Feeling (F)

Note

I'm posting this Introduction section for the F level out of order: I haven't yet completed the chapter on Sensing. But I'm posting this Introduction section as a short summary indicating where I will be going with the chapter on Feeling in the future. In late 2025 and early 2026 I will be completing the Sensing chapter and then I will fill out this Feeling chapter with additional essays discussing at greater length Fe-Doms versus Fi-Doms, one-sidedness and centroversion at the F level, etc.

 

On nomenclature

Feeling as a psychological function is traditionally abbreviated as F. When it is the dominant function, it is abbreviated as "F-Dom." Adults who use Feeling as their "dominant" (preferred) psychological function are called "F-Doms." And because I'm associating Feeling with a developmental stage, specifically adolescence, I will refer to the adolescence/Feeling developmental stage as "the F level."

 

The basics

In my introductory essay on Intuition (the N level), I mentioned that I was largely pulling my ideas from The Origins and History of Consciousness by Erich Neumann, and that Neumann anticipated many of the cognitive processes of infancy and childhood by studying early religions. According to Neumann, our brain architecture tends to manifest itself in both personal and transpersonal aspects: The developmental stages that we experience in our own individual lives (the personal aspect) are also reflected in humanity's culture, myths, religions, etc. (the transpersonal aspect).

 

The personal aspect at the F level

In my introductory essay on developmental levels I suggested that Feeling (the F level) has some similarities with how people experience the world in adolescence: People engage in conscious and rational thought with a focus on their relation to the community. Everyone has the capacity to use Feeling; but F-Doms tend to use it as their preferred way of interacting with the world.

 

To spell that out in more detail: In the previous chapter on Sensing I suggested that the S level reflected a childhood stage where we learned how to negotiate one-on-one with parents and peers and we assimilated simple rules for interacting with others. 

 

At the F level, on the other hand, adolescence is a time when we are increasingly separating from our family and learning how to integrate into a larger community. We become capable of triangulating our personal needs, desires, and emotions against those of a large and diverse community of friends, family, acquaintances, authority figures, etc. Our prefrontal cortex is developing, we are becoming more rational in our calculations and reactions, and we are increasingly capable of working out values, ethics, and morals which we utilize as metrics for social triangulation.

 

The transpersonal aspect at the F level

As described above, the principles that govern adolescence also appear to be reflected to some degree in humanity's cultural development. I will argue that the F level is reflected in increasingly monotheistic religions during a period running roughly from 500 BC to around the mid-1700s AD.

 

To spell that out in more detail: In the chapter on Sensing I suggested that the S level reflected a stage of culture where social relations were worked out on the basis of tribal loyalties, one-on-one negotiations, or traditional rules handed down by the priesthood. Rules were handed down by polytheistic pantheons of gods who operated according to principles such as "right makes might" and "an eye for an eye"; the gods were often capricious, arbitrary, and rapacious. The gods often warred among themselves, with mortals caught in the middle; hence the Greek fascination with fate and tragedy. Social structure tended to be familial or tribal, with a very flat hierarchy: A leader with a few advisors, and the remainder of the tribe underneath them.

 

At the F level, on the other hand, the needs of the community come to the forefront, ahead of even the gods. For example, the Oresteia was a cycle of three plays written by Aeschylus in 458 BC, and it commemorated the invention of the jury trial. In the Oresteia the gods were at war with each other, arguing over the fate of the royalty belonging to the cursed house of Atreus. The last royal descendent of that house, a prince named Orestes, was caught in the middle: He was literally being driven insane by the competing demands of the warring gods. The gods were incapable of resolving their dispute, and eventually the gods themselves decided that Orestes' fate must be decided by a jury of humans instead of by decree of the gods. 

 

In other words, the Oresteia signaled a shift: Justice, morality, and ethics were henceforth to be determined by the community rather than by traditional rules or arbitrary decrees of the gods.

