According to the ideas of the Taoistic religion, Tao is divided into a principle pair of opposites, and . Yang is warmth, light, masculinity. Yin is cold, darkness, femininity. Yang is also heaven, Yin earth. From the Yang force arises , the celestial portion of the human soul; and from the Yin force arises , the earthly part. Tao-te-king

Joseph Campbell, among others, points out that the symbol for Yin and Yang shows that each quality has a little of its opposite in it, otherwise it could not relate to its opposite at all.

The Greeks establish (introverted dreaming) and (extroverted frenzy) traditions. Watch a French animated movie called "The Speech Of Aristophanes (Plato, Symposium 189d-191d)". Plato and Aristotle! These are not merely two systems; they are also types of two distinct human natures, which from immemorial time, under every sort of cloak, stand more or less inimically opposed. But pre-eminently the whole medieval period was riven by this conflict, persisting even to the present day; moreover, this battle is the most essential content of the history of the Christian Church. Though under different names, always and essentially it is of Plato and Aristotle that we speak. reveal Christian ideas and their corresponding symbols from the bottomless depths of their souls. build up from these ideas and symbols a solid system, a dogma and a cult. Heinrich Heine: Deutschland

Galen identifies four temperaments due to body fluids or humors:

Milton contrasts the and the . (See "L'Allegro and Il Penseroso".)

Schiller discusses psychological polarity in "Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man".

In 1923 Jung will claim that this document shows Schiller's "feminine" relationship with the more extroverted Goethe. (See Jung, "Psychological Types", p. 102.)

As a reply to Newton's theories, Goethe developed a Theory of Colour (Zur Farbenlehre, published in 1810), which became a personal obsession in his last years, and which he considered more important than his literary works, but which was not well received by contemporary scientists.

Physiologists demonstrate the separate development of and nerves.

Nietzsche contrasts the Greek (introverted dreaming) and (extroverted frenzy) traditions. (See "The Birth of Tragedy".)

Spitteler contrasts (forethinker, introvert) with (after-thinker, extrovert) types. (See the poem "Prometheus and Epimetheus".)

Jordan contrasts the with the . (See "Character as seen in Body and Parentage", London).

Kraepelin divides psychoses into and varieties.

Contrasts with .

William James becomes the first American psychologist to insist on the importance of psychological polarity. In Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking [1907], he contrasts the following attributes of and personalities, attributes which are nearly identical in meaning to similar terms to be offered in the 1920's by Jung under the headings of and and in the 1960's by Paul Rosenfels under the headings and and, later, and :

(See "Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking".)

Contrasts with types. (See "Grosse Männer", biographies of scientists, Leipzig.)

Contrasts with . Kretschmer's subtypes include "gushing jolly people" and "quiet humorists."

To reconcile the conflict between Freud's intuitionistic psychology and Adler's power (ie. ego) psychology, Jung focuses on gender-free polarity. Hence with Freud the basic formula is , which expresses the strongest relation between subject and object; with Adler it is that of the subject which most effectively ensures him against the object, and gives to the subject an unassailable isolation which amputates every relation. Psychological Types, or, The Psychology of Individuation,
1923, p. 80 - 81

In "Psychological Types", first published in translation in 1923, Jung presents a comprehensive history of the "type problem" in psychology. The existence of two distinct types is actually a fact that has long been known: a fact that in one form or another has dawned upon the observer of human nature or shed light upon the brooding reflection of the thinker; presenting itself, for example, to Goethe's intuition as the embracing principle of and . The names and forms in which the mechanism of introversion and extraversion has been conceived are extremely diverse, and are, as a rule, adapted only to the standpoint of the individual observer. Notwithstanding the diversity of the formulations, the common basis or fundamental idea shines constantly through; namely, in the one case an outward movement of interest toward the object, and in the other a movement of interest away from the object, towards the subject and his own psychological processes. Psychological Types, p. 11

Jung's blind spot: he doesn't understand polar magnetism. Jung's analogy of two polarized youths who come upon a castle in the wood, for example, as discussed in "Two Essays on Analytical Psychology" is merely logical. Jung says they will immediately separate because the extrovert will want to climb to the highest parapet while the introvert will be fightened and withdraw. If he had been more observant, he would have noticed that in divisive situations extroverts help introverts to rise above their helplessness, while introverts help extroverts pull back from their recklessness. It's win/win.

