Realist or Idealist?
It's one of those artificial distinctions - like nurture vs. nature - that we create when we find it difficult to grasp the whole complexity of human life.
I like Stuart A. Burns' more descriptive terms - Inside-Out are the Idealists and Outside-In are the Realists. (Burns' website, Evolutionary Pragmatism, is a great resource that explains philosophical concepts in a way that makes them understandable.)
Burns comes down unequivocally on the side of Outside-In and lays out his argument so cogently one wonders how anyone could disagree.
When you realise that the list of those who might disagree includes the likes of Rene Descartes and Immanuel Kant, you realise that this is maybe not so straightforward.
But, then, on the other side, we have Aristotle - and who the hell can argue with Aristotle?
The question is nothing less than a matter of what we can know to be real.
Either one starts from the human and asks how we can encounter in any real way the world beyond our senses. Or, you start from out there in the world, and ask how do we understand our interaction with a world we can know only through our senses.
It is, essentially, the dichotomy that exists between Mulder and Scully. He is able to make huge intuitive leaps of faith because he relies heavily upon his personal subjective understanding of the world. She must pause and weigh the evidence, acknowledging the laws of an objective reality and what they allow or ridicule.
One of the beauties of Carl Jung's approach to understanding our consciousness is that it identifies different ways in which individuals interact with the world in such a way that all are included in all. Not for Jung a clear division between opposing views.
Inevitably, human beings make choices and so one function will be adopted to the detriment, but not the exclusion, of the others.
Adding nuance is our general disposition toward the world. There are two such dispositions - Introversion and Extraversion. So, whereas Extraverted Intuition might recognise meanings and interconnections, Introverted Intuition will foresee implications and effects.
Jung recommended not treating the typing of others as a parlour game as it is extremely difficult to do so accurately, largely because one's assumptions are clouded by one's own dispositions and preferences. Of course, it's fun to have a go. Even for fictional characters. According to the website 16Personalities.com, both Mulder and Scully are Introverts. It is all they have in common, with the rest of their type being as different as can be.
This is relevant for two reasons - firstly, extraverts are more finely attuned to the Outside, more likely to see themselves as Realists, whereas Introverts, conversely, are more attuned to the Inside. Philosophically, Descartes could probably argue that the Extraverts are no more connected to the 'thing-in-itself' than are Introverts. Thankfully, we don't live philosophically, so we can readily accept the idea of separating off realms of reality as limiting and all too restrictive. Secondly, though both Introverts, Mulder and Scully have two completely different perceptions of reality and what is possible. The premise of the show demands that Mulder be right more often than his overly rational partner, but, as he so famously says in The X Files: Fight the Future (1998):
It is clever how the monster in X-Cops is invisible. While it might be a purely budgetary concern it would also have detracted from the concept of reality the episode strives hard to depict. Yet, in the very midst of that reality, the subjective attacks! Each victim is attacked by the self-same monster, but each sees something different. There is little help to be found in the Idealist claiming we cannot experience the 'thing-in-itself' or the Realist insisting it’s a weakness with the three-step process of perception.
As with Jung's conception of the personality, there is not Realist or Idealist, there is only a preference for one or the other in a model of reality that includes both.
I like Stuart A. Burns' more descriptive terms - Inside-Out are the Idealists and Outside-In are the Realists. (Burns' website, Evolutionary Pragmatism, is a great resource that explains philosophical concepts in a way that makes them understandable.)
Burns comes down unequivocally on the side of Outside-In and lays out his argument so cogently one wonders how anyone could disagree.
When you realise that the list of those who might disagree includes the likes of Rene Descartes and Immanuel Kant, you realise that this is maybe not so straightforward.
But, then, on the other side, we have Aristotle - and who the hell can argue with Aristotle?
The question is nothing less than a matter of what we can know to be real.
Either one starts from the human and asks how we can encounter in any real way the world beyond our senses. Or, you start from out there in the world, and ask how do we understand our interaction with a world we can know only through our senses.
It is, essentially, the dichotomy that exists between Mulder and Scully. He is able to make huge intuitive leaps of faith because he relies heavily upon his personal subjective understanding of the world. She must pause and weigh the evidence, acknowledging the laws of an objective reality and what they allow or ridicule.
One of the beauties of Carl Jung's approach to understanding our consciousness is that it identifies different ways in which individuals interact with the world in such a way that all are included in all. Not for Jung a clear division between opposing views.
Inevitably, human beings make choices and so one function will be adopted to the detriment, but not the exclusion, of the others.
Adding nuance is our general disposition toward the world. There are two such dispositions - Introversion and Extraversion. So, whereas Extraverted Intuition might recognise meanings and interconnections, Introverted Intuition will foresee implications and effects.
Jung recommended not treating the typing of others as a parlour game as it is extremely difficult to do so accurately, largely because one's assumptions are clouded by one's own dispositions and preferences. Of course, it's fun to have a go. Even for fictional characters. According to the website 16Personalities.com, both Mulder and Scully are Introverts. It is all they have in common, with the rest of their type being as different as can be.
This is relevant for two reasons - firstly, extraverts are more finely attuned to the Outside, more likely to see themselves as Realists, whereas Introverts, conversely, are more attuned to the Inside. Philosophically, Descartes could probably argue that the Extraverts are no more connected to the 'thing-in-itself' than are Introverts. Thankfully, we don't live philosophically, so we can readily accept the idea of separating off realms of reality as limiting and all too restrictive. Secondly, though both Introverts, Mulder and Scully have two completely different perceptions of reality and what is possible. The premise of the show demands that Mulder be right more often than his overly rational partner, but, as he so famously says in The X Files: Fight the Future (1998):
"your goddamned strict rationalism and science have saved me a thousand times over! You've kept me honest ... you've made me a whole person."
Human being are far too complex, either in the pure biology of how our minds work or the psychologies that enable us to function in the world. Any way of thinking that fails to take this complexity into account is just so obviously misguided - whether it be thought by Descartes of Aristotle.It is clever how the monster in X-Cops is invisible. While it might be a purely budgetary concern it would also have detracted from the concept of reality the episode strives hard to depict. Yet, in the very midst of that reality, the subjective attacks! Each victim is attacked by the self-same monster, but each sees something different. There is little help to be found in the Idealist claiming we cannot experience the 'thing-in-itself' or the Realist insisting it’s a weakness with the three-step process of perception.
As with Jung's conception of the personality, there is not Realist or Idealist, there is only a preference for one or the other in a model of reality that includes both.
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