Though action is usefully parsed into three components (given purpose, effective enacting, and discerned fulfillment), there are four aspects of psychality which pertain to every action cycle: conation (intentionality), affect (emotion), cognition (representation), and relationality (engagement). But each aspect makes sense relative to its belonging with the others.

Conation (intentionality) is valuative, the basis of aspiration (which is also relationally affected and cognitive). Theory of value is about what is appealing or worthwhile.

Affect (emotion) is somatic. But feeling is better regarded as affective value, not simply as emotion because commonly emotion doesn’t have a specific “target” (value); but never is there valuation (appeal) without being affected by (drawn to) what’s valued.

Cognition is representational. But too commonly, mental events are regarded as essentially cognitive, rather than cognition regarded as one mode of mental events. So-called “cognitive scinece” is better understood as holistically mental science.

Relationality is basically interal, though commonly represented as mere relating, one to another (not one with another), i.e., merely as distinct “I” in differentiated relation to (distinct from) what’s interesting. But the basic feeling of relating is the complex phenomenon of belonging, such that mere relation to is a diminished mode of relating with: affective self-identification (conative) with (interal) a specific (cognitive) phenomenon. Commonly, a person is in merely distinct relation (e.g., casual interpersonal life, disinterested objectification of a phenomenon). But also commonly, a person is interested in more than that: There’s desire to relate more meaningfully, i.e., to belong with; and desire to identify with, i.e., to be mirrored by an appeal.

So, my tending to explicate each aspect relative to other aspects reflects that psychal aspects of action are abstractions from the alive cohering of enaction.

Psychality of action can also be usefully regarded bi-modally:

• Intentionality may tend to be more oriented to preference by feeling (selfidentical) than by deliberation (reasoning).
• Affect may tend to be more oriented to valuing (internalist) than to appreciating.
• Cognition may tend to be more intuitional (internalist) than evidentiary
• Relating may tend to be more introverted (reflective) than exhibitive (extraverted).

Personality theory in light of C. G. Jung’s “psychological types” can be validly associated with the bi-modal 4-fold above, which is represented by the Myers-Briggs schema (which is empirically well-validated for counseling), where “vs.” tropes a contuum of tending to prefer:

• Feeling vs. Thinking style of intentionality
• Judgement vs. Perceptive style of affect
• Intuition vs. Sensation style of cognition
• Introversional vs. Extraversional style of relating

Another useful bi-modal fourfold results from mapping externalist / internalist bi-modality onto tangible (material, concrete) / intangible (immaterial, abstract) bimodality diagramed as four quadrants, each open to focal engagement versus horizonal engagement:

• lower outer: externalist tangibility (e.g., objectivations)
• higher outer: externalist intangibility (e.g., categorization)
• lower inner: internalist tangibility (e.g., somatic life)
• higher inner: internalist intangibility (e.g., values)

A fun association of this with Heidegger’s Hölderlinian (literary) fourfold is:

• Earth (externalist tangibility)
• Sky (externalist intangibility)
• Mortality (internalist tangibility)
• Divinities (internalist intangibility).

So, a bi-modal 4-fold psychality of action can be interestingly troped by a bi-modal 4-fold pragmatic of personality which echoes a literary existentialism.

That 3-fold mix of bi-modalities can be a pragmatic model of fourfolding.