There seems to be a fine line between actually useful models of this kind which have some predictive power (or at least allow thoughts to be a bit tidier), and those that are merely peculiarly entertaining, like Myers-Briggs. And I find it hard to tell from the outside on which side of that line any given model falls.
I have mixed feelings here. I think I’m more sympathetic to Myers-Briggs when used correctly, than other people. There definitely seems to be some signal that it categorizes (some professions are highly biased towards a narrow part of the spectrum). It doesn’t seem all too different to categorizing philosophy as “continental” vs. “analytical”. It’s definitely not the best categorization, there are some flawed assumptions baked into it (either/or, as opposed to a spectrum, most famously), the org that owns it seems pretty weird, and lots of people make overconfident statements around it, but I think it can serve a role when used correctly.
Anyway, I imagine what we’d really want is a “Big 5 of Intellectuals” or similar. For that, it would be great for someone to eventually do some sort of cluster analysis.
I don’t necessarily recommend that the disagreeables/assessors terminology takes off; I’d prefer it if this can be used for discussion that finds something better.
I have mixed feelings here. I think I’m more sympathetic to Myers-Briggs when used correctly, than other people. There definitely seems to be some signal that it categorizes (some professions are highly biased towards a narrow part of the spectrum). It doesn’t seem all too different to categorizing philosophy as “continental” vs. “analytical”. It’s definitely not the best categorization, there are some flawed assumptions baked into it (either/or, as opposed to a spectrum, most famously), the org that owns it seems pretty weird, and lots of people make overconfident statements around it, but I think it can serve a role when used correctly.
Anyway, I imagine what we’d really want is a “Big 5 of Intellectuals” or similar. For that, it would be great for someone to eventually do some sort of cluster analysis.
I don’t necessarily recommend that the disagreeables/assessors terminology takes off; I’d prefer it if this can be used for discussion that finds something better.