Was Plato an INTJ?

[jtskinner]

Was Plato an INTJ? I know a lot of philosophers were.

[INTJoe]

Yeah, his numbers were:

I-12
N-56
T-82
J-11

His IQ was 176 and his SAT score (old format) was 1560

Also his favorite band was Metallica and favorite movie was Scarface.

[Tsuru]

Granted I've only done very limited reading on ancient greek philosophers... :P

But I think Plato was an INTP and Aristotle was an INTJ. Plato was concerned with the spirit and the "true," "perfect" reality unmitigated by the senses. Aristotle was more concerned with knowledge, workable/demonstratable theory on nature, and the classification of things through observation. I think the full painting your avatar is from shows Plato pointing towards the heavens, while Aristotle points towards the Earth. An apt description perhaps of their differing approaches. 8-)

Socrates was most definitely an extreme INTP, that annoying goober. XD

[Rei]

Granted I've only done very limited reading on ancient greek philosophers... :P

But I think Plato was an INTP and Aristotle was an INTJ. Plato was concerned with the spirit and the "true," "perfect" reality unmitigated by the senses. Aristotle was more concerned with knowledge, workable/demonstratable theory on nature, and the classification of things through observation. I think the full painting your avatar is from shows Plato pointing towards the heavens, while Aristotle points towards the Earth. An apt description perhaps of their differing approaches. 8-)

Socrates was most definitely an extreme INTP, that annoying goober. XD

But Aristotle was very into proof which says he was an S.

[The Many]

But Aristotle was very into proof which says he was an S.

I don't think any philosopher, ever, has been an S. They just don't have the imagination to go particularly deep. Aristotle is quite likely to have been an INTP too with that need for classification of nature, not to mention all his talk about logic, categories and limiting your desires.

INTJ philosophers would rather be those who come to conclusions and apply these to reality. For instance Nietzsche who tried to created a new world after understanding that God was dead, Ortega y Gasset with his political activism or Richard Rorty with his conclusion that the only task of philosophy is to re-invent itself (which in turn was an older, Nietzschean idea).

[Rei]

I don't think any philosopher, ever, has been an S. They just don't have the imagination to go particularly deep. Aristotle is quite likely to have been an INTP too with that need for classification of nature, not to mention all his talk about logic, categories and limiting your desires.

INTJ philosophers would rather be those who come to conclusions and apply these to reality. For instance Nietzsche who tried to created a new world after understanding that God was dead, Ortega y Gasset with his political activism or Richard Rorty with his conclusion that the only task of philosophy is to re-invent itself (which in turn was an older, Nietzschean idea).

Maybe very borderline. Needing proof goes against N-ness, and also the need to classify is definitely far from P, so he is possibly borderline that too.

But I don't know that much about MBTI so meh... just my opinion.

[The Many]

Maybe very borderline. Needing proof goes against N-ness, and also the need to classify is definitely far from P, so he is possibly borderline that too.

But I don't know that much about MBTI so meh... just my opinion.

The classification thing is usually attributed to Ti, so what INTPs do according to the MBTI is to classify their perceptions according to certain already given set of forms. This is more Plato than Aristotle if you want to get anal about it though, after all Plato was the first essentialist (he believed that things had an "essential" nature by which they originally are classified, and Aristotle essentially agreed). And proofs and a need for logical correctness also really comes from thinking rather than sensing, after all you can't take an opinion seriously if it refutes itself.

These are some reasons of why I don't really care for the system too much, I know I personally use Te and Ti almost simultaneously, which I shouldn't do according to it.

[Rei]

The classification thing is usually attributed to Ti, so what INTPs do according to the MBTI is to classify their perceptions according to certain already given set of forms. This is more Plato than Aristotle if you want to get anal about it though, after all Plato was the first essentialist (he believed that things had an "essential" nature by which they originally are classified, and Aristotle essentially agreed). And proofs and a need for logical correctness also really comes from thinking rather than sensing, after all you can't take an opinion seriously if it refutes itself.

These are some reasons of why I don't really care for the system too much, I know I personally use Te and Ti almost simultaneously, which I shouldn't do according to it.

Hm... which is why I think being NT is very 'controversial'... but okay...
I should probably read up on that Ti, Te, Ni etc stuff.

[Danellian]

I always thought Both Plato and Aristotle were INTJs. But, if one of them was INTP, I would go with Aristotle. The reason for this is that INTPs need more proof then INTJs, since their primary function is Ti, their Ne is mediated through their thinking function. For this reason, INTPs start with the specific observeable phenomena around them, then generalize to theories and principles. INTJs are the other way around; they use primary Ni, and their rational Te function is mediated through their intuition. The result is that they start with the general theory or principle they believe is correct, then move to the specific level by placing observeable facts within this framework. Now, Aristotle was the one who wanted to start with observeable facts and only extrapolate a general conclusion insofar as the facts pointed to it, so he was like an early-day Pragmatist (I say early-day since he still had a lot of rationalistic ideas by the standards of today, but in the context of his time, he was rather empirical). Plato, on the other hand (and Socrates, by extension, though they may have been the same person) started with the general framework of how things *should* be, then placed the things of this world within that context. An example if his Republic, in which he propounds this theory of how society should be structured, then proceeds to explain how this can be implemented. Another is the theory of the Forms, which has no basis in empirical observation, but is rather a rationalistic way of explaining the existence of observeable phenomena when observeable causation cannot necesserily be extrapolated to provide a satisfactory explanation. Now, it is still possible that Aristotle was INTJ who happened to believe is a somewhat empirical framework while applying that to the world. If you look at the theory and writings of Aristotle, he has a lot of idealization about how things *should* be. So, I think we have to take into account not only the theories these individuals propound, but also try to look behind them to the psychological tendencies that led to these theories.

[Tsuru]

But Aristotle was very into proof which says he was an S.

Uh, no.

I don't even know what more could be said. There's no way any philosopher anywhere is anything BUT an N type. Philosophers by definition devote their life to the speculation of abstract theory.

[Danellian]

Here is something somewhat related that I've wondered about. E1 is, by definition, interested in "practical ideas". Well, I have looked up "practical" along with a bunch of synonymous and antynomious words in Webster's dictionary, and it appears that "practical" is the opposite of "ideational", "speculative", and "theoretical". This being the case, it seems that a person who is interested in "ideas" is "ideational", "speculative", and "theoretical", which means they are not "practical". If this is the case, "practical ideas" is an oxymoron. However, if this is an oxymoron, how do you differentiate between a person who is interested in ideas whether or not they are practical and a person who is interested in practical ideas? Is there such a thing is a practical person who is interested in ideas?

I think we'd better clarify this rather ambiguous matter before we conclude that a philsopher could not be an S, since being practical is a trait of the S.

[INTJgal]

Uh, no.

I don't even know what more could be said. There's no way any philosopher anywhere is anything BUT an N type. Philosophers by definition devote their life to the speculation of abstract theory.

Could be a bright S who was a people-pleaser born into the culture where he was expected to do what his daddy did and groomed from diapers to be a philosopher. Never say never :p

(Seriously, though, a borderline but sure S could make a great philosopher. If raised in the right environment, he could be taught the train of thought, and then observe things that Ns would miss. Ss taught a way of doing something are often better at it than Ns, even though Ns are more original and creative to do what the S would do.
Borderline S could make a great philosopher.)