This almost stark and geometric representation of one of the basic principles of existence probably illustrates well the attraction it had for Hippocrates and those who came after him. Pythagoras, the man credited with laying the foundations for mathematics, had an interesting doctrine that came from his study of the mechanics of music. F.M. Cornford says, "Pythagoras found out that the perfect consonances (as they are still called) of the musical scale - the intervals of the forth, the fifth, and the octave - can be exactly expressed as ratios between the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4, which, added together, make the perfect number 10. The ratio of the octave is 2:1; the ratio of the fifth is 3:2, the ratio of the forth is 4:3. This discovery was, no doubt, made by measuring, on a monochord with a movable bridge, the lengths of string required to yield the several notes forming the perfect intervals." (Before and After Socrates [London: Cambridge University Press, 1964] 66). Music opened Pythagoras' mind to a revolutionary concept: There is constancy in the universe! In fact not only constancy but an apparent simplicity. Pythagoras reasoned that if this harmonious structure was constant through all the variety of musical scales (was in fact the architecture of all music) might not other apparently complex realities have a basic explanation? Cornford puts it this way, "For if the chaotic welter of sounds that besiege our hearing can be reduced, by the simple principle of limiting measure, to the harmonious order of art and finally to proportions of number, might not the whole of nature, with its acknowledged beauty, be framed on a principle analogous or even identical?" (ibid., 67) Pythagoras wondered if order, and not chaos, was the norm, but that we, lacking a full understanding of the numerical nature of things, fail to perceive the order and instead feel lost and unable to predict what will happen next. The Pagan culture that Pythagoras left when he moved to Samos, held that the God's controlled things and humanity was helpless to stand against such random or at best cyclical realities. The fundamental change in Pythagorean cosmology was summed up in the phrase, "Things are numbers" and as such the formula and arrangement of things could be worked out. This very "Greek" way of approaching things was set in motion by Thales who plucked geometry out of the hands of Egyptians (who used it in a practical way) and made it a universal truth, able to be applied to a whole manner of questions. Pythagorean understanding suggests that the same use might be made of numbers. Perhaps a clear understanding of numbers would unveil a whole new understanding of the cosmos. The Tetraktys The Tetraktys was the Pythagorean expression of the importance of four. Claimed to contain the knowledge of all things the tetraktys is a triangular shape of 4 lines made up of ten dots. It looked like this: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 The top dot represents singularity, the Monad, or Godhead, principle of all things, latent being, source, unity, beginning, perfection. The next two dots down symbolize the first manifestation, or dualism of the cosmos. Male and female, light and darkness, heaven and earth, sperm and egg, good and evil, right and left, inside and outside, etc. The next three dots represent the three levels of the world - infernal, terrestrial and celestial, - and the three levels of human life - Mind, body and soul, and of time - past, present, future, and of the process of life - Birth, growth, death. The last four dots form the base and represent the four elements - fire, air, water, earth, the four points of the compass - north, south, east, west, the four seasons - spring, summer, autumn, winter, and the points of the cross which related to the four corners of the square (or the 4 corners of the earth). To this Hippocrates added the four humors which became the four personality types which have been interpreted and expressed in countless ways. Which begs the question: But what if there are more than 4 basic personality types? Or Less? In fact, theories of personality currently in vogue suggest 5 as the magic number. But there are some more compelling reasons, or at least tempting ones, to consider 4 as a better starting point. In Defence of Four 1. Personality theories are maps. They are designed to guide the map reader to her destination. So it is important to ask the questions, "what is the destination?" and "which map is best for the journey?". Four is a convinient number for sorting personality types because it is easy to lay out in two dimensions on a page. This is known as a circumplex structure and is valued by anyone trying to design a model of personality. It is the same reason that most geographic maps are made of paper and lay flat, even though the geography itself is three dimentional and ultimately almost never flat. There are tricks to help visualize three dimensions on a flat page and some theories of personality, that of Hans Eysenck for example, use three gradients to represent the personality. This diagram is sometimes called the three-D cross. All systems that use more than 6 extreams or that have more than eight quadrants are not easy to describe visually. 