authors, following Jung, adhere to other definitions, then those should have been presented explicitly.

Authors (quotation from Jung): In general, one should not imagine that the unconscious always “lies buried.” On the contrary, it constantly flows into conscious psychic processes, and at times it is difficult to decide which properties of character should be ascribed to the extraverted attitude and which to the introverted.

Editor: A rather mysterious assertion. Does this mean that the unconscious at least sometimes — and, all the more, “constantly,” as Jung says — “comes to the surface” and proves evident to its bearer? If, however, the point is the active role of the unconscious in the formation of elements of behavior, then this is a commonplace which requires no “solemn proclamation” and looks like a banality. As for extraversion and introversion, the correct answer here can be only one: the type is an integral entity, and none of its manifestations can contradict it. If someone confuses certain manifestations of one type with manifestations of another, that is a problem of defective diagnostics.

In this quotation one may also discover an experienced psychoanalyst’s understanding of the problem of the unconscious: it is not so unambiguous, and what someone may assign to the unconscious can, with varying degrees of evidence, fall into the region of consciousness. So the work of identifying the regions of the conscious and the unconscious — despite the seeming confidence of a portion of psychologists in the final solution of this problem — must be continued.

Authors (quotation from Jung): In such cases only an analysis of the deep convictions and motivations of consciousness can assist correct understanding. Usually the behavior and judgments of the conscious attitude are more differentiated and produce the impression of the norm, whereas the manifestations of the unconscious attitude are frequently inadequate, primitive and, in the extreme case, pathological.

Editor: This is a very high-quality piece of reasoning, containing a recipe for distinguishing the conscious and the unconscious, and it should become the subject of deep laboratory investigation of these zones of psychic reality.

Authors (quotation from Jung): For the extraverted type the acceptance of an already existing point of view is more natural. It is difficult for him to take a strictly personal, individual position. However, having taken it, it is no longer easy for him to renounce his own opinion.

Editor: It is unclear what the words “more natural” mean here — this must be proven, not proclaimed. “More natural” ought to mean “following from the semantics of the type” — but that is precisely what would need to be established. However, inertia of point of view is a widely distributed particularity of any types — of extraverts and introverts alike. Neither the ones nor the others have any advantage on this parameter.

Authors (quotation from Jung): The extravert is also distinguished by a tendency toward the active unconscious search for a suitable object and interaction with it.

Editor: The same can be said of introverts. Thus this particularity too, presumed by Jung for extraverts, proves irrelevant. But the authors evidently share this point of view of the great psychologist and transmit it to their students.

Authors (quotation from Jung): For the introvert it is much simpler and more convenient to have his own point of view (and even when the point of view coincides with the public one or has already been encountered somewhere, the introvert presents it in such a way that it seems he alone thinks so).

Editor: The free flight of the great psychologist’s thought contents itself with random approximations, which he quite possibly observed in some of his patients and then transferred to all bearers of their type. People familiar with socionics understand that “one’s own point of view” can be held by bearers of any types, and that this parameter lies beyond the bounds of the Jungian typology.

Authors (quotation from Jung): At the same time, it is a certain difficulty for the introvert to take generally accepted positions — for example, to become a promoter of some idea.

Editor: A very vague assertion — “a certain difficulty.” How is this to be measured? How can an extravert be compared with an introvert on this parameter? Do all extraverts really take “generally accepted positions” easily? The “diffuse” style of Jung’s thinking allows him to make ungrounded assertions whose truth he in no way guarantees. From the general-psychological point of view, what is at issue here is a variety of conformism, which of course lies beyond the bounds of the given typology.

Authors (quotation from Jung): A characteristic trait of the introvert is the “state of expectation.” He is not occupied with purposeful search, but waits for the extravert to discover him and enter into interaction with him — that is, the introvert acts in the role of the “point of application” of the extravert’s energy and efforts.

Editor: If the authors uncritically accept this reasoning of Jung’s, they apparently forget that typological expectation is provided by the 5th function, or the ERF (expectational-resource function), which exists in all types — so that all types have a typological (not characterological) trait which the authors have named the “state of expectation.” But each type presupposes the expectation of something different — determined by the IA in the ERF position. Both extraverts and introverts expect contact with other people, which is determined by the SUPERID of the type’s bearer and provides the social orientation of all people.

Authors (quotation from Jung): The introvert never exerts himself in vain. The work he performs must yield the maximum effect; otherwise there is no point in working at all. It is precisely for this reason that the introvert may develop a feeling of inner dissatisfaction due to overwork: it seems he has done too much, while the effectiveness of the work done was insufficient.

Editor: Do extraverts really always exert themselves “for nothing”? Those familiar with socionics will see here a certain hint at the difference between sensing and intuitive types — and this again returns us to Jung’s insufficient differentiation of typological parameters, which is fully explained by the difficulty of typological diagnostics and the initial state of Jung’s typological elaborations.

Authors (quotation from Jung): The relation of the introvert and the extravert to their own abilities is interesting. For the extravert his abilities are an objective given; they cannot be ignored and must be fully realized. The introvert regards his endowment more calmly. The decisive stimulus is his attitude toward it. No “objectivity” other than inner feeling will make the introvert budge and act.

Editor: Is Jung — and following him the authors — capable of grounding such assertions by relying on Model A? Here we are present at the sources of the emergence of typological myths. Ideas of this kind, spreading among trusting people, easily establish themselves in their consciousness as immutable truths, relying on which they undertake to evaluate people’s abilities — and are often quite pleased with their results.

Authors (quotation from Jung): The extraverted direction of attention presupposes that all the information perceived, for example, by the psychic function of sensation is assessed as properties of the object (objects) of the external world. In this the person assesses himself too as an object possessing definite attributes.

