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Hello ToK Society,

Just some thoughts on the concepts of extraversion (i.e., "outward-turning") and introversion, (i.e., "inward-turning"), and how they might relate to the ToK conceptualization of "behavior" as "a change in the object-field relationship"...

Specifically, I'll be referring to the analogy made by Lithuanian sociologist, Aushra Augusta, between extraversion & introversion on the one hand, and bodies & fields (or objects & fields), on the other. And this could be particularly relevant to the ToK insofar that behavior itself is a change in the object-field relation:

"...introverts think not in terms of objects and what happens to them, [as extraverts do] but in terms of relationships between objects, especially the relationship between the subject and the external world. To refer to relationships, [Augusta] utilized the concept of a field, taken from theoretical physics. This association should be considered metaphorical and can be easily explained. Celestial bodies interact mostly from afar due to fields. The field is a sum of relationships of one body with other bodies. It becomes clear if we imagine a particle. We cannot say if it has an electric charge (and therefore an electric field around it) unless we put another charged particle nearby and see how it reacts.It may move closer, drift away or stay in place. Only then can we say something about the relationship between the charges of these particles. Other physical fields work in the same way. Therefore, the concept of a field is somehow akin to the concept of a relationship." [Source]

Furthermore, (and bearing in mind from the last sentence in the citation above that "the concept of a field is somehow akin to the concept of a relationship"):

"It seems necessary to answer why [Augusta] decided to rename Jungian extraversion/introversion dichotomy to objects/relationships. According to Jung, the dichotomy was made to distinguish between subjective and objective attitude towards reality (Jung, 1921). Even though all experience is subjective, Jung found that some people prefer one attitude, while others prefer the other. The distinction is based on the degree to which perception or judgement of objects is influenced by subjective and idiosyncratic contents of one’s inner life. Objective (extraverted) attitude is characterized by the submission of the subject’s perception to the experienced objects. Introversion, on the other hand, is characterized by greater distance between the object and the subject. Talanov proposed a model according to which the conscious metabolism of information in extraverts is inhibited by low intensity stimuli and excited by strong stimuli (Talanov, 2006). This model suggests that extraverts need strong external stimuli in order to orient themselves in the world. The internal stimuli (interoception, daydreaming) are presumably not enough to excite them. Information metabolism of introverts, on the other hand, is inhibited by strong stimuli and stimulated by the more subtle ones. Therefore, introverts are more likely to concentrate on the internal stimuli which are produced in response to external excitations, and not on the external excitations themselves. Let us notice that such internal stimuli express the relationship between the introvert and the external world, which explains how introversion is linked with the perception of information about relationships [i.e., fields]." [Source p. 10]

So, in short, it is suggested that extraversion refers to a focus on objects, and introversion as a focus on fields, in object-field relations. Gregg has written before that we can think of humanistic and scientific perspectives as first-person and third-person perspectives, respectively --- which to me, could just as easily be called introverted and extraverted perspectives, respectively. So perhaps --- in object-field relations --- we could say (particularly in regards to psychology) that a scientific perspective focuses primarily on the object, and a humanistic perspective focuses primarily on the field. Thoughts? ~ Jason Bessey