1 From Individuals to Patterns
Social theory has long oscillated between two poles: the individual and the collective. Some traditions begin with the individual — rational, embodied, intentional — and build upward toward social order. Others begin with the social — systems, institutions, ideologies — and work downward to shape the subject. Both assume that social reality is something to be discovered: a stable structure or hidden force that precedes and explains the experience of the collective.
But what if we began elsewhere — not with the opposition between individual and society, but with construal? In a relational ontology, there is no reality independent of construal. There is no social given that is simply “there” before we engage with it. There are only patterned potentials that become meaningful through the cuts we make — the distinctions we enact, the perspectives we take, the instances we phase.
From this standpoint, the “collective” is not an entity to be posited but a construal of patterned potential — a meaningful configuration of ongoing processes. It is not a substance, not an aggregation, not even a fusion of subjectivities. It is a perspectival phase-cut in the flow of construal, enacted through meaning, and capable of being re-instantiated in new ways.
This shift has consequences. It means we must reject the assumption that collectives are simply made of individuals, as though individuals were prior and discrete units. The concept of the individual is itself a construal — a way of carving a path through the relational potential of embodied, temporal, meaning-making processes. There is no moment before meaning in which autonomous individuals are “already there,” ready to form collectives by agreement or proximity.
Instead, what we call “social form” arises when the patterned possibilities of interaction are construed as having a shape. This shape is not a thing, but a temporally sustained configuration — one that coheres long enough to be actualised, recognised, and interpreted as a “group,” a “community,” a “society.” It is this phase-cut of potential that is mistaken for a metaphysical collective.
In this sense, collectivity is not the background condition of meaning, nor its product. It is itself an act of meaning: the construal of emergent relationality in a way that makes the collective thinkable.
The goal of this series is not to redefine social theory from first principles, but to show how a relational ontology reframes what social formation even is. The social is not something “out there” to be explained. It is something “in here,” actively construed — a cut in the relational fabric that allows meaning to phase as we.
2 Phasing the Collective — Temporality without Teleology
If collectivity is not a static state but a cut in the flow of construal, then it cannot be explained in terms of fixed boundaries or essential properties. Instead, we must understand it as phased potential: a temporarily stabilised configuration in the ongoing semiosis of meaning. The collective does not simply persist through time — it phases across time, its continuity maintained not by essence but by the recurrent construal of pattern.
This brings us to the question of temporality.
In traditional social theory, collectives are often imagined as entities that move through time: developing, decaying, evolving, progressing. The danger here is teleology — the idea that collectives unfold toward predetermined ends or follow necessary stages of development. Such narratives often smuggle in metaphysical assumptions: that history has direction, that society has functions, that the group has a telos.
From a relational perspective, these are not empirical truths but construals of pattern over time. A social formation may appear to “evolve,” but this is not a property of the formation itself — it is a perspectival phasing of the phenomena construed as meaningful. Temporal sequence is not given; it is enacted. What appears as development may simply be a re-instantiation of potential from a new perspective.
So instead of saying “the collective evolves,” we say: the collective is continually re-instantiated as a phase-cut across unfolding relational potential.
This has two important implications:
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There is no fixed origin or destiny for the collective. What looks like a “founding moment” is itself a phase-cut — a construal of past events as marking the beginning. What looks like a decline or dissolution is another construal, often retroactively imposed. There is no metaphysical birth or death of the group — only changes in how it is enacted, recognised, and sustained through meaning.
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There is no privileged scale of temporality. Some social formations phase over minutes (e.g. spontaneous gatherings), others over millennia (e.g. civilisations). But in each case, the continuity is not a brute fact — it is a coherence construed and sustained through the semiotic practices that make the collective thinkable.
This reframing allows us to study collectivity without reducing it to the individual (as liberal theory tends to do), without reifying it into structure (as systems theory often does), and without narrating it through mythic arcs of origin and destiny (as teleological history presumes).
Instead, we trace the temporality of construal itself — how meaning phases as collectivity, how that phasing is sustained, and how new patterns emerge when different cuts are made.
3 Meaningful Alignment — The Semiotic Work of Cohesion
If the collective is not a pre-given whole but a relational construal, then its cohesion cannot be explained by reference to shared essence, biological impulse, or institutional structure. Instead, we must ask: what kinds of meaning-making allow collectivity to cohere as a phase of potential?
The answer is not unity, but alignment.
Alignment is not sameness
A collective does not require all its members to agree, believe, or desire the same things. Rather, it requires that their meanings resonate enough to sustain a shared phase of experience. Alignment is not a merging of perspectives, but a synchrony of difference — an attunement of semantic potential that makes interaction possible.