Editor: The basic errors in understanding the semantics of the IA express themselves in distorted interpretations of the work of the functions. Extraverted sensation, or extraverted sensing, has the semantics of withstanding the pressure of the environment; it is responsible for defense and aggression. In Jung this is not so — his level of typological generalization hardly departs from the level of the perception of the world by the concrete sense organs. Let us also note that here the term “extraverted direction of attention” has not a typological but a general-psychological meaning. This means that the attention of any person, independently of his type, may be directed outward — which, translated into Latin, may be called extraverted — or into his inner world, which makes the attention introverted. However, the person’s type does not change in this: the extravert in any case remains an extravert, and the introvert an introvert. The failure to distinguish the general-scientific and the typological meaning of the terms “extraverted” and “introverted” leads to all possible misunderstandings — when, for example, the assertion is made that an extravert can behave like an introvert and vice versa.

Authors (quotation from Jung): With the introverted direction of attention, all the properties perceived from the object or process with which the person interacts prove to be characteristics of the person’s internal physical (physiological) state.

Editor: Of course, this is a typical metaphysical misunderstanding. Such a thing can be asserted only within the frame of subjectivistically oriented philosophies. The materialist position proceeds from the fact that “the properties perceived from the object” are, of course, properties of the object, and not of “the person’s internal physical or physiological state.” The error Jung commits here is connected with his failure to distinguish the general-scientific and the typological meaning of the terms “extraverted” and “introverted.”

Authors (quotation from Jung): In this, the object itself is important only as an informational source.

Editor: What might that mean? How else can an object be important? What do Jung — and with him the authors — oppose to the understanding of the object as an informational source? Perhaps they have in mind “the object in itself”? But then they fail to distinguish two kinds of information: to information as thoughts about the object one may oppose information as direct manipulation of the object — for the object does not exist outside perception, and in manipulating it you are of course also dealing with information about it, and this is extraverted information, that is, information relating to external objects. Or must Jung’s sentence be understood to mean that the object in itself — that is, as a source of consumer properties, as a resource — is unimportant for the introvert? This is an example of metaphysical wanderings within the investigated theme, given a blurred understanding of the basic constructs.

Authors: If sensation is an absolutely physiological function, then intuition is by its nature a strictly psychic function.

Editor: Of course, Jung was not acquainted with Simonov’s hypothesis about the role of the hippocampus in singling out low-probability events. Such an understanding of the function of the hippocampus gives grounds for connecting its work with the obtaining of intuitive information. And in that case intuition is equated in physiologicality with sensing. However, only the substrate of the psychic functions is physiological here. In any case, such an opposition of intuition and sensing on the principle “physiological — psychic” of course yields nothing for their essential understanding.

Authors (quotation from Jung): The function of intuition in the conscious extraverted attitude assesses the images, symbols, and associations born in consciousness as properties of the object or process of the external world, thereby as it were apprehending the hidden (secret, not given in sensations) attributes of this object or process — namely its inner qualities, generalized characteristics, potentials, etc.

Editor: As we saw earlier, the turn of speech “in the conscious extraverted attitude” contains a basic delusion, reducing to the claim that typological extraversion is conscious, and also that Jung understands the typological parameter — in this case extraversion — as an attitude. A peculiar paradox may show itself here: although the bearer of a type may act consciously, the typological parameters that specify the frame behavior of the type’s bearer, while they may under certain conditions be made conscious, are as a rule not conscious. Furthermore, in calling the typological parameter an attitude, we introduce into its semantic spectrum a redundant and unjustified element connected with the particularity of such a parameter’s appearance in the psyche — either as introduced by someone from outside, for example as a result of programming, or as installed by the type’s bearer consciously, for example by way of self-suggestion. Whereas such a parameter, being innate, must be regarded as a stereotype — that is, an informational complex rooted one way or another in the psyche and realizing its programmatic potential automatically, or, what is the same, outside the control of consciousness. Of course, one can find grounds for identifying the concepts “attitude” and “stereotype,” but that already goes beyond the standard use of these terms. As for the understanding of intuition as the function providing the apprehension of hidden parameters — here the editor fully agrees with Jung, except that the latter, opposing sensations to intuition, calls the hidden attributes of the object secret, which, alas, introduces meanings redundant in the given case.

Authors (quotation from Jung): The mechanism is understandable: interacting at the current moment with this object, we unconsciously perceive (by means of the sense organs) information which is the “trigger” for our rich unconscious experience, in which an informational message is formed, in turn issued into consciousness in the form of symbols, associations, signs.

Editor: So that is how Jung — and following him the authors — understand the mechanism of intuition. They do not admit its objective independence, and try to explain it through sensations — in other words, they try to reduce the two poles to one. In the literature one can sometimes encounter an understanding of intuition as a very fast logical inference from some set of impressions stored in memory. The editor, however, holds the view that intuition, being an independent psychic function, cannot be reduced to logic and sensations, but constitutes the direct discernment of meaning — that is, understanding.

Authors: What do extraversion and introversion give us in application to the types? In the case of the sensing type, the perceptions a person receives are either “assigned” to an object of the external world and describe that object (extraversion), or describe the state of one’s own body from interaction with that same object (introversion).

Editor: This reasoning almost defies comprehension… The introductory question itself — “What do extraversion and introversion give us in application to the types?” — sounds like a variant of the jargon locutions widely current in socionics. Perhaps its literary variant might sound thus: “How do extraversion and introversion manifest themselves in the behavior of the bearers of the corresponding types?” It seems the authors consider that sensing extraverts correlate their impressions with the objects they perceive — that is, behave like all normal people. Whereas sensing introverts think in doing so that something is happening in their body. Alas, there is no difference here between extraverts and introverts in the norm. And this misunderstanding is connected with the fact that the authors, following Jung, do not distinguish the typological parameter — in this case extraversion or introversion — from the functions, extraverted or introverted, whose activity is oriented respectively either to the external or to the internal world. When the sensing type is at issue: in the case of extraverted sensing, it provides the withstanding of the pressure of the habitat; and in the case of introverted sensing, it works with the discrimination of units of resource and their consumer qualities. And both these sensing functions exist in the bearer of any type.