 

Similarly, in the New Testament of the Bible Jesus Christ argued that the conduct of humans shouldn't be judged based solely on unchanging tradition passed down from generation to generation; instead, laws should be evaluated and enforced based on whether they meet the needs of the community. Hence his conflicts with the Pharisees over such issues as whether people should be allowed to perform certain needed functions on the Sabbath.

 

In this context, the emphasis is on building consensus: If you can "read the room" and get most of the community behind you, you can bring about change. An F-level understanding of the needs of the immediate community becomes a counterweight to the dead weight of tradition (S-level sacralization) or the arbitrary or self-serving deals negotiated between individuals (S-level reciprocal altruism).

 

Also, during this period human societies were becoming more complex. Early cities were starting to spring up in the deserts of Asia and northern Africa and around the Mediterranean, and the old rules governing familial and tribal units were no longer sufficient. New rules had to be devised. This period of social development saw the invention of vertical hierarchies to govern large, diverse communities, such as the Great Chain of Being. 

 

The Great Chain of Being established hierarchies in communities and cities: It put God and angels at the top; monarchy, nobility, tradesmen, peasants, and slaves in descending order in the middle; and animals, plants, and minerals at the bottom. The principles behind the Great Chain of Being were developed by Plato and Aristotle around 400 BC and later expanded as part of Neoplatonism (200-500 AD). The Great Chain of Being held sway through the Middle Ages (400 AD - 1400 AD) and influenced Christian philosophers like Thomas Aquinas. It finally came to an end during the Enlightenment (1600s to 1700s), when it was replaced by ideas that stressed democracy and placing power in the hands of elected bodies rather than royalty. (For more on the subject, see the Wikipedia article on the Great Chain of Being.)

 

So I'm suggesting that the Feeling period starts around the time of the Oresteia in 458 BC and runs up to the end of the Great Chain of Being in the Enlightenment period, around the mid-1700s AD: In other words, through the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Reformation, and up to the Enlightenment.

 

These new F-level systems such as the jury trial and the Great Chain of Being were human inventions, and as such the needs of the community were the basis for their invention rather than the edicts of gods. But in the case of the Great Chain of Being the emphasis was less on building consensus and more on divining the hidden principles by which communities survive and prosper as they grow larger and become more complex. We tend to think of ideas like the Great Chain of Being as authoritarian anachronisms rather than man-made devices for regulating the community; but even today similar ideas crop up in other forms, such as intersectionality which purports to analyze and regulate the community based on social and political identities.

 

Fe vs Fi

In the following sections I will be suggesting an Fe-versus-Fi dichotomy along the lines suggested above: 

• Fe-Doms are about consensus-building in the manner that I described in connection with the Oresteia and the New Testament. Fe-Doms immerse themselves directly in the community and "read the room" in order to determine morals and ethics based on the community's current needs and mood.

• Fi-Doms tend to stand somewhat aloof, observe and analyze the community from the outside, and devise rules, structure, and hierarchy for the good of the community. Fi-Doms are prone to construct systems like the Great Chain of Being, in other words, to derive more structured systems of morals, ethics, hierarchies, pecking orders, and so on for guiding the community.

 

Summing up

In general, F-Doms tend to be community leaders and activists, working out the ethical and moral frameworks that make up day-to-day life. Much of the popular literature on the Feeling cognitive function tends to suggest that Feeling is synonymous with emotion, empathy, and agreeableness, and those aspects certainly are part of the picture. But if Feeling is viewed as a developmental stage in human development, then a larger picture emerges. Feeling becomes about morals, ethics, building consensus, virtue, rewarding community spirit, altruism, etc. The individual's relation to the community becomes the foundation for our ideas about the ethical and moral frameworks that make up day-to-day life. 

 

Also, Feeling can also be about the opposite of empathy and agreeableness: Feeling can also be about things like fighting on behalf of a community ideal, punishing people you don't like, jingoism and warfare, etc. Strong emotions can be negative as well as positive. (More on that below.)

 

--In late 2025 and early 2026 I will be filling out this Feeling chapter with additional essays discussing at greater length Fe-Doms versus Fi-Doms, one-sidedness and centroversion at the F level, etc.

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~Posted: September 22, 2025