I know that the functions are difficult to isolate and describe out of context, but I'm not sure whether the context is necessarily a combination of it and 'opposite' function (e.g. Ti and Fe), a combination of introversion and extraversion, or human cognition in general.
That's the really interesting part though! Let's use Ti as an example. If someone undergoes a Ti process, they are removing themselves in part from having an impact on the world and attempting to devise some sort of containing architecture of thought that relates and differentiates things in terms of some
weight. This creates personal value I guess some could say in navigating and understanding the world.
But what's the point of this introversion if it doesn't lead to extroversion? That value is meaningless unless it asserts itself through making an impact via extroversion. So perhaps we could then say that a Ti user could extrovert through Te or Fe. So the question then to me becomes "what is the difference in relationship between Te and Fe to Ti?"
Well, think about it another way, what would be more natural, using Te to impact the result of that Ti directly, or using Fe, which requires that the result of that Ti orients itself in a more foreign capacity through Fe compared to Te? Most people don't dispute this difference, but then there's the more important difference in that to use a Ti process
requires repression of Fe by its completely opposing orientation; Te on the other hand, while not being used when Ti is used, can be simply ignored to do this. Ti and Fe have a philosophical duality going on here similar to the duality of good and evil, but there is not one with Ti and Te. To properly understand how that Ti process manifests, it will depend on how it is in conflict with Fe. But by conflict I don't imply that a person is
weak in the process, but that they feel a need to not use it, or repress it.
The functions are then a lot deeper than most people seem to appreciate. I don't know if I'd say that type is innate then because it's ignorant to say either way, considering the problems of philosophy this would conflict with and how everyone is different and has different experiences that can change them in various ways. But does that make sense?
You hit upon something important, though--that the functions are difficult to extract from their context. And since they're so hard to extract, they're difficult to explain; since they're difficult to explain, they're difficult to get any sort of meaningful predictions from.
Perhaps, but we understand lots of abstractions that are taken for granted like how something can be pretty or hot or cold or how we can be sad or whatever, which I'm sure you understand.
In a way it's like comparing how a person understands a book after reading it the first time compared to the third time reading it. It takes time to understand what these abstractions represent. But, much more importantly and intuitively, you'd probably find most of it is already taken for granted by our psyches without understanding what those parts are (Socrates answer to Meno's Paradox brilliantly explains what I'm saying). I would imagine that's what the functions aim to elucidate then, an awareness of knowledge that we already have. Otherwise, we're fabricating ideas and what's the point then; because what we're really looking for is insight in understanding the nature of our seemingly open-ended existence, right?
How should we extract and explain the true meaning of the cognitive functions? Can they be taken in isolation, or must they be taken in pairs?
I believe they have to be taken in pairs to understand them correctly in isolation. It's like understanding what it is that makes up a human being. If you only aim to understand parts of a person and don't consider how those parts form the whole person as well, what do you really know about that particular person? We're both the sum of the parts, as much as the parts of the sum? Or does that seem like a contradiction?