Grammar and the Ghost in the Machine

1 A Haunted Inheritance

Philosophy is full of ghosts. It speaks in the voice of being, will, substance, mind, and essence — and calls them real. But beneath these timeworn abstractions lies something far more familiar: language. For while philosophy has asked for centuries what the world is made of, it rarely asks what its own materials are made of — the materials of thought, argument, and theory.

This series begins with a provocation:

What if many of the most enduring metaphysical ideas in philosophy are in fact reifications of semiotic architecture?

What if “being” and “form” and “substance” are not eternal truths but grammatical metaphors turned into metaphysical doctrines?

We propose that a theory of language — and in particular the systemic functional model developed by M.A.K. Halliday — can help us excavate the buried scaffolding of these ideas. By attending to how meaning is made in language, we gain a new vantage point on what has been taken for granted in centuries of thought.

Language: The Invisible Medium

Theories are realised in language. Whether in Plato’s dialogues, Descartes’ meditations, or Nietzsche’s aphorisms, theory always comes to us as text. But language is not simply a vehicle for ideas. It is itself a system of meaning — structured, patterned, and oriented to action. Like the observer in physics, language has often been left invisible, its shaping influence ignored.

But if language is what theory is made of, then a theory of language can reveal the architecture of theory itself.

This series will follow three key relations from Systemic Functional Linguistics:

• Instantiation: the relation between potential and its individual instances (e.g., from system to text).

• Realisation: the relation between levels of symbolic abstraction (e.g., from meaning to wording, or from system to structure).

• Grammatical Metaphor: the reconfiguration of meaning across strata (e.g., turning processes into things — “he decides” becomes “his decision”).

Each of these semiotic relations corresponds to familiar philosophical moves: from the abstract to the concrete, from appearance to essence, from act to identity. And each, we will argue, has been misrecognised as metaphysical when it is in fact linguistic.

Haunted Concepts

When Plato speaks of perfect Forms, is he not projecting the systemic pole of the cline of instantiation? When Descartes divides mind from body, is he not reifying the clause structure of mental projection? When Kant marks the noumenon as unknowable, is he not confronting the boundary where language can no longer construe?

These are not missteps. They are moments where language itself becomes visible — not because it is recognised, but because it is misunderstood. The philosophical tradition is haunted not by ghosts from another world, but by the unexamined grammar of this one.

Renovating the History of Thought

To renovate is not to destroy, but to rehouse: to take the ideas that have shaped us and place them in new conceptual architecture. The goal of this series is not to dismiss philosophy, but to reconstrue it — to understand it as a history of meaning-making, structured by language and illuminated by it.

In the posts that follow, we will explore how the scaffolding of language underpins some of philosophy’s most iconic ideas. We will begin, appropriately, with Plato — and with his realm of eternal Forms. But we will not climb to a world beyond. We will follow the cline of instantiation.

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2 Plato’s Forms and the Reification of Instantiation

Plato’s metaphysics begins with a distinction that has echoed across millennia: between the world of appearances and the world of Forms. The first is changeable, sensory, particular. The second is eternal, intelligible, universal. We live among the many; only the Forms are truly one.

But what if Plato was not discovering a transcendent realm, but projecting a semiotic architecture — one that belongs not to the cosmos but to language?

The Cline of Instantiation

In systemic functional linguistics (SFL), meaning is construed along a cline of instantiation:

• At one end is the system — a structured potential for meaning.

• At the other is the instance — a concrete enactment of that potential in a specific context.
  Every time we speak or write, we instantiate the system — and in doing so, we add to its potential.

Plato’s ontology closely mirrors this architecture.

• The Form is the pure potential: the universal, unchanging idea of Justice, Beauty, or Tree.

• The particular is the instance: the just act, the beautiful painting, the tree in the grove.

Plato treats the Form as more real than the instance. But in SFL terms, this is a reversal: the system is a potential that exists only by virtue of its instances. It is abstracted from what has been said and done — not the other way around.

From Ontology to Semiotic Architecture

What happens if we read Plato’s metaphysics not as a vision of a metaphysical order but as a misrecognition of the semiotic order? His world of Forms is the system pole of instantiation, reified into an independent realm. His world of appearances is the instance pole, treated as a poor copy of the ideal. But in language, the system and the instance are not in competition — they are mutually constitutive.