For this reason, alignment is not a condition of being, but a semiotic achievement. It is done, not found.
This achievement unfolds through what systemic functional linguistics calls the interpersonal metafunction: the ongoing negotiation of meaning among participants in dialogue. When speakers take up each other’s proposals, respond to each other’s evaluations, or adjust their tone to one another’s stance, they are not simply expressing personal feelings — they are performing relational labour. They are aligning.
But this labour is fragile. Alignment is not a stable state but a process of continuous maintenance and recalibration. What holds the collective together is not consensus, but the recurring construal of meaningful connection — a connection that must be enacted again and again in each instance of interaction.
Phasing through commitment
When a group appears “cohesive,” what we are seeing is not an objective structure but a stabilised phase of alignment — a cut through time in which participants continue to construe themselves as co-participants in a meaningful whole. This phase can persist only so long as the alignment holds: when individuals no longer attune, the collective unphases.
Importantly, this cohesion need not be explicit. Much of it operates tacitly: through shared rhythms, genres, expectations, and bodily coordination. In this way, social phasing is not just cognitive but embodied — it is felt before it is named.
The result is a model of cohesion that is dynamic and reflexive:
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Dynamic, because alignment is ongoing, not achieved once and for all.
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Reflexive, because the alignment is itself a construal of alignment — the sense of “us” emerges only through the repeated recognition of meaningful participation.
From coordination to collective construal
Traditional models often treat collectivity as emerging from biological coordination (movement, gaze, proximity) or cognitive alignment (shared beliefs, goals). But these are not explanations of collectivity — they are domains in which semiotic construal can phase collectivity into being. Movement and belief become meaningful through the semiotic work of participants.
In other words, coordination does not create collectivity. It is only when coordination is construed as shared, as significant, as expressive of a “we,” that collectivity emerges.
Thus, the cohesion of the collective is not reducible to structure, culture, or affect. It is a phase of meaning: the ongoing, always contingent, semiotic alignment of perspectives into a temporarily stabilised whole.
4 The Social Phase: Between Event and Pattern
We have explored how collectivity is not an essence but a phase-cut — a temporarily stabilised construal of relational potential — and how its cohesion arises through ongoing semiotic alignment. Now, we turn to the temporality of the social phase itself: the space between singular events and enduring patterns.
The Social Phase as Temporal Locus
A social formation is neither a single event nor a timeless structure. It is a phase — a window in which particular relational configurations become salient, meaningful, and actionable. This phase exists within the flux of social interaction, bounded not by fixed borders but by the continuity of construal.
Unlike an event, which is a discrete actualisation of possibility, the social phase is a sustained orientation — a patterned coherence enacted through recursive meaning-making. Unlike a pattern, which is often thought static or latent, the social phase is dynamic and emergent, continuously renewed through interaction.
Between Event and Pattern
This positioning between event and pattern explains many features of social life:
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Social formations can be recognised and named (as groups, communities, institutions) precisely because they phase with some stability.
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Yet they remain open and mutable, susceptible to reconfiguration or dissolution as meaning shifts.
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Social phases can nest within one another — moments within gatherings, gatherings within movements, movements within cultures — each phase a construal cutting across potential.
The Role of Construal
Construal is the active process by which participants orient to and sustain these phases. It is through construal that the temporal boundaries of social formations are enacted: when a group stops construing itself as “together,” the phase fades; when it reactivates that construal, the phase re-emerges.
This means that social phases are perspectival — not objective facts but perspectival phenomena. They exist insofar as they are construed, recognised, and maintained within collective meaning.
Implications for Social Science
Seeing the social phase as the temporal locus of collectivity invites new approaches:
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Focus on processes of phasing rather than fixed structures.
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Investigate the semiotic practices that sustain, shift, or dissolve social phases.
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Explore how different scales of phasing interrelate, producing nested and overlapping social realities.
In this way, the social world is understood as a dynamic topology of phases, rather than a hierarchy of entities.
5 The Collective as Semiotic Actualisation
Thus far, we have reframed the collective not as a thing but as a phase-cut in the relational flow — a temporal construal that emerges through semiotic alignment and phasing. In this post, we turn to the nature of the collective as a semiotic actualisation: an instantiation of shared meaning potential that both enables and constrains social life.
Semiotic Actualisation: Meaning Made Real
The collective is a system of meanings actualised in interaction, language, and cultural practice. It is not merely a background condition but a performative emergence — a cut in the ongoing field of symbolic potential that makes “we” thinkable and operative.
This actualisation does several things simultaneously:
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It grounds individual action within a shared horizon of meaning.
