Glossary: Rational Functions

The axis which contains the thinking and feeling functions. Jung called these rational because one has to reflect on what was perceived when using these functions. (See also “irrational functions.”)

The rational attitude which permits us to declare objective values as valid at all is not the work of the individual subject, but the product of human history. Most objective values - and reason itself - are firmly established complexes of ideas handed down through the ages. Countless generations have laboured at their organization with the same necessity with which the living organism reacts to the average, constantly recurring environmental conditions, confronting them with corresponding functional complexes, as the eye, for instance, perfectly corresponds to the nature of light… Thus the laws of reason are the laws that designate and govern the average, “correct,” adapted attitude. Everything is “rational” that accords with these laws, everything that contravenes them is “irrational.”

“Definitions,” par. 785f