Each instance contributes to the shape of the system; each system makes further instances possible. There is no need to posit a second world to account for the regularities of this one. What Plato mistook for eternal reality was the abstract structure of meaning itself.

The Danger of Reification

Plato’s move is not unique. It is part of a wider philosophical habit: the reification of semiotic relations — taking structural features of language and treating them as metaphysical truths.

When the abstract is separated from the concrete, and treated as its origin, the result is metaphysics. But when we see that the abstract arises through the concrete, and returns to it in use, we shift from metaphysics to semiotics.

Instantiation, not Imitation

Plato calls the particular an imitation of the Form. But in SFL terms, it is not an imitation — it is an instantiation. It is not a flawed copy of a perfect original, but a meaning-making event that both draws on and contributes to a system of potential.

Plato's error — and perhaps philosophy’s original ghost — was to mistake the architecture of meaning for the structure of the world.

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Next time, we’ll trace another haunting: how the grammatical metaphor of action gives rise to the metaphysical concept of the Will.

3 The Will and the Reification of Desire

In Western metaphysics, the Will appears as a sovereign force. It acts, chooses, asserts — often in tension with reason, impulse, or fate. In some philosophies, it becomes the seat of the self; in others, the engine of the universe.

But from the perspective of language, the Will is not a metaphysical entity. It is a grammatical pattern, projected into the world and mistaken for its foundation.

Desire as a Grammatical Process

Systemic functional linguistics (SFL) classifies clauses according to process types, each construing a kind of experience as meaning. One such process is mental desiderative:

• I want a new idea.

• She hopes to understand.

• They wish it were otherwise.

Here, ‘want’, ‘hope’, and ‘wish’ are not expressions of force but semiotic processes. They construe the internal world of the speaker — not by referencing something called the Will, but by enacting a grammatical relation: a subject experiencing a mental orientation toward a desired object or outcome.

The Will is born when this pattern is reified. That is, when we take the linguistic projection of desire and treat it as a metaphysical force, as if wanting were a thing rather than a relational meaning.

From Process to Power

Grammar allows us to construe the self as a subject who acts. In doing so, it supplies the raw material for philosophical claims about agency.

• I decide.

• I resolve.

• I impose my will.

These are all clause structures in which the subject is medium and the process is intentional. But in language, such clauses are choices — not proof of a metaphysical faculty. The grammar of action provides a model of agency, but not its ontological foundation.

The Will arises when this model is lifted from its semiotic grounds and projected into the structure of reality — as if it were the cause of action rather than its construal.

The Fiction of the Autonomous Subject

The metaphysical Will also requires a metaphysical subject — a self that exists apart from its relations. But in SFL, the subject is a position in meaning, not an ontological entity. It is constituted by its participation in grammatical structures, including those of mental and verbal processes.

The autonomous self, like the Will it wields, is not a given. It is a construct, born of grammatical roles, culturally reinforced, and philosophically enshrined.

Unmasking the Ghost

When we see that language can construe desire as a process, not a power, the ghost of the Will begins to dissipate. What philosophy calls the Will, linguistics calls a desiderative clause. The metaphysical becomes grammatical — and in doing so, becomes tractable, analysable, and demystified.

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In our next post, we’ll look at causality — and how the grammar of transitivity shaped the metaphysical search for necessary connections in nature.

4 Cause and Effect — Transitivity and the Machinery of Nature

Causality is one of philosophy’s deepest problems. What does it mean for one thing to cause another? Is causation a force, a law, a regularity, or an illusion?

But in systemic functional linguistics (SFL), causation is not a mystery. It is a grammatical resource.

Transitivity: Grammar’s Model of Experience

In SFL, the grammar of the clause construes experience through transitivity — the system that organises processes and their participants. A clause like:

• The sun melts the ice
  …construes a material process (melts), an actor (the sun), and a goal (the ice).

This is not a metaphysical claim. It is a semiotic configuration. The grammar does not discover causation in the world; it construes experience as causative by selecting from available grammatical patterns.

There is no metaphysical necessity here — only a semiotic regularity.

From Clause to Cosmos

When we elevate these patterns into metaphysics, we reify them. Clause structures become models of the world’s deep machinery:

• X causes Y.

• The will moves the body.

• Every event has a cause.

These are not discoveries of pure reason or empirical law. They are grammatical construals taken for ontological structures.

