What Does It Mean to Say “This Is Important”?
The concept of significance seems intuitively clear until we try to define it precisely. We say, “This person is important to me,” “It is important to me to know the result,” “This is important for the work,” or “This is important to other people.” But what do all these cases have in common?
Significance is often associated with pleasure and displeasure, attraction and aversion, emotional coloring, or value. Yet such an understanding is too narrow. What is significant is by no means always pleasant, and what is unpleasant is by no means always significant. A person may willingly endure pain, exhaustion, fear, and deprivation for the sake of something that matters deeply. Conversely, a pleasant experience may have almost no significance for that person’s life.
Significance, therefore, should not be sought on the axis of “pleasant–unpleasant.”
As a starting point, we can propose a much simpler formula:
Significance is non-indifference generated by the psyche.
If something is significant, it is not a matter of indifference. But this immediately raises a second question:
To whom or to what is it non-indifferent?
It is precisely this question that allows us to redefine the two rational functions, F and T.
Significance Is Not a Property of the Object
In the tradition of Carl Gustav Jung, Feeling is defined as a rational function of valuation, assigning a certain value to a content. Such terminology can easily create the impression that value or significance somehow already belongs to the object and that the psychic function merely recognizes or evaluates it.
The model proposed here starts from a different assumption:
Significance is not discovered by the psyche in the object. The psyche generates significance.
A child exists as an object in the environment. The psyche models the child: it perceives the child’s properties and state, as well as the changes taking place in the child.
But the significance of the child to the mother is not a property of the child in the same sense as the child’s height or age.
That significance is generated by the psyche.
Moreover, not only the child but also knowledge about the child can become significant:
It is important to me to know how my child is doing at school.
Or:
It is important to me to know what my child’s temperature is.
In the second case, the knowledge of the temperature does not yet even exist. The person wants to obtain that knowledge precisely because obtaining it has already become significant.
It would therefore be too narrow to define the rational functions as functions that generate merely the “significance of knowledge.” Significance can be generated with respect to an object, an event, a state, an action, knowledge, the possibility of obtaining knowledge, and other contents of psychic reality.
Significance as Non-Indifference
The formula “significance is non-indifference” has one major advantage: it says nothing in advance about the emotional valence of significance.
“Non-indifferent” does not mean “pleasant.”
It does not mean “unpleasant.”
It does not mean “good.”
It does not mean “bad.”
It does not even mean “I want.”
If my child is important to me, I am not indifferent to the child’s condition. If finishing a piece of work is important to me, I am not indifferent to whether it is finished or unfinished. If a particular parameter is important for the functioning of a system, its value is not indifferent with respect to that system.
Significance also exists when no action is taking place at all.
A person who died many years ago may remain deeply significant to me, even though I can no longer do anything for that person.
Action, therefore, should not be included in the definition of significance.
Significance does, however, have an extremely important consequence:
What is significant can become a ground for action and determine the direction of action.
It is because my child’s condition is not indifferent to me that I take the child’s temperature. It is because the result of my work is not indifferent to me that I continue working. It is because a person is not indifferent to me that my actions may be directed toward that person: toward helping them, approaching them, or preserving my relationship with them.
Significance is not an action and does not necessarily lead to action. But it can become a ground for action.
Two Kinds of Significance
In the proposed model, psychic reality is based, among other things, on the fundamental dichotomy:
subject – environment, or, more generally,
subject – non-subject.
Non-indifference can therefore be generated with respect to two different poles.
Something can be significant for the subject.
And something can be significant for the non-subject.
This makes it possible to define the two rational functions symmetrically:
F is the function that generates significance for the subject.
T is the function that generates significance for the non-subject.
The central question that allows us to distinguish their contents is remarkably simple:
To whom does this matter?
Does it matter to me?
Or to another person?
Does it matter for the task?
For an organization?
For a system?
For the outcome?
For society?
For other people?
Thus, the distinction between F and T does not coincide with the distinction between emotional and unemotional, subjective and logical, pleasant and unpleasant.
Both functions are rational, and both generate significance. They differ in the pole with respect to which that significance is generated.
“It Matters to Me” and “What Will People Think?”
A simple everyday example makes this distinction particularly clear.
A person may look at the disorder in their own apartment and think:
It doesn’t bother me at all. I’m comfortable this way.
Order in this case has little or no significance for the subject.