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It enables coordination and mutual orientation.
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It limits possibilities by delimiting the symbolic field of what counts as relevant, appropriate, or intelligible.
Thus, the collective is both enabling and constraining — an architecture of symbolic affordance that shapes social possibility.
Collective Identity as Semiotic Position
Identity within the collective is not an attribute but a semiotic position: a perspectival stance enacted through participation in shared construals. To identify as a member is to orient oneself within the semiotic actualisation — to inhabit a position made possible by collective meaning.
This explains why collective identities are inherently relational and dynamic. They exist insofar as the collective is actualised and sustained through ongoing semiotic activity.
Collective Agency and Distributed Meaning
Agency within the collective is similarly relational and distributed. It is not reducible to individuals acting alone or to social structures acting impersonally. It is a distributed effect of collective semiotic actualisation — a phenomenon that emerges from the coordinated orientation of participants within shared meaning fields.
In this way, the collective both acts and is acted upon, not as a metaphysical entity but as a phase of semiotic integration.
Implications for Research and Praxis
Recognising the collective as semiotic actualisation encourages us to:
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Study the practices and performances that instantiate collective meaning.
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Trace how symbolic potentials are opened, maintained, or closed in social interaction.
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Explore how collective actualisation varies across contexts, scales, and modalities.
This move foregrounds the meaningful, dynamic, and processual nature of social life.
6 The We as an Act of Meaning
In this series, we have reframed the collective not as a fixed entity or a mere aggregation but as a semiotic phase-cut — a construal that enacts the collective as a meaningful configuration. Now, we turn to the first-person plural itself: the “we” as an act of meaning.
The “We” Is Not Given
“We” is not an obvious or static category. It does not precede interaction as a metaphysical fact. Instead, it is an achieved semiotic orientation — a perspective that emerges through the ongoing act of construing.
This act is neither automatic nor inevitable. It requires participants to:
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Recognise themselves and others as part of a shared construal.
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Align their meanings sufficiently to sustain a collective phase.
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Enact the symbolic distinctions that make “us” thinkable and meaningful.
The We as a Semiotic Actualisation
The “we” is thus a cut in the relational fabric that distinguishes between inside and outside, self and other, us and them. It is not a fixed boundary but a dynamic phase that must be continually enacted and recognised.
This phase is performative. It both reveals and produces the collective. Saying “we” is not just describing reality — it is making reality.
Consequences for Social Thought
Understanding “we” as an act of meaning shifts how we think about:
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Identity: Not as essence, but as perspectival orientation.
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Inclusion and exclusion: As semiotic distinctions enacted through collective construal.
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Power: As the capacity to define and maintain the collective cut.
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Change: As shifts in how the “we” is construed, maintained, or challenged.
Toward a Relational Social Ontology
This completes our reframing of social formation through relational ontology:
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Collectives are phases of construal, not fixed entities.
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Cohesion arises through semiotic alignment and phasing.
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The collective is a semiotic actualisation that grounds identity and agency.
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The “we” is an act of meaning — a performative cut that enacts social reality.
By seeing social life as the dynamic topology of perspectival phases, we open new pathways for research, critique, and practice — inviting us to attend to how meaning is made, sustained, and transformed in the living flow of relationality.
Concluding Coda: Phasing Social Formation — A New Horizon
Through this series, we have journeyed beyond the familiar binaries of individual and society, essence and structure, unity and fragmentation. By rethinking social formation as phased construal — dynamic cuts through relational potential — we glimpse a more fluid, processual, and participatory social reality.
This ontology invites us to see collectivity not as a thing to be found or possessed, but as a meaningful event: a recurrent act of orientation, alignment, and symbolic actualisation. It challenges static models and teleological narratives, replacing them with an appreciation for the contingent, emergent, and reflexive nature of social life.
Importantly, this reframing does not dissolve the social into atomistic individuals, nor does it reify it as an external force. Instead, it situates the collective as a relational accomplishment — a shared act of meaning that must be continually enacted and re-enacted.
As scholars, practitioners, and participants in the social world, this perspective encourages us to attend to the semiotic labour of cohesion, the temporal rhythms of phasing, and the performative acts that constitute “we.” It asks us to engage not just with what collectives are, but how they come to be and continue to be.
The horizon opened here is expansive. It holds promise for more nuanced understandings of identity, agency, power, and change. It beckons us toward research and praxis that are sensitive to the relational and temporal textures of meaning-making.
In embracing this dynamic topology, we step into a social ontology that resonates with the lived experience of complexity, openness, and transformation — a world where meaning, matter, and collective life entwine in an ongoing dance of actualisation.
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