Authors: If we speak of thinking: when the evaluations and the management that exist in the logical chain are connected with laws, rules, norms objectively existing in the world, with certain known data — that is extraverted thinking. When they are connected exclusively with my personal, subjective judgment of logicality-illogicality — that is introverted thinking.

Editor: The judgment about extraverted thinking here is deeply erroneous, since the author speaks of it as a logical chain, whereas it constitutes a productive technological process of the direct obtaining of a resource. Introverted thinking, on the other hand, is the processing of information in the brain, as a result of which algorithms of possible behavior are formed.

Authors: The same with feeling. If the evaluations of perception are connected with certain things existing in the external world… here there is a subtlety. What is the difference between extraversion and introversion for the function of thinking? In our chain of experience in the field of consciousness there exist fragments and links between them.

Neophyte: That is, any fragment — a concept, a symbol, an image…

Authors: Yes. And the links between them. Well then, the psychic function of thinking under the extraverted attitude evaluates a fragment by the degree of its correspondence to external objective canons. To the law existing in the world.

Editor: I should like someone to explain to me how to understand this short dialogue between the authors and the neophyte. Evidently they understand each other well. But will the uninitiated understand their conversation? First the authors mention feeling. Then they speak of evaluations of perception… hint at some subtlety… and pass to the difference “between extraversion and introversion for the function of thinking.” Then follows a very incomprehensible sequence of words about “fragments and links between them.” Judging by the neophyte’s remark, fragments are concepts, symbols, images… The authors confirm this and once more mention “links.” And then, apparently, follows the final clarification, from which one may understand that by extraverted thinking the authors mean “the evaluation of a fragment by the degree of its correspondence to external objective canons.” This does not correspond to the editor’s understanding of the work of this function — see above.

Authors (on the formula of the type and the number 16): …one of the functions dominates in us; a second function (from the other axis) “settles in alongside”; and on all this extraversion/introversion is superimposed. In total we get 16 types. The only question that may be unclear here is why the second function is always of a different vertness than the first.

Editor: This is an example of populist vocabulary — a second function “settles in alongside” (from the other axis) “and on all this extraversion/introversion is superimposed.” Such is the level of explanation of how the model of the type arises and why there are 16. Such an explanation may be assigned to the category of the primitive-syntactic. Here the category “syntactic” means “relating to the mutual arrangement of signs.” This side of sign systems is important in itself and is specially developed by specialists in semiotics. However, in the primitive variant of explanation this side of the interaction of signs degenerates into formal rules about where what is located, without any indication of cause-and-effect connections. In the following passage the authors try to explain to the neophyte why extraverted and introverted aspects alternate in the model.

Authors: …this is the law we touched on at the very beginning. If the dominant function is extraverted, then — simply because a cycle must be accomplished, that is, a person must necessarily receive consciously an internal subjective evaluation — his secondary (auxiliary) function will have an introverted coloring. This is the law of compensation. In the end the scheme is this: if sensation dominates in a person and is extraverted, then the auxiliary function may be thinking or feeling, and necessarily introverted. And if, say, thinking dominates and is introverted, then the secondary function may be either sensation or intuition, and necessarily extraverted in directedness — so that there is a closed cycle.

Editor: Here the authors offer, as a cause-and-effect explanation of the different vertness of the functions in the block, their invention “of the necessity of accomplishing a cycle.” By a cycle they mean the alternation of the directedness of attention outward–inward. Apparently the authors consider that attention rhythmically changes directedness — otherwise where would the cycle come from? In both extraverts and introverts the cyclicity itself is identical, but in extraverts, in the authors’ opinion, only the outward directedness of attention is made conscious, and in introverts only the inward. This is a pretty explanation — however, its truth is improbable. In psychology there are no data on the existence of such cycles. It is known that the directedness of attention may be voluntary, involuntary, and post-voluntary. In the voluntary regime the subject himself directs attention. In the involuntary, the directedness of attention is determined by the object. In the post-voluntary, attention is forcibly held by an impression. Clearly the voluntary regime cannot be chosen for the role of a cyclic process, by reason of the conscious relation to it. The involuntary depends on the object, and since the appearance of the object is not controlled by the subject, this regime too is not cyclic. The same can be said of the post-voluntary regime. One might decline to consider the cycle strictly periodic — simply a loose alternation of the directedness of attention: sometimes outward, sometimes inward. Now a person is concentrated on external objects, now on internal ones. But it remains incomprehensible why in some people only one variant of the directedness of attention is made conscious, and in others the other. When this is spoken of “in general,” it may even look plausible. However, the absurdity of such an identification becomes obvious if one considers concrete extraverted and introverted actions. For example, a tourist’s pitching of a tent is an extraverted process. And regardless of who does it — extravert or introvert — it cannot be done in an unconscious state. Just as one cannot try to remember something — an introverted process — without consciously directing attention to the recollection.

The obligatory adjacency of functions of different vertness the authors explain by compensation: since there was a directedness of attention outward, then for “compensation” the neighboring function directs attention inward. Something like a psychic pendulum. And since such pendulums are known in the psyche, this explanation may look quite plausible. But why should such a pendulum not work within the limits of one function? Having worked in the extraverted regime, work then in the introverted one?

