1 The Assumption of “Meaning”

Meaning is often treated as intrinsic: a property of words, symbols, acts, or objects. We speak as if a sentence “contains” meaning, a ritual “embodies” meaning, or an artefact “is meaningful” in itself. In this view, meaning exists independently, waiting to be discovered.

Yet meaning is never observed in isolation. It emerges from relational construal — the alignment of a perceiver, a context, and a symbolic act. A word gains significance only when interpreted within a network of relations; a ritual communicates only insofar as participants share and stabilise its relational pattern. Meaning is enacted, not possessed.

By naturalising meaning as intrinsic, we repeat the familiar misstep: projecting modulation (necessity, intrinsic force) onto what is modal (relational potential actualised in context). The seeming stability of meaning is not a decree of symbols but the repeated actualisation of relational patterns through perspective, interpretation, and social alignment.

Recognising meaning as relational preserves its explanatory power while correcting its ontology. Symbols do not compel interpretation; they offer possibilities that are actualised through construal. To see the frame is to see that meaning is a relational artefact, not a property inherent in things themselves.