In this way, the grammar of transitivity becomes the ghost in the machine — animating our models of force, change, and inevitability.

Necessary Connection or Grammatical Expectation?

Philosophers from Hume to Kant have wrestled with the idea of necessary connection. But if we look through the lens of language, the source of this expectation is plain:

Grammar allows us to construe sequences where one process leads to another:

• He dropped the glass. It shattered.

• Because it rained, the picnic was cancelled.

Here, logical and temporal relations are grammatically construed — not given by nature. The sense of necessity is a product of textual cohesion, not metaphysical structure.

What philosophy calls causality, grammar construes as sequenced process.

Causal Chains as Grammatical Chains

Scientific explanation often seeks causal chains. But these chains are not neutral observations; they are narratives, built from clauses in which agency, process, and goal are selected according to meaning.

To explain an event is to construe it in a particular voice — grammatically, not just empirically.

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In our next post, we’ll explore the reification of truth itself — and how logocentric philosophies mistake the grammar of projection for an external order of reality.

5 Truth and Projection — The Linguistic Architecture of Reality Claims

What is truth? A correspondence with reality? A coherence among propositions? A pragmatic utility?

In systemic functional linguistics (SFL), these abstract theories can be grounded in a concrete fact: truth is not discovered outside language — it is construed within it.

The Clause Complex and Projection

In SFL, the grammar of projection allows language to refer to itself:

• She said that it was raining.

• He believes the earth is round.

• I know that this is true.

Here, the projecting clause (she said, he believes, I know) introduces a projected clause — a meaning encoded as content. This is grammar’s way of construing semiosis itself as a phenomenon.

When philosophers speak of propositions, they are talking about projected clauses — language about language, meaning about meaning.

But when projection is reified, it ceases to be a grammatical function and becomes a metaphysical belief:

• Truth exists independently of thought.

• Propositions have truth-values.

• There is a realm of facts to be matched.

These are not philosophical discoveries. They are grammatical arrangements turned into ontologies.

Truth as Projection Reified

Consider the statement: It is thought that the Earth orbits the sun.

Here, "It is thought…" is a projecting clause construing the following as a proposition.

But now consider: The Earth orbits the sun.

The projecting clause is gone — the claim is presupposed, taken for granted, de-projected.

This shift from projection to assertion is a grammatical shift, but it is often mistaken for an epistemological one.

In reality, the grammar of projection allows us to navigate degrees of certainty, modality, and evidentiality — not to discover an objective realm of truth, but to construe our commitments to meaning.

Metaphysics as Misrecognised Grammar

Philosophy’s theory of truth often begins where grammar has already done its work. What was once a projecting clause becomes an ontological commitment. The distinction between content and commentary collapses into a belief in objective propositions.

Thus, the idea of truth as correspondence — a thought mirroring the world — is grammar misunderstood as metaphysics.

We do not discover truths. We construe propositions, and construe our orientation toward them.

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In our next post, we turn to the concept of essence — that oldest of metaphysical categories — and ask whether it, too, is not a ghost born of grammatical processes.

6 Essence and the Grammar of Being

Where does the idea of essence come from?

Since the time of Plato and Aristotle, Western philosophy has been haunted by the notion that behind every appearance lies an underlying substance — an essence — that makes a thing what it is.

But what if this metaphysical commitment to essence is, at its root, a grammatical commitment?

The Nominalisation of Process

In Systemic Functional Linguistics, one of the most powerful meaning-making strategies is nominalisation — the transformation of a process or quality into a ‘thing’:

• She is wise → Her wisdom

• They govern → Government

• We differ → There is a difference

Nominalisation allows language to package experience into stable entities that can be named, described, possessed, or analysed. This syntactic sleight of hand is the origin of many theoretical constructs — not only in everyday reasoning, but in philosophy, science, and law.

When philosophers seek the essence of courage, beauty, or justice, they often begin by treating these nominalised abstractions as if they were entities with hidden cores, rather than grammatical construals of process and relation.

Essence as Identifying Process

SFL treats identity as a process — a relational clause type. In sentences like:

• A circle is a round plane figure.

• Water is H₂O.

The verb is enacts an identifying relation — not a metaphysical union, but a semiotic equivalence between two functions in a clause. The structure makes one element the "Token" (the signifier) and the other the "Value" (