The authors’ delusion is connected with their not having fully sorted out the semantics of the functions. Instead of using the concept of positional semantics, which determines the content of the functions’ work, and aspectual semantics, which determines the material with which a function works, the authors introduced the notion of the psychological role which the psychic function plays. But a role does not explain why the vertness must change. This question was examined above.

Let us recall how the generalized process of information processing in the psyche unfolds. First of all, what is essential here is that the environment’s influence on the psyche has a dual character: load-bearing and resource-bearing. The load side of the environment’s influence is perceived by extraverted sensing and manifests itself in volitional withstanding of external pressure. This pressure is evaluated by the function of introverted attitude as undesirable: unpleasant, don’t want. Here we see that a quite understandable and causally conditioned change of the subject’s functional activity takes place. Next, extraverted intuition switches on as the function capable of providing an understanding of the situation of external (extraverted) pressure and, on this basis, of building an adequate model of the external environment. This model implicitly contains programs of possible behavior as well, but their formation and refinement into algorithms of behavior is accomplished by the thinking function, which in the model may be positionally semanticized as the communicative-probing function (CPF), whose contact with the environment is directed at confirming the adequacy or inadequacy of this stage of adaptation to the environment.

The resource potential of the environment is evaluated by introverted sensing. At this level it acts as the capacity to discriminate the consumer properties of the resource. The evaluation of the result of its work is performed by extraverted emotionality — and above all this is the positive emotion as confirmation of the resource’s correspondence to the need: pleasant, like it, want it. Of course, if the resource proves defective, the emotional reaction will be negative; but the initial meaning of a resource is connected with the satisfaction of a need — that is, with its positive realization, which stands in correspondence with the positive emotional reaction. After this, introverted intuition switches on, connected with the awareness of the subject’s inner world, which provides the inclusion of the resource into the internal system of subjectivity. Introverted intuition is, among other things, connected with the perception of time, and provides the allotting of time for the consumption of the resource and its technological obtaining — for which extraverted thinking, or technology, is responsible. Clearly, even the plucking of fruit from a tree must, at the level of socionic generalization, be regarded as technology, as activity. This part of information processing is provided by the realization-technological function — extraverted and rational. Here the editor cannot give a more extended explanation, and therefore refers the interested to [2]. The proposed variant of a natural-scientific explanation of the change of functional vertness and -nality, relying on a small number of primary assumptions-axioms, reflects the evolutionary processes of the adaptation of the living to the environment.

Authors (to the Neophyte): To make this difficult material more comprehensible, read once more about feeling, decomposed into its extraverted and introverted components.

Editor: After the analysis performed, it is clear that making this material more comprehensible is impossible — by reason of the authors’ basic delusions. Moreover, the authors refer the neophyte to texts of Jung that distort the realities of IM, which is hardly likely to help the neophyte sort out socionic theory.

Jung: Our further investigations will become significantly clearer and more precise if we divide the complex wholeness of feelings into two interconnected categories: feelings proper, and emotions. The terms “feelings” and “emotions” are to this day used with great indefiniteness and confusion, which corresponds to the indefiniteness and diversity of opinions about the foundations, the conditions of arising, and the functions of these processes.

Editor: Above, the editor offered his clarifications of these categories. Let us see what Jung proposes.

Jung: However, a legitimate question arises. If emotion is the reflection of bodily changes (organismic reactions), then why is it perceived as an emotion and not as an organic sensation? Why, having taken fright, am I conscious of the presence of fear in myself, and not simply of certain organic changes — trembling, palpitations, etc.? The answer, however, does not seem difficult. An emotion is nothing other than the integral, total form of numerous organic changes, each of which it is in principle impossible for a person (without due special training) to make conscious.

Editor: Jung easily answers the question he himself posed — but within the frame of socionics this answer is incorrect. It lies in the subject area of psychophysiology and is connected with a different paradigm and a different apparatus of explanation. Emotion is, first of all, a psychic reaction to a sensorily perceived situation. It acquires psychological filling in the context of social relations. Jung, however, leans essentially on the physiological correlates of emotionality, in fact reducing the psychic to the physiological.

Authors: Feeling as a function is this: being born, a person carries within himself a set of physiological reflexes directed at the satisfaction of primary needs.

Editor: Of course, the authors’ statement cannot be called a definition of feeling, either in form or in meaning. Feeling is a psychic function expressing the living being’s immediate reaction to a situation. Physiological reflexes belong to the concept of instincts.

Authors: A person’s consciousness acts as an instrument that can exert influence on needs. That is, a person may become aware of some part of his needs and thereby influence them.

Editor: Evidently the authors confuse consciousness and awareness; and though in the given context this is almost imperceptible, in psychological work one must handle these concepts precisely.

Authors: In the preceding material we spoke of why there are sixteen types. But to understand and describe each of the psychological types in its entirety, we need to sort out how all the psychic functions may be ranked, what roles they may play in the psyche, and how they are interconnected. That is, the question arises of the model of the type. The model of the type describes the roles into which we substitute concrete psychic functions and obtain a concrete type.

Editor: Here we are dealing with the authors’ understanding of the model of the type. The editor does not agree with the definition of the model as a description of the roles which the psychic functions may play in the psyche. The socionic Model A imitates, in structural-symbolic form, the arrangement, the principal scheme, of the psyche. But the authors understand the model of the type in their own way, possibly without realizing that they thereby set themselves against the general-scientific use of this concept. In this, Model A acquires with them the appearance of a grounding adapted to the level of the authors’ inventiveness. The main thing that remains incomprehensible in such a model is why the authors assign precisely these roles to the functions. Let us note also that by ranking the authors evidently mean the establishment of the semantics of the functions, which may be assessed as an inadequate use of linguistic means.

Authors: Perhaps the most important word for the function of extraverted thinking is usefulness.