2. Four feels right. This assertian is, obviously, subjective because, as has been mentioned already, most modern theoriest think 5 feels right. But it is the four corners of the earth, the four seas, the four cardinal points, the four winds, the four evangelists, the four seasons, the four points on the cross and the four elements that somehow give a sense of stability. The four letters of the tetragram, the name of God in Hebrew, hint at completion. "In the Bible, and especially in the Book of Revelation, four also suggests [the] notion of universality, the four living creatures being the totality of all living beings in the world of light (they are covered with eyes). The four horsemen carry the four great plagues, the colors of their horses corresponding to the colours of the cardinal points and those of the day, to show the univerality of their action within space and time. White is east and dawn; red, south and noon; grey, west and dusk; black, north and night. The four destroying angels standing at the four corners of the Earth (Rev. 7:1); the four rivers of Paradise (Gen 2:10); the four walls of the heavenly Jerusalem, facing the four points of the compass; the four camps of the twelve tribes of Isreal (Numbers 2); the four emblems of the tribes, one for each group of three, lion, man, bull and eagle; the four letters of the name of God, YHVH, each one according to Jesish tradition corresponding to one of the emblems - Y with man, H with lion, V with bull and the second H with eagle; The four Evangelists - there could not, St Irenaeus says, have been more nor less - and each of these emblems of the trives of Isreal attributed to one of the four Evangelists and agreeing, in a most peculiar way, with the charactersitics of the Gospel concerned - the lion to St. Mark, the man to St Matthew, the bull (or ox) to St Luke and the eagle to St John: these creatures, furthermore, corresponding with the cardinal constellations in the signs of the Zodiac - Taurus (bull), Leo (lion), Aquila (eagle) and Aquarius (man); all these groups of four symbolize a totality (CHAS p. 429)."(A Dictionary of Symbols by Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant [Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1994]403) 3. Many of the theorist of this century have used 4 as a base for their theory. "In 1907 Adickes said man is divided into four world view: dogmatic, agnostic, traditional, and innovative. In 1920 Kretschmer said abnormal behaviour was determined by the temperment similar to thos of Adickes: hyperesthetic, anesthetic, melancholic and hypomanic. Thus some people are born too sensitive, some too insensitive, some too serious, some too excitable. Around 1920 Adler spoke similarly by pointing to four "mistaken goals" people of different make pursue when upset: recognition, power, service and revenge. Also in 1920 Spranger told of four human values that set people apart: Religious, theoretic, economic and artistic." (Please Understand Me:Character & Temperament Types by David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates [Del Mar: Prometheus Nemesis Book Company, 1984]3) Pavlov sorted his dogs into four types. He used conflicting conditioning on them to see how they would respond. Some remained cheerful, some got angry, some went to sleep and some got really nervous. Raymond Cattell came up with 16 personality factors (4x4) and the Minnesota Multephasic Personality Inventory added 12 (3x4) pathological factors. Second order factor analysis uncovered 8 (4x2) deeper factors. Arnold Buss and Robert Plomin at the University of Colorado studied infant twins and compared them to a random sample of other infants. Through a technique similiar to factor analysis they determined that there were four dimensions of temperment. Their work is summarized in Buss's text book, "Personality: Temperament, Social Behavior, and the Self." 4. Four is easy to remember. This may seem silly but a theory's usefulness depends on how well it can be used by the greatest number of people. Theories with more than 4 primary categories run the danger of becoming too complex to be helpful. It is like a map with to much detail on it. You spend so much time trying to figure out the map you miss the turn off. Theories with larger numbers of basic factors may be useful for academics interested in treating psychological disorders, but even the Five Factor Model has come under criticism because it is too descriptive and not diagnostic or predictive enough. One thing about the classic theory is that countless people have used it and give anecdotal evidence for its effectiveness in predicting behavior and offering individuals insights into themselves and others. |
