Following the posts above , I would like to tackle Te from the perspective of an INTJ, it's interesting that the original post states the works of Plato as an interest to INTJ's as this would fit the following analogy:
Imagine that inside the mind of the Te user sits a group of
Te thinkers (let's go with philosophers). When new information enters our mind it would be as if a giant basket of papers brought in by an
Ni messenger.
Each philosopher would pick up a paper, read the information on it and presents this information to the other philosophers. They'll start debating whether the information is correct, whether it is viable with the information that was already presented by each philosopher and whether it
fits the whole subject. When all papers have been taken out of the basket and all information has been debated, the leading philosopher (let's call him Socrates) would then propose a final statement. When all philosophers agree on that statement, that statement would then be presented to the outside world, if not, he'll debate again with the other philosophers or waits for more information coming from the
Ni messenger to further debate the topic.
Does it mean Socrates is always right? Certainly not. But Socrates, being the leading authority in the group would have enough viability in regards to the validity of the statement, even if that statement is based on incomplete information (if
sufficient information has been processed, and yes therein lies the problem).
The tldr version;
Te invokes an inner debate/dialogue on a subject based on incoming information, it processes this, creates a conclusion and then uses this conclusion as a decision statement. Te, as it is an extraverted function, also tends to voice the decision-making outwards, hence that the Te's will force a debate vocally and pull in outside parties in the decision making.
Bad Te users
enforce their decision-making on the outside party (hence the destructiveness/competitiveness).
Fi is really subjective to each person, as these are a set of deeply rooted convictions, so a good Fi might actually enforce a positive morality behind a decision, a bad Fi would impact it negatively. I do agree that Fi might easily break the objectivity of a decision.
Ti works differently as it would take on information as a single person, a smart little thinker that would take the giant basket to itself and sort everything out, views every paper of information piece by piece and then creates an inner decision based on all the information it has gathered. It is much stronger in regards to the depth of the decision as it has been taken by one perspective, but it takes a longer time to reach that conclusion.
PS: Imagine if these Te thinkers would get a big jug of wine added during the debate. Makes for some interesting (but worthless) decision making.
I think that INFJs as well as INTJs can be pretty good at organisational effectiveness. We come at it from a different angle, that's all - an INTJ will be very focused on the structural efficiency, but still needs to place and motivate the people involved, an INFJ will probably start off motivating the people to work imaginatively in the best way within the existing structure, but will happily design new ways of doing things if it proved necessary. Both types are Ni dominant and the insights that come from there are similar - and we both need to use a blend of Fe and Te to bring our intuitions to life in the outer world.