Contrasts those who have a tendency to [in the power of others] with those who have a tendency to [in the power of others].

Bleuler updates Kraepelin's 1899 division of the psychoses into and varieties, by supplanting the former with a more comprehensive schizophrenia category.

Sainsbury's "The Theory of Polarity" (G. P. Putnam, xiii, 224 p., 1927, second edition 1931), polarizes with , time with space, music with the plastic arts, the German mentality with the French, werden with sein, change with existence, number with form, and algebra with geometry.

Sainsbury also wrote the following:

  • 1922: Polarity (a 48 page pamphlet printed & published for the author in a limited edition of 500 copies by the Favil press). Can be downloaded in various formats from www.archive.org. Also available as a .PDF here.
  • 1928: The Pursuit of a Reasonable World (New Adelphi).
  • 1933: The Dictatorship of Things (London, Methuen & Co. Ltd., x, 166 p. 20 cm., on the application of materialism to social problems),
My words do not contain the truth — they point towards it. The Theory of Polarity
The first, and some would say the greatest, achievement of your own 'Western' culture was the conceiving of two ideals of conduct, both essential to the spirit's well-being. , delighting in the truth for its own sake and not merely for practical ends, glorified unbiased thinking, honesty of mind and speech. , delighting in the actual human persons around him, and in that flavour of divinity which, for him, pervaded the world, stood for unselfish love of neighbours and of God. Socrates woke to the ideal of dispassionate intelligence, Jesus to the ideal of passionate yet self-oblivious worship. Socrates urged intellectual integrity, Jesus integrity of will. Each, of course, though starting with a different emphasis, involved the other.

Unfortunately both these ideals demanded of the human brain a degree of and of which the nervous system of the First Men was never really capable. For many centuries these twin stars enticed the more precociously human of human animals, in vain. And the failure to put these ideals in practice helped to engender in the race a cynical lassitude which was one cause of its decay. Last and First Men, 1931

Contrasts and types with those of Kretschmer: The is basically good-natured and sociable, a person who swings from cheerfulness to depression. The is basically humorless and unsocial, a person who has warring within him at the same time shyness, oversensitive refined feeling, and insensitive, dull-witted, and sulky affectivity. It should be emphasized that these cycloid and schizoid traits are, on the one hand, transitional developments short of their clearly abnormal counterparts, and, on the other hand, not necessarily related to the healthy biotypes Kretschmer designated as and . P. L. Harriman, Encyclopedia of Psychology, 1946, p. 460

Contrasts Expansivitaet and Defensivitaet, Angriffslust and Genussucht, Empfaenglichkeit and Sinnlichkeit. (In German orthography these are Expansivität and Defensivität, Angriffslust and Genußsucht, Empfänglichkeit and Sinnlichkeit. See "Polarity in Character Structure: A System of Characterology".)

Efforts to clarify human typology continue to be ensnared in semantic nonsense. Consider as but one example the following abuse of type terminology: type, reversal. Abraham and Jones use this expression for persons with a tendency to act in a way contrary to normal. They may express contrary opinions, though they know them to be illogical; they may dress 'out of style'; they may enumerate irrelevant items, etc. Psychiatric Dictionary, Fourth Edition, p. 797

People who talk this way are but one step removed from people who talk about New York types, or feminist types, or "those Jews," or "those Blacks." Their attitude reduces typological analysis to an opportunity to marginalize those who aren't acceptible in polite society or whose distress can be used to exploit the naivety of insurance companies. Remember: To be normal means only to be diseased to an average degree.

Uses polarity in Psychoanalysis and Civilization (1962) to develop a consistent and coherent description of human nature in its entirety. In Homosexuality: The Psychology of the Creative Process (1971), claims that a son will always polarize with his father and a daughter with her mother.

Paul describes four levels of / polarity:

Paul uses:

Paul describes in detail the ordinary world of human reality in which ordinary people find themselves. His theories are simple, despite a sometimes academic style.

Unpublished writings by Bach are used by a British group.

Gilligan contrasts the with the . (See "The Heterosexuals are Coming: The Fusion Strategy".)

— prepared by in 1988
with contributions from in 2007