Adam Naming The Animals Everyone, like a snowflake, is unique. Yet even snowflakes can be classified. Sorting people by different personalities has gone on for thousands of years and understanding that history and the systems that developed can help you find a system that will shed light on your own personality and the personalities of those around you. Something in the gut tells us to be careful not to oversimplify the study of human differences, that the human condition is too complex, too irreducible to be summed up easily. But one thing is for sure, humans like to find patterns, and patterns often have to do with contrast and similarity. Children look around their world and see frogs and bugs and bumble bees and recognize that they are different. That is what naming is about. In this way everyone is a bit like Adam, naming the aminals. Then children notice that there are different colored frogs, and that even the green ones have differences, and so on. Everyone makes sense of the universe by sorting out things according to differences and similarities. Around the globe humans have turned this skill on themselves and sorted people by there different temperments and personalities. The most well know systems for sorting personality include the classical Greek system, the Enneagram, The Myer-Briggs Type Indicator, Eysenck's PEN model, and the newest kid on the block, The Big Five. (The Big Five has recently been updated and renamed, The Five Factor Theory, in 1990 and there is a new test for this called the NEO produced by McCrae and Costa.) Theories of Personality Humoralism The best know method of classification is the one devised by Hippocrates in his "Nature of Man" which came to be known as Humoralism. This theory, based on a combination of existing ideas and Hippocrates' own keen observations and logic, suggested that the four bodily fluids or humors were at the root of all the major questions of disease, health and personality. This theory held great influence in medicine and philosophy right up to the late 1650's when Thomas Willis began to develop a system of chemical explanations for disorders of the mind and body. The blood (following Harvey's work) became the prime humor and all other humors were seen as by products of the cleaning of the blood. That the theory of four distinct classifications of man dominated western thinking from perhaps as early as Pythagoras till the end of the 1600's, approximately 2000 years, indicates that it is a useful and robust theory. Even with the decline of the Humorial explanation of human well being, the idea of four types of people has survived. The words still used for these four types of people come from the humors, even if no one actually believes there is a connection between the humors and personality anymore. The word "Choleric" comes from the Latin "Cholera" which in turn was from the Greek "Khole" or Bile. Thus in Hippocrate's opinion people with an excess of "Bile" were bad tempered.. The word Melancholic comes from the combination of Cholic (Khole - Bile) with the word for dark. Sanguines are people who have an excess of blood, as the Latin "Sanguineus" (Bloody) suggests. Phlegmatic comes from the Latin, "Phlegmaticus" and contains the most used and recognized word of the four root words in English, Phlegm. Phlegm and Blood we know about but the yellow and black bile have a more mysterious identification. Henry E. Sigerist gives the following speculation: "in this as in other cases the Greeks based their theories on observations. We know that the stool of patients suffering from bleeding gastric ulcers is black, as sometimes are the substances vomited by patients with carcinoma of the stomach. A form of malaria is still known as 'blackwater fever' because the urine as a result of acute intravascular hemolysis suddenly becomes very dark, if not black at least mahogany-colored. Similar observations may have led to the assumption that ordinary yellow bile through corruption could become black and that this black bile caused disease, notably the 'black bile disease,' named melancholy." (The Humors and Their Relationships in A History of Medicine, 2nd Vols.[New York: Oxford University Press, 1961] 2:323, as quoted in Melancholia and Depression: From Hippocratic Times to Modern Times by Stanley W. Jackson M.D. [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986] 8) From heath and Disease to Personality The Significance of Four Hippocrates inherited the idea of the Bile and Blood and Phlegm from earlier physicians who understood that these bodily fluids had important connections to life and health. He was also familiar with the ideas of Pythagoras who had noted a similarity between the four seasons of the year and the stages of growth in humans. This became known as the "Four Ages of Man". The four ages are: Childhood, Youth, Adulthood and Old Age. Hippocrates combined the two ideas in what became the first systematic representation of the differences between people. The concept has been represented by Sigerist in the following way: |
