judging from your descriptions, i would place myself as an INFP and furthermore typing someone else (i've been having troubles typing) as ISTP becomes easier. due the easy-going, no-personal-style, laid-back, making-others-happy thing which he has (and which i envy to be honest).
you seem to have reasoned through this quite a bit. can you describe your process of gathering type data? for example: is it more deductively deriving or inductively accumulating type of process? more analytical or more instinctive? how do you combine these aspects? in what order? etc. difficult questions but any answer would be appreciated
Deductive vs inductive:
Definitely more inductive than anything, and perhaps not well put together for validity. My reasoning is more analytical (In terms of breaking complex down to simple), but also with an aspect of instinct.
What I'd also like to mention, is that I think the personalities of Fi-dom and Ti-dom may be more fluid in INxP personalities, making it hard to differentiate between the two. So I tried to 'part-the-sea' (so to speak) in describing them, so we clearly have two big differences. It's important to take account that metaphorically, it may be similar to using our dominant hand. The less-dominant can still do many things comfortably, and in some case, trained to do so, but there is still a clear dominance in the other hand.
Part of my information was gathered from a neat response in this forum, of how 'feeling' has nothing to do with emotions, and 'thinking' has nothing to do with logic. The answers were full of good things to think about. I believe Jenny stated something about being 'attached' and 'detached', and I'd like to start from there.
So in assuming the terms are significant to thinking and feeling, I questioned what they were referring to. Attached or detached....to what? What is the thing that feelers are attached to, while thinkers detach from?
Instinctively, I came up with an answer of an individual's 'sentience'. Hard to describe, but I'll do my best. It seems like a consciousness's unexplained drives, ambitions and subjective desires, as well as it's aversions and atypical personal struggles. It's a very personal, sensitive, and reactive element of a persons temperament.
I'd say it would be false to say some people don't have 'sentience'. I think it can be well deduced that
everyone has it. But in jungian philosophy, it appears some are more 'attached' to it than others. Some engage with it on a much deeper level. And this is what would differentiate the feelers from the thinkers.
There is a structure I use that I can't seem to deny when applying it to cognitive functions and personality. This model can be found
here. It is a part of the study of socionics, I apologize for that. We'll just focus on the framework, and scrap some of it's terms. The whole thing on that site can be confusing to discern with all the extra information, so I condensed and simplified it:
So the way it's all measured out I guess is this:
- When conscious focus is put in one directional attention of a function (intro vs extro), the other direction of the function becomes unattended, unfocused, or unconscious to. For instance, when a person reflects in the self, in that moment, they become unaware of what happens outwardly in reality. And, at least for that particular function.
- Also, in regard to the attitude of the direction of a function, if value is put on one, it creates distrust of the other. In my descriptions, I may refer to this as the unconscious having 'accidental' intentions. Figuratively, if one puts conscious focus on favoring darkness, they may unintentionally as a result, disapprove of light. Or vice versa.
So, in the case of Ti vs Fi again, in INxP's.
Ti vs Te in INTP's:
With my chart above, it can be seen that they are somewhat at odds (Ti <> Te). The way I understand it, is that INTP's don't like just following what others say of how things work. They want to figure it out themselves. They put strong, focused, and valued attention on building their own subjective understanding of how things are, which may or may not match general consensus but that doesn't matter. They want the steps and intricacies well comprehended and grasped in their own terms. Which leads to the 'accidental' intentions of distrusting what is considered general knowledge(Te). Or however you want to define Te.
Ti and Fi in INTP's:
So back to 'sentience'. It seems that whatever 'Ti' does and is strong at is dependent on detaching from their own 'sentience' or Fi. This would make sense so that judgement and decision-making is not biased by personal whims, or desires. Still, desire and drive is there, it's just that there is usually a weak attachment and distrust of it. What I also find is that strong functions are much easier to control and manipulate than weak functions. Perhaps, an INTP's Fi is like this; hard to reign, change, and engage with, thus giving INTP's more reason to detach and resort back to Ti.
Fe in INTP's:
Apparently, the detachment and distrust of one's own sentience can cause many challenges and problems. And in the process of this distrust for one's own values, inadvertently and unintentional, the value of this is favored toward's other's. Because of it being a weak function, you won't see an INTP 'manipulate' or 'spread' sentience into others like a dominant Fe would do. Fe still being a weak function, it is still considered rigid and unmanageable. However, because of the distrust of their own engagement of sentience, they unconsciously look to others for that particular experience, and reflect upon others judgement in that regard.
*****
I've only dealt with the dominating and inferior functions, and those of only INTP. I don't feel like going further. My interpretations might be flawed, so I'll leave it up to you to judge this reasoning, and see if you can flip that interpretation for INFP, and explore other types.
I don't get along with it at all.