Editor: Usefulness is a category connected with the evaluation of a resource, and is determined by the functioning of introverted sensing. This is a concrete divergence in the understanding of the authors and the editor. As for extraverted thinking, it constitutes the direct obtaining of a resource in a concrete technological process.

Authors: One must understand that the function of feeling, being a rational function, is in the feeling types a kind of certain form of their intellect.

Editor: This is beautiful and makes an impression. But one must not confuse function and aspect. The IAs do not change the meaning of a function’s work but only color that work, indicating the informational domain of its application. Of course, when the authors speak of “a kind of certain form of intellect,” it is clear that a precise definition is lacking here, and the reasoning takes on an approximate character. The positional semantics of the functions — that is, what the author connects with the “psychological roles of the functions” — can and must be derived from a small number of axiomatic assumptions. The authors have nothing of the kind.

Authors: We spoke of the fact that sensation and intuition are functions that supply a person with information.

Editor: The authors either constantly forget, or simply ignore, that besides the functions there exist the IAs corresponding to them. The functions “that supply a person with information” occupy in Model A the third and fifth places (ALF and ERF) — their semantics corresponds to extraverted and introverted sensing. Both intuitions, on the other hand, provide the understanding of this information — and that is not quite the same as “supplying” information. The authors have evidently never understood that the technological chain of information processing in the psyche, at a high level of generalization, consists of four links: reception (sensing) — evaluation (emoting) — understanding (intuition) — realization (thinking). Obviously, the authors’ imprecise understanding of the scheme of IM leads to systematic errors in their attempts to explain socionic concepts to neophytes.

Authors: Thinking and feeling are the functions that evaluate and weigh this information, and such evaluation may in principle be twofold.

Editor: The authors have fallen into the trap of the concepts they adopted. They named these two functions the evaluating ones — but the authors do not understand that they stand in different places on the informational conveyor, and between them there is a fundamental difference. Emoting is responsible for evaluation, and thinking for the productive realization of the received information. There follow in the authors extensive discussions in which a large number of systematic errors are present, owing their appearance to the initial imprecision in the authors’ understanding of the socionic functions. They can be omitted without detriment to the further understanding of the authors’ position.

Authors: It is accepted that science speaks the language of the function of thinking, and art speaks the language of the function of feeling.

Editor: The authors transfer this sentence into socionics from some other subject area where it is accepted. In any case, in socionics such a thing is not accepted. Socionics is capable of assessing this more precisely. Thinking is present both in science and in art, as well as in all other spheres of human activity. Exactly as emoting is. Scientific thinking is realized in scientific categories, and in art one relies on aesthetic categories. But here one must also take into account that these spheres of thinking, and all others, are not reducible to one single aspect. Scientific thinking is realized with an accent on thinking and intuition (the scientist types), and art with an accent on emoting and intuition (the humanitarian types). But their similarity and difference are not exhausted by this either.

Authors: …The most refined logic arises precisely in the feeling types. Just as the most refined feelings arise in the logical types. This is a paradox connected with the internal ranking of these functions.

Editor: There is no paradox here, but a misunderstanding connected with the absence of precise definitions. The paradox arises for the authors precisely in connection with what they call “internal ranking” — but so far they have given no corresponding definition. Let us also note that the ambiguity of the socionic term “logic” introduces in this case an especially strong distortion into the authors’ reasoning. Of course, the subject here should be thinking, and not its particular instrument, logic — for the combinations of words “refined logic” and “refined thinking” are by no means equivalent. In the first case a complicated argumentation is presupposed, not immediately and not universally comprehensible; in the second, the subject is the working-out of a subtle theme with unexpected, non-standard solutions. Thinking is one of the fundamental psychic functions, and logic is one of its instruments — alongside, for example, generalization, the discovery of invariants, comparison, classification, and others.

Authors: If we accept that any rational evaluating function — whether feeling or thinking — is in some sense thinking (understanding by thinking the possibility of evaluating and drawing conclusions), then we must recognize that we have two forms of thinking: formal-logical thinking and sensory thinking. And they are equal in rights.

Editor: The authors are captive to the fuzzy concepts they use. Not only do they fail to distinguish thinking from logic; they mix the more definite concept of emoting with the strongly blurred concept of feeling, which unites emoting, moods, and sensory impressions. Trying in the course of the reasoning to refine the concept of thinking, they use the strongly blurred turn of speech “whether feeling or thinking, is in some sense thinking,” and sharply narrow the range of thinking, reducing it to the possibility of “evaluating and drawing conclusions.” In doing so they entirely lose sight of the fact that in socionics thinking is represented in two forms — introverted and extraverted. The first form constitutes the processing of information inside the psyche, in the brain, which ends with the construction of an algorithm — that is, a description of a productive action; the second is the direct performance of the action in the habitat with the obtaining of a concrete product, which is always a resource necessary for the satisfaction of a need. With such an understanding of the terms, a work of art is a product obtained with the use of a definite technology — which is a synonym of extraverted thinking. The mixing of different levels of generalization leads the authors to misunderstandings that look like paradoxes.

Authors: Speaking of the type, we have in mind not only the dominant and auxiliary functions. If a person has dominant extraverted sensation and auxiliary introverted thinking, the question is — what do all the remaining functions do? What do his intuition and feeling do as a whole, and also their components — the extraverted and the introverted? That is, where is all this located in the psyche; what roles are allotted to them?

Editor: The underlined fragment reflects the moment when the authors substitute role semantics for the positional semantics they dimly grasp: “where this is located” they identify with “what roles are allotted to them.”

Authors: In the psychic mechanism all four psychic functions exist in both variants — extraverted and introverted.