Adam Naming The Animals Everyone, like a snowflake, is unique. Yet even snowflakes can be classified. Sorting people by different personalities has gone on for thousands of years and understanding that history and the systems that developed can help you find a system that will shed light on your own personality and the personalities of those around you. Something in the gut tells us to be careful not to oversimplify the study of human differences, that the human condition is too complex, too irreducible to be summed up easily. But one thing is for sure, humans like to find patterns, and patterns often have to do with contrast and similarity. Children look around their world and see frogs and bugs and bumble bees and recognize that they are different. That is what naming is about. In this way everyone is a bit like Adam, naming the aminals. Then children notice that there are different colored frogs, and that even the green ones have differences, and so on. Everyone makes sense of the universe by sorting out things according to differences and similarities. Around the globe humans have turned this skill on themselves and sorted people by there different temperments and personalities. The most well know systems for sorting personality include the classical Greek system, the Enneagram, The Myer-Briggs Type Indicator, Eysenck's PEN model, and the newest kid on the block, The Big Five. (The Big Five has recently been updated and renamed, The Five Factor Theory, in 1990 and there is a new test for this called the NEO produced by McCrae and Costa.) Theories of Personality Humoralism The best know method of classification is the one devised by Hippocrates in his "Nature of Man" which came to be known as Humoralism. This theory, based on a combination of existing ideas and Hippocrates' own keen observations and logic, suggested that the four bodily fluids or humors were at the root of all the major questions of disease, health and personality. This theory held great influence in medicine and philosophy right up to the late 1650's when Thomas Willis began to develop a system of chemical explanations for disorders of the mind and body. The blood (following Harvey's work) became the prime humor and all other humors were seen as by products of the cleaning of the blood. That the theory of four distinct classifications of man dominated western thinking from perhaps as early as Pythagoras till the end of the 1600's, approximately 2000 years, indicates that it is a useful and robust theory. Even with the decline of the Humorial explanation of human well being, the idea of four types of people has survived. The words still used for these four types of people come from the humors, even if no one actually believes there is a connection between the humors and personality anymore. The word "Choleric" comes from the Latin "Cholera" which in turn was from the Greek "Khole" or Bile. Thus in Hippocrate's opinion people with an excess of "Bile" were bad tempered.. The word Melancholic comes from the combination of Cholic (Khole - Bile) with the word for dark. Sanguines are people who have an excess of blood, as the Latin "Sanguineus" (Bloody) suggests. Phlegmatic comes from the Latin, "Phlegmaticus" and contains the most used and recognized word of the four root words in English, Phlegm. Phlegm and Blood we know about but the yellow and black bile have a more mysterious identification. Henry E. Sigerist gives the following speculation: "in this as in other cases the Greeks based their theories on observations. We know that the stool of patients suffering from bleeding gastric ulcers is black, as sometimes are the substances vomited by patients with carcinoma of the stomach. A form of malaria is still known as 'blackwater fever' because the urine as a result of acute intravascular hemolysis suddenly becomes very dark, if not black at least mahogany-colored. Similar observations may have led to the assumption that ordinary yellow bile through corruption could become black and that this black bile caused disease, notably the 'black bile disease,' named melancholy." (The Humors and Their Relationships in A History of Medicine, 2nd Vols.[New York: Oxford University Press, 1961] 2:323, as quoted in Melancholia and Depression: From Hippocratic Times to Modern Times by Stanley W. Jackson M.D. [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986] 8) From heath and Disease to Personality The Significance of Four Hippocrates inherited the idea of the Bile and Blood and Phlegm from earlier physicians who understood that these bodily fluids had important connections to life and health. He was also familiar with the ideas of Pythagoras who had noted a similarity between the four seasons of the year and the stages of growth in humans. This became known as the "Four Ages of Man". The four ages are: Childhood, Youth, Adulthood and Old Age. Hippocrates combined the two ideas in what became the first systematic representation of the differences between people. The concept has been represented by Sigerist in the following way: |
History of Personality Theory by Richard R. Powell |