Another person, however, may say:
What if someone comes over? What will people think? Aren’t you ashamed in front of other people?
Here the state of the apartment becomes significant with respect to the non-subject—other people.
At the same time, the person saying this may experience intense emotions: indignation, anxiety, shame, anger.
This is crucial.
The emotional intensity of a content tells us nothing by itself about whether that content belongs to F or T.
T need not be cold or unemotional. F need not be emotionally intense.
The decisive question is not:
“What is the person feeling?”
but:
With respect to which pole is significance being generated?
T and Information
In an earlier version of the model, T was defined as the function of generating information.
Information is understood here as knowledge about things, facts, instructions, and so forth, represented in a form suitable for communication, interpretation, and processing.
This definition does not lose its validity under the new formulation. It can now, however, be understood as a consequence of a more fundamental definition of T.
S and N model the object and generate knowledge about it: S through the perception of invariants, N through the perception of changes.
But knowledge that exists solely as a content of one subject’s psyche is not necessarily information.
For knowledge to be communicated, interpreted, or processed, it must acquire a form accessible to the non-subject.
For example, a person may notice that their child feels hot. This is knowledge.
But the record:
“Temperature: 39.2°C, measured at 5:40 a.m.”
presents this knowledge in a form in which it can be communicated to a doctor, stored, compared with other measurements, and processed.
The knowledge has become information.
The generation of information can therefore be connected with T precisely because T is oriented toward significance for the non-subject.
Thus, the earlier definition of T as the generation of information was not necessarily wrong. It described an essential product of the function. But defining T as the generation of significance for the non-subject appears to be more fundamental.
Differentiation of the Rational Functions
If F and T form a dichotomy, differentiation of the rational functions requires the distinction between two poles:
significance for the subject – significance for the non-subject.
Once again, the crucial question can be formulated very simply:
To whom does this matter?
A differentiated psyche can distinguish:
This matters to me.
from:
This matters to him, to her, to other people, to an organization, to a task, to a system, or to society.
These significances may perfectly well conflict with one another. Such a conflict does not in itself imply undifferentiation.
For example:
It is important to me to stay home, while it is important to another person that I come.
Here the two sources of significance are clearly distinguished.
A fundamentally different situation arises when F and T are undifferentiated and fused with one another. What may then be lost is precisely the distinction between the sources of significance:
Is this important to me—or to someone else?
Do I want this—or does someone else want me to do it?
Is this my own ground for action—or is it a demand from the environment that I experience as my own?
Such a fusion can have far-reaching consequences.
Differentiation Is Necessary Not Only for the Rational Functions
The problem of differentiation is not limited to F and T.
The irrational functions S and N also form a dichotomy:
perception of invariants – perception of changes.
In order to understand what is happening, it is necessary to distinguish what remains the same from what changes.
A person whom we meet again after twenty years remains the same person and has changed at the same time. Adequate modeling requires us to distinguish these two contents: the invariant and the change.
If S and N are undifferentiated, this distinction becomes difficult. What has changed may be perceived as unchanged, while what has remained stable may be perceived as entirely new. It becomes difficult to determine what exactly is happening to the object over time.
Undifferentiation therefore has different consequences depending on which functions are fused.
With undifferentiated F/T, the difficulty concerns the question:
For whom is this significant?
With undifferentiated S/N:
What remains invariant here, and what changes?
This distinction becomes especially important when comparing rational and irrational types on the left path.
Oblomov and Stolz: A Literary Thought Experiment
Ivan Goncharov’s novel Oblomov offers remarkably vivid material for considering these processes.
Naturally, the psychological type of a literary character cannot be established in the same way as the type of a real person. The following discussion should therefore be understood as a hypothetical interpretation.
Suppose Stolz’s dominant function is Te—that is, differentiated T in the extraverted attitude.
His extraordinary activity can then be understood as something more than a trait of temperament. Stolz continually generates significance for the non-subject:
There is a task—it must be done.
There is a problem—it must be solved.
There is an estate—it must be managed.
There is an opportunity—it should be used.
There is a life—it must be organized.
The important point is not that Stolz “thinks more” than Oblomov. Goncharov by no means portrays Oblomov as unintelligent. On the contrary, he is intelligent, reflective, and capable of subtle feeling.
The difference may lie elsewhere.
Stolz generates definite significance for the non-subject, and this significance can become a ground for his actions.