Editor: At last the authors have resolved to reveal to the neophyte the “terrible” secret…

Authors: The type is specified by the two ruling functions; but in describing the type we must describe not only what the ruling ones do, but also what happens with all the remaining parts of the psyche.

Editor: The type is specified by the entire structure of the functions in the model, and the first two functions are used for its terminological designation. Knowing the first two functions, one can restore the entire model. But the same can be done by taking any block of the model. This is somewhat analogous to a hologram, each part of which contains within itself information about the whole. The cited reasoning bears the marks of over-simplification, a lowering of the level of theoretical rigor.

Authors: The description of the work of all the functions is the complete description of the type. If we superimpose the work of all eight functions on the territory of consciousness, we shall see that each psychic type has its own system of movements across this territory. It is individual, but there are certain general schemes in it. It is these schemes that may, in essence, be regarded as the psychic types.

Editor: Well now… It turns out the authors have their own model of the type — certain “general schemes on the territory of consciousness.” It turns out Model A does not entirely satisfy the authors — evidently as too complex for the neophyte. However, many theorizing socionists have in one way or another altered Model A in their constructions, so that one may say that at present socionics has several A-like models: Model B (Bukalov), G (Gulenko), V (Vaisband), E (Ermak), K (Kalinauskas), Km (Kalman), Al (Alekseev), Ch (Churyumov), Sh (Shteinikov), and others.

I have shown the main particularities of the authors’ understanding of Model A; and if anyone wishes to sort this out more deeply, he may turn to the primary source.

Authors: The same happened with the attribute rationality/irrationality. According to Jung, with the dominance of, say, the function of thinking, the type is rational by definition. But with Keirsey, from the standpoint of the attributes, it comes out thus: we determine the type by thinking/feeling — for example, he is a feeling type — and right alongside it is said that he is, say, irrational. From the standpoint of the intersection of attributes this is a possible approach. Where, in my view, is the omission and the extreme simplification? Besides the fact that the meaning of the type as a mechanism of adjustment, adaptation, and self-realization of the person is lost, in speaking of each of these sixteen types we can obtain only a certain psychological portrait based on these four qualities. We obtain not the mechanism of what happens inside the human psyche, not a description of how these internal processes are launched and how they work, but only a certain external description by four parameters.

Editor: This excerpt, unlike many others, is written exceptionally chaotically — though, knowing in advance what is at issue, one can understand what the authors are driving at. They advocate that a typology should deal with “the mechanism of what happens inside the human psyche, with a description of how these internal processes are launched, how they work,” whereas the Americans offer only “a certain external description by four parameters.” Here I agree with the authors, and I consider that Model A satisfies the ideal the authors have sketched. But what the authors themselves propose is a psychological surrogate of socionics. Of course, the authors cannot be blamed for anything here — they simply understood it that way.

Authors: The socionic model demonstrated a different approach, a different development. It gave the most important thing — a toolkit for describing intra-psychic processes, models of the psychological type. This is a colossal difference, because there are practically no typologies where the type, besides a certain behavioral portrait, would also have a description of the mechanism of internal psychological processes. In socionics, however, there is a model of the type, which is the basis, and knowing which we can understand and describe this or that psychological type.

Editor: This excerpt, from the editorial point of view, is written both clumsily and chaotically. The authors clearly want to say something good about socionics, but do it somehow altogether artlessly… “demonstrated… a different development” — not quite literary; the authors do not take into account the compatibility of words. The authors wrote “intra psychic” [as two words] — most likely this is an error; if they mean what happens inside the psyche, i.e., “intrapsychic,” then it is written as one word — though spell-checkers have not entered this word and count it an error — rather than “inside psychic processes.” But since the authors’ thinking differs strongly from mine, I am not 100% sure here. Of course, this is a trifle. I am after something else — the distinction between the psychic and the psychological, since in this place these two terms come into too close contact. “A description of the mechanism of internal psychological processes” is not right, since what is inside the psyche is psychic, while the description of a type’s behavior is psychological. In general, this praise looks childishly naive — it does not sit well with a scientific context.

Authors: But what interests us is the search for the model most closely approximating the phenomenon of the psychological type. On the one hand, we rely on common sense, on the logic of constructions. In particular, socionic psychology as such relied on Jung. The ideology and content of socionics were built up relying on Jung and on existing psychological knowledge and conceptions.

Editor: This is the authors about themselves. O sancta simplicitas! O holy simplicity! How well the authors think of themselves. Here is common sense, and the logic of constructions (there is such a thing, it turns out), and direct reliance on Jung, and — most importantly — reliance on existing psychological knowledge-conceptions. And here is the result: the ideology and content of psi-socionics in all its splendor. The only thing that let the authors down was their frankly weak preparation in methodology. It is like taking wood of precious species and trying, with a blunt axe, to make Vietnamese beads out of it. The result may prove unpredictable.

But what is it, then, that does not satisfy the authors in Model A?

Neophyte: If I have understood correctly, from all that has been said it follows that a person who wants to master socionics as a method cannot and probably should not use the literature written by representatives of the various schools?

Authors: This literature undoubtedly fulfills its popularizing task. That is, anyone interested in questions of the psychological arrangement of the human being may read such literature with great benefit to himself — if he is going to occupy himself only with his own development, his transformation and self-investigation.

Editor: True, for the “ordinary person,” in the absence of fish even a crayfish is a fish — but it would still be better if he read Aušra instead of the “gruel for the poor folk” that used to be cooked in certain almshouses in the old days and differed little from swill. Alas, transformation may lead to deformity, and self-investigation may prove ineffective.

Authors: If, however, he wants to master this method and apply it to render help to other people, then the question arises how reliable, interconnected, and reflective of the observed phenomena the material he has taken will be. Because, as we said, socionic psychology is a rather powerful instrument of influence, of suggestion. Therefore harm may also be done here.

Editor: In the underlined reasoning the authors reach the level of methodology and touch on three methodological parameters: reliability, interconnectedness, the capacity to reflect observed phenomena. Reliability has a direct relation to the problem of truth. On this score every philosophical school has its own notion, and for now we will not discuss the problem of truth. In the practical sense, reliability is provided by proof, which consists of arguments and testimonies. Arguments, in their turn, rely on facts and logical coherence. On the other hand, material may be interconnected but not true, as is the case in fairy tales, myths, or in mystifications and false testimony. And, conversely, a text may be incoherent, clumsy, ragged — yet carry an important message. Thus interconnectedness does not guarantee reliability. As for the capacity to reflect observed phenomena, this condition is necessary but not sufficient, because one and the same phenomenology may be explained in many ways. As a result, the ascertainment of theoretical truth proves to be by no means a simple process. This is one of the causes of the appearance of a significant number of different readings of the socionic texts of Aušra Augustinavičiūtė by the various socionic schools. The authors’ text analyzed by the editor also belongs to this category. And the editor is trying to establish how reliable and coherent this text is, and how well it reflects the observed phenomena. After the work performed, I can say with great confidence that the coherence of this text is far from 100%. As for reliability — much work remains to be done on that.

Authors: Speaking of these roles (the psychological functions), we shall describe their properties independently of which particular psychic functions occupy these roles in the concrete type. That is, we shall describe not the concrete type but the model of the type.

Editor: Clumsily written, but the authors’ intention is understandable — and yet it is realized imprecisely. And this is because the authors evidently did not understand the most important thing in Jung’s discovery — the principle of the positioning of functions in the psyche. The point is that Jung himself did not fully understand his discovery and never fully reflected on it. Official psychologists did not understand it and to this day do not. In his rich clinical practice Jung noticed, detected, discovered that each of the generalized psychic functions — sensing, intuition, thinking, or emoting — may in different people occupy different places: namely, leading, auxiliary, or subordinate. These concepts express the empirical positional semantics of the psychic functions. This was the result of empirical observation. The remarkable discovery of Aušra Augustinavičiūtė was that she went further and presented the positioning of the functions explicitly as a technological chain in which each function occupies a strictly defined place. This discovery was embodied in the “AJ” model. This was no longer an empirical but an intuitive-constructive stage in the understanding of positioning. The place in the technological chain of IM may also be understood as what the function does. But since a function performs its work not in general — that is, without any connection with the others — but within the technological chain, one may speak of the semantics of positioning. Such positioning is called in psychology quasi-spatial, since the subject is not physical but semantic spaces. However, by force of the semantic parallelism of language and reality, such positioning is filled with meaning, since it is connected with sequence. Alongside the positional, each function has an aspectual semantics, which answers the question “with what does the function work; what does it process?” The authors expressed this thought very approximately and, certainly, very foggily, by opposing psychic and psychological functions — with psychic functions able, in the authors’ thought, to act in the role of the psychological ones. Do the authors really not sense the semantic and functional pile-up here?

Let us sort out the difference between these terms. The psychological is what is connected with the manifestations of the personality, with its behavior in society. And the psychic is what is connected with the individual, what is built into physiology. The eye is a physiological organ, and vision is a psychic function. Reading, in which vision is essentially used, but which is connected with a conscious relation to the content of a text tied to social life, constitutes a psychological function. Psychic functions provide the psychological phenomenology, but it is not reducible to them. Thus the psychic acts as an intermediary between physiology and psychology. But one must always remember the dialectical rule: the higher cannot be reduced to the lower. In our case this means: the psychological is not reducible to the psychic; the psychic is not reducible to the physiological. So one must work with these terms carefully. Hence the authors’ expression “…there are eight psychological functions, that is, these are the roles in the psyche which the psychic functions may occupy” is perceived very foggily. There is no such usage of these terms in psychology, and it might even have become a discovery of the authors — “psychic functions in the role of psychological ones” — but for that one must know psychology considerably more deeply than the authors demonstrate. To say of psychic functions that they play roles, instead of saying that they perform certain work and issue a certain product — is that not too “theatrical” and romantic? The functions themselves, as superstructured over physiological organs, are psychic; but, relying on them, the personality unfolds its psychological phenomenology. The distinction of the concepts of positional and aspectual semantics at once puts everything in its place and does not require the introduction of the not very comprehensible terminology connected with the psychological roles of the functions.

Note also the phrase “That is, we shall describe not the concrete type but the model of the type.” What is wrong here? Here the authors permit themselves carelessness in the shaping of the thought. Speaking of the “concrete type,” the authors of course mean its model; and behind “the model of the type” here hides the description of the structure of Model A.

Authors: We are now speaking of the psychic functions — that is, the functions of sensation, intuition, feeling, and thinking in their extra- and intro-versions. In this, when their informational component is emphasized — that is, the information which the functions consume and issue — they are called aspects of informational metabolism (exchange), or simply aspects.

Editor: With the authors it turns out that the very same objects — the psychic functions — are both themselves and, “when their informational component is emphasized,” aspects of informational metabolism. But they also become psychological functions when they perform social roles. This is an example of muddle. First: Aušra spoke of informational aspects (IA), not of aspects of informational metabolism. These are different concepts. The concept of IA simultaneously points to the highly generalized parameters of real objects, to the signal codes of these parameters in various media, and to the classes of these objects used by the subject to create his own model of the external environment. Informational metabolism, on the other hand, is the processing of information in the subject’s psychic structures. Metabolism as a process may have its own parameters and aspects — such as speed, density, efficiency coefficient, etc. — but that is an entirely different class of concepts. IM is directly connected with aspectual information, which within the IA correlates with concrete phenomena and objects. It is with these that the socionic functions deal — not with the IAs themselves. Thus, for example, when one speaks of eating a plate of soup, no one, of course, is going to eat the plate itself. The term “IA” is homonymous and points simultaneously both to the signal representation of the generalized parameters of objective entities and to their informational representation in the subject’s psychic structures as classifying categories.

The IAs are objective entities that are realized in the world in the form of concrete phenomena and objects, and do not depend on human consciousness. In this, IA and SF [socionic function] are different entities, whose non-distinction and mixing in the socionic context is inadmissible.

The difference between the editor’s theory and the authors’ consists in this: with the editor, the psychic function remains itself but has two parameters: the positional (it determines what the function does, occupying a concrete place in the structure of the psyche) and the aspectual (what information the function processes). With the authors, the psychic function has no positional semantics but performs “psychological” roles — which, apparently, it could do while located in any place of the structure. This is a rather strange use of the concept of role. Though a role is a variety of functioning, and hence a role in the structure of the model is a synonym of function. If one now performs a synonymic substitution in the authors’ definitions, it turns out that a psychic function performs the function of a psychological function. And here the question arises: what sort of construction is this? Why should the psychic functions not do their own work, and the psychological ones theirs? However, one may try to seek arguments in favor of a double, multi-level assignment of the functions. Thus the leg, being an anatomical organ, performs the function of standing and locomotion. These are functions belonging to the category of extraverted thinking — that is, they are elements of a potential technological process. However, a psychological function the legs by themselves cannot perform — it is performed, as an element of the social structure, by the personality. Analogously, a psychic function cannot perform a psychological role, by definition, since that is the prerogative of the personality.

So which functions are in the socionic model — psychic or psychological? To somehow motivate the psychological character of such roles, the authors choose names for them that partly imitate people’s psychological behavior: dominant, auxiliary, ignoring, blind spot, creative, suggestive, LPS, mobilizational. However, if a person dominates in some situation, that belongs to the psychological level. Whereas the dominance of a function in the psychic structure belongs to psychic phenomenology. The same applies to such hypothetical properties of the SF as the capacity to help other functions, to ignore something, to fail to notice something, to be an instrument of creativity, or to let through suggestive signals. We see that anthropomorphic terminology can suggest a psychological understanding of the work of the psychic functions.

Authors: Let us begin with the psychic function of sensation.

Neophyte: Is that random, or is there some sequence?

Authors: No — one may consider the sequence of the aspects in an entirely arbitrary order. I hold to that order of the psychic functions which seems to me to reflect best the structure and development of the psyche.

Editor: Since the authors have not built a system of the aspects, they can speak of an absence of order in their set. “Seems” is a reflection of the authors’ failure to work through this subject matter.

Conclusion

THERE IS NO NEED TO REINVENT LOGIC AND PSYCHOLOGY — IT IS BETTER TO USE CORRECTLY WHAT ALREADY EXISTS.

THERE IS NO NEED TO COMPROMISE SOCIONICS WITH HOME-GROWN INVENTIONS IN A SPHERE WHERE THE SOCIONICS INSTRUCTOR IS NOT A PROFESSIONAL.

THE PRESENT TEXT IS A VIVID EXAMPLE OF THE AMATEUR DEVELOPMENT OF A PSYCHOLOGICAL THEME BY INTELLIGENT PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT PROFESSIONALS IN THE SUBJECT AREA OF PSYCHOLOGY. THE RESULT IS A MASS OF ORIGINAL THOUGHTS DISTORTING THE ESSENCE OF THE SUBJECT OF INVESTIGATION — WHAT IN PHILOSOPHY IS ASSIGNED TO THE CATEGORY OF METAPHYSICS. THE BOOK MAY BE OF INTEREST TO RESEARCHERS OF THE METHODOLOGICAL COMPLEXES OF NON-PROFESSIONAL SCIENTISTS.

THE BOOK IS NOT RECOMMENDED FOR NEOPHYTES.

In conclusion, let us cite one of the authors’ remarks in conversation with the Neophyte.

Authors (to the Neophyte): So you too have stepped onto the path of socionic speculations. Many beginning socionists break lances over this question.

Editor: This phrase of the authors, after the analysis performed, may be considered the epigraph to their book. And the authors’ methodological position is briefly expressed by a remark in another dialogue with the neophyte: “But I think we shall go by a third way.” The authors underscore their resolve in this matter with a reference to the famous phrase of Abraham Lincoln: “This path is not our path; our path is another path.”

Literature

1. Filimonov S., Malsky I., Psi-socionics: The Architecture of the Personality, “ChB,” Moscow, 2009.
2. Churyumov S. I., The Smile of the Cheshire Cat, Drohobych, 2007. — 560 pp.

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Translator’s notes: “Vertness” renders «вертность», the socionics umbrella term for the extraversion/introversion polarity of a function. Abbreviations: TIM — type of informational metabolism; IM — informational metabolism; IA — informational aspect; PPF — program-potential function; RTF — realization-technological function; ITF — imperative-temporal function; ALF — adaptive-load function; ERF — expectational-resource function; CPF — communicative-probing function; LPS — least point of resistance («МНС» in the original). Type names (Don Quixote, Dumas, Hugo, Hamlet, Zhukov, Yesenin, Huxley/Gexley, Gabin, Robespierre, Napoleon, Dostoevsky, Dreiser, Gorky) follow standard socionics pseudonym conventions. The idiom «в огороде бузина, в Киеве дядька» (“elderberry in the garden, an uncle in Kyiv”) marks a non sequitur; «мысью по древу» (“like a squirrel through the tree,” from the Lay of Igor’s Campaign) marks rambling digression.