Henry E. Sigerist (The Humors and Their Relationships in A History of Medicine, 2nd Vols.[New York: Oxford University Press, 1961] |
This almost stark and geometric representation of one of the basic principles of existence probably illustrates well the attraction it had for Hippocrates and those who came after him. Pythagoras, the man credited with laying the foundations for mathematics, had an interesting doctrine that came from his study of the mechanics of music. F.M. Cornford says, "Pythagoras found out that the perfect consonances (as they are still called) of the musical scale - the intervals of the forth, the fifth, and the octave - can be exactly expressed as ratios between the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4, which, added together, make the perfect number 10. The ratio of the octave is 2:1; the ratio of the fifth is 3:2, the ratio of the forth is 4:3. This discovery was, no doubt, made by measuring, on a monochord with a movable bridge, the lengths of string required to yield the several notes forming the perfect intervals." (Before and After Socrates [London: Cambridge University Press, 1964] 66). Music opened Pythagoras' mind to a revolutionary concept: There is constancy in the universe! In fact not only constancy but an apparent simplicity. Pythagoras reasoned that if this harmonious structure was constant through all the variety of musical scales (was in fact the architecture of all music) might not other apparently complex realities have a basic explanation? Cornford puts it this way, "For if the chaotic welter of sounds that besiege our hearing can be reduced, by the simple principle of limiting measure, to the harmonious order of art and finally to proportions of number, might not the whole of nature, with its acknowledged beauty, be framed on a principle analogous or even identical?" (ibid., 67) Pythagoras wondered if order, and not chaos, was the norm, but that we, lacking a full understanding of the numerical nature of things, fail to perceive the order and instead feel lost and unable to predict what will happen next. The Pagan culture that Pythagoras left when he moved to Samos, held that the God's controlled things and humanity was helpless to stand against such random or at best cyclical realities. The fundamental change in Pythagorean cosmology was summed up in the phrase, "Things are numbers" and as such the formula and arrangement of things could be worked out. This very "Greek" way of approaching things was set in motion by Thales who plucked geometry out of the hands of Egyptians (who used it in a practical way) and made it a universal truth, able to be applied to a whole manner of questions. Pythagorean understanding suggests that the same use might be made of numbers. Perhaps a clear understanding of numbers would unveil a whole new understanding of the cosmos. The Tetraktys The Tetraktys was the Pythagorean expression of the importance of four. Claimed to contain the knowledge of all things the tetraktys is a triangular shape of 4 lines made up of ten dots. It looked like this: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 The top dot represents singularity, the Monad, or Godhead, principle of all things, latent being, source, unity, beginning, perfection. The next two dots down symbolize the first manifestation, or dualism of the cosmos. Male and female, light and darkness, heaven and earth, sperm and egg, good and evil, right and left, inside and outside, etc. The next three dots represent the three levels of the world - infernal, terrestrial and celestial, - and the three levels of human life - Mind, body and soul, and of time - past, present, future, and of the process of life - Birth, growth, death. The last four dots form the base and represent the four elements - fire, air, water, earth, the four points of the compass - north, south, east, west, the four seasons - spring, summer, autumn, winter, and the points of the cross which related to the four corners of the square (or the 4 corners of the earth). To this Hippocrates added the four humors which became the four personality types which have been interpreted and expressed in countless ways. Which begs the question: But what if there are more than 4 basic personality types? Or Less? In fact, theories of personality currently in vogue suggest 5 as the magic number. But there are some more compelling reasons, or at least tempting ones, to consider 4 as a better starting point. In Defence of Four 1. Personality theories are maps. They are designed to guide the map reader to her destination. So it is important to ask the questions, "what is the destination?" and "which map is best for the journey?". Four is a convinient number for sorting personality types because it is easy to lay out in two dimensions on a page. This is known as a circumplex structure and is valued by anyone trying to design a model of personality. It is the same reason that most geographic maps are made of paper and lay flat, even though the geography itself is three dimentional and ultimately almost never flat. There are tricks to help visualize three dimensions on a flat page and some theories of personality, that of Hans Eysenck for example, use three gradients to represent the personality. This diagram is sometimes called the three-D cross. All systems that use more than 6 extreams or that have more than eight quadrants are not easy to describe visually. 2. Four feels right. This assertian is, obviously, subjective because, as has been mentioned already, most modern theoriest think 5 feels right. But it is the four corners of the earth, the four seas, the four cardinal points, the four winds, the four evangelists, the four seasons, the four points on the cross and the four elements that somehow give a sense of stability. The four letters of the tetragram, the name of God in Hebrew, hint at completion. "In the Bible, and especially in the Book of Revelation, four also suggests [the] notion of universality, the four living creatures being the totality of all living beings in the world of light (they are covered with eyes). The four horsemen carry the four great plagues, the colors of their horses corresponding to the colours of the cardinal points and those of the day, to show the univerality of their action within space and time. White is east and dawn; red, south and noon; grey, west and dusk; black, north and night. The four destroying angels standing at the four corners of the Earth (Rev. 7:1); the four rivers of Paradise (Gen 2:10); the four walls of the heavenly Jerusalem, facing the four points of the compass; the four camps of the twelve tribes of Isreal (Numbers 2); the four emblems of the tribes, one for each group of three, lion, man, bull and eagle; the four letters of the name of God, YHVH, each one according to Jesish tradition corresponding to one of the emblems - Y with man, H with lion, V with bull and the second H with eagle; The four Evangelists - there could not, St Irenaeus says, have been more nor less - and each of these emblems of the trives of Isreal attributed to one of the four Evangelists and agreeing, in a most peculiar way, with the charactersitics of the Gospel concerned - the lion to St. Mark, the man to St Matthew, the bull (or ox) to St Luke and the eagle to St John: these creatures, furthermore, corresponding with the cardinal constellations in the signs of the Zodiac - Taurus (bull), Leo (lion), Aquila (eagle) and Aquarius (man); all these groups of four symbolize a totality (CHAS p. 429)."(A Dictionary of Symbols by Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant [Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1994]403) 3. Many of the theorist of this century have used 4 as a base for their theory. "In 1907 Adickes said man is divided into four world view: dogmatic, agnostic, traditional, and innovative. In 1920 Kretschmer said abnormal behaviour was determined by the temperment similar to thos of Adickes: hyperesthetic, anesthetic, melancholic and hypomanic. Thus some people are born too sensitive, some too insensitive, some too serious, some too excitable. Around 1920 Adler spoke similarly by pointing to four "mistaken goals" people of different make pursue when upset: recognition, power, service and revenge. Also in 1920 Spranger told of four human values that set people apart: Religious, theoretic, economic and artistic." (Please Understand Me:Character & Temperament Types by David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates [Del Mar: Prometheus Nemesis Book Company, 1984]3) Pavlov sorted his dogs into four types. He used conflicting conditioning on them to see how they would respond. Some remained cheerful, some got angry, some went to sleep and some got really nervous. Raymond Cattell came up with 16 personality factors (4x4) and the Minnesota Multephasic Personality Inventory added 12 (3x4) pathological factors. Second order factor analysis uncovered 8 (4x2) deeper factors. Arnold Buss and Robert Plomin at the University of Colorado studied infant twins and compared them to a random sample of other infants. Through a technique similiar to factor analysis they determined that there were four dimensions of temperment. Their work is summarized in Buss's text book, "Personality: Temperament, Social Behavior, and the Self." 4. Four is easy to remember. This may seem silly but a theory's usefulness depends on how well it can be used by the greatest number of people. Theories with more than 4 primary categories run the danger of becoming too complex to be helpful. It is like a map with to much detail on it. You spend so much time trying to figure out the map you miss the turn off. Theories with larger numbers of basic factors may be useful for academics interested in treating psychological disorders, but even the Five Factor Model has come under criticism because it is too descriptive and not diagnostic or predictive enough. One thing about the classic theory is that countless people have used it and give anecdotal evidence for its effectiveness in predicting behavior and offering individuals insights into themselves and others. |
Published March 23, 2000 Updated: January 8, 2003 |