Something different may be happening with Oblomov.
Suppose that he is an irrational type with an auxiliary F function and that he is on the left path. F and T would then be fused in an undifferentiated complex.
Oblomov’s characteristic
“I really ought to…”
would then acquire a particular significance.
Oblomov knows about his affairs. He is capable of thinking about them. He understands the demands placed upon him. But the question of significance becomes much more difficult:
To whom does this matter?
To him?
To Stolz?
To Olga?
To Oblomovka?
To the people around him?
Because that is simply what one is supposed to do?
Because that is how a “normal” person ought to live?
If significance for the subject and significance for the non-subject are not functionally differentiated, the content may become ambivalent and action may become ambitendent.
Olga and the Temporary Return to the Right Path
Oblomov’s relationship with Olga is especially interesting in this respect.
One may hypothesize that falling in love with Olga temporarily returns Oblomov to the right path.
Olga becomes significant to Oblomov himself.
His attention is thereby directed toward the content of the auxiliary F function.
And Oblomov becomes active.
He gets up from the sofa, goes for walks, reads, meets Olga, and makes plans. This is highly significant: Goncharov shows that Oblomov is fundamentally capable of action.
No external command is required.
Olga is significant to him, and this significance becomes a ground for and gives direction to his actions.
But then a paradox arises.
It is Stolz who brings Oblomov and Olga together and, in a sense, entrusts Olga with the task of “rousing” Oblomov. Olga increasingly assumes the role of an educator.
More and more demands enter the relationship:
He must attend to his estate.
He must read.
He must put his affairs in order.
He must prepare for marriage.
He must become more active.
He must become a different Oblomov.
In the end, Olga admits that she loved the “future Oblomov.”
Thus the original structure:
Olga is important to me
is gradually supplemented and eventually overshadowed by another:
I must become the Oblomov whom Olga and Stolz want me to be.
If T is Oblomov’s fourth function, Olga—largely under Stolz’s influence—begins to direct his attention increasingly toward the content of precisely that fourth function.
She wanted to free him from “Oblomovism,” yet within the hypothesis proposed here, she may have contributed to his return to the very path associated with it.
The Model of What a Person “Should Be”
This example allows us to formulate a more general hypothetical mechanism of transition to the left path.
A model is imposed upon the person:
You should be different.
Or:
You should become like this.
The coercion need not be harsh. It may arise from love and the best of intentions:
“You are capable of much more.”
“You should realize your potential.”
“You need to finally start living.”
“I know what you could become.”
In all these cases, the actual subject is confronted with a normative model of what the subject should be.
External coercion may then be internalized:
“I must be like this.”
“I must force myself to change.”
“I must stop being the person I am now.”
At that point, an external source of coercion is no longer necessary. The person directs their own attention toward the content of the fourth function.
Two principles can therefore be formulated:
The right path begins with the spontaneous direction of attention toward the content of the second function.
The left path begins with the coerced direction of attention toward the content of the fourth function—as a result of external coercion or self-coercion.
Spontaneity Is Not Impulsivity
The word spontaneity requires special clarification because in everyday language spontaneity is often confused with impulsivity.
They are two different characteristics.
Impulsivity characterizes the manner of transition to action. Spontaneity characterizes the origin of direction.
A spontaneously arising direction can lead to years of disciplined and carefully organized activity.
A scientist may work for decades on a problem that is significant to them. A musician may practice for hours every day. A person may endure enormous hardship for someone they love.
Such action may require tremendous effort.
But the effort is not directed against the person themselves.
For this reason, the right and left paths cannot be contrasted as easy versus difficult, pleasant versus unpleasant.
The distinction lies elsewhere:
On the right path, effort serves a spontaneously arising direction.
On the left path, effort is used to suppress or redirect the spontaneous direction in order to conform to a model of what the person should be.
On the right path, a person may overcome obstacles.
On the left path, in a certain sense, the person has to overcome themselves.
Rational and Irrational Types on the Left Path
A further important prediction follows from this model.
The left path should manifest differently in rational and irrational types.
In a rational type, the dominant function is F or T. Consequently, one kind of significance is already differentiated.
Even on the left path, such a person retains the ability to generate definite significance either for the subject or for the non-subject.
In a rational type on the left path, however, the two irrational functions S and N are fused and undifferentiated.
The primary problem therefore arises in modeling the object:
What remains the same, and what changes?
Such a person may know very clearly what is significant to the subject or to the non-subject, and may therefore be exceptionally decisive and active. Yet this activity may be based on an insufficiently differentiated model of what is actually happening.
The following configuration is therefore possible:
differentiated significance + undifferentiated perception of changes and invariants → decisive action based on an insufficiently differentiated model of what is happening.
The situation is different in an irrational type with an auxiliary rational function. If such a person moves onto the left path before the second function has become differentiated, F and T remain fused.
Such a person may understand quite well what is happening and yet encounter a fundamental difficulty in another domain:
To whom does this matter?
For this reason, the left path of an irrational type may manifest as ambivalence of significance and, as a possible consequence, ambitendency of action.
Significance and Action
We can now return to the question from which this discussion began.
Why might an apathetic person be unable to get up from the sofa?
The first answer that suggests itself is:
Because very little is significant to them.
But Oblomov shows that this formulation is too simple.
Many things are significant to Oblomov. People matter to him; so do peace, home, memories, and a particular way of life. He is capable of love. He is capable of understanding what is happening. And when Olga becomes significant to him, he is capable of acting.
The issue, therefore, is not simply the amount of what is significant.
More important is the structure of the generation of significance and the ability to distinguish:
significant for the subject
from
significant for the non-subject.
Significance is not action. It is not a command to act. It is not identical with motivation, pleasure, desire, or emotion.
It does, however, have a fundamental practical consequence:
Significance can become a ground for action and determine its direction.
The study of significance may therefore offer a way of understanding why a person acts—or fails to act even while understanding perfectly well what is happening.
From “Feeling and Thinking” to Two Functions of Significance
The traditional terms Feeling and Thinking have a long history, but they also carry a heavy burden of everyday associations.
Feeling is easily understood as emotion or subjective experience.
Thinking is understood as reasoning, intellect, or the capacity for thought.
This creates an obvious problem. A person whose dominant function is Feeling is by no means incapable of thinking, while a person whose dominant function is Thinking may experience extremely powerful emotions.
If the functions are defined instead through the generation of significance, this problem disappears.
F and T no longer designate two supposedly different psychic capacities—“feeling” and “thinking.” They become two poles of one fundamental operation:
the generation of significance.
What distinguishes them is not emotionality or intellectuality, but the pole of psychic reality with respect to which non-indifference is generated:
F — significance for the subject.
T — significance for the non-subject.
The traditional typological question:
“Does this person feel more, or think more?”
can therefore be replaced by a much more precise question:
To whom does this matter?
Perhaps this simple question brings us closer to what the rational functions actually do.
Conclusion
Significance should not be sought in the object itself. An object does not contain, as one of its inherent properties, its significance for the subject or for the non-subject.
Significance is generated by the psyche.
As a general working definition, we can formulate it as follows:
Significance is non-indifference generated by the psyche.
The rational functions constitute two ways of generating significance:
F generates significance for the subject.
T generates significance for the non-subject.
The capacity of significance to become a ground for action and to determine the direction of action is not its definition, but one of its most important consequences.
This makes it possible to distinguish significance from pleasure, emotion, desire, motivation, and action itself.
At the same time, this definition allows us to understand functional differentiation in a new way. For F and T, differentiation means above all the ability to distinguish between two poles:
To whom does it matter—to the subject or to the non-subject?
For S and N, the corresponding question is:
What remains invariant in the object, and what changes?
The four functions can therefore be understood as structured around two fundamental dichotomies of psychic reality:
invariant – change
and
significance for the subject – significance for the non-subject.
On this basis, the distinction between the two paths can also be formulated more precisely:
The right path begins with the spontaneous direction of attention toward the content of the second function.
The left path begins with the coerced direction of attention toward the content of the fourth function—as a result of external coercion or self-coercion.
Spontaneity does not mean impulsivity, ease, or pleasure. A spontaneously arising direction may demand enormous effort.
The crucial distinction lies elsewhere:
On the right path, effort serves a spontaneously arising direction. On the left path, effort is directed against the spontaneous direction in order to conform to a model of what the person should be.
The question of significance thus reaches far beyond the definition of two rational functions. It touches on one of the most fundamental questions of psychology:
Why does something become non-indifferent to a person—and how does this non-indifference determine the direction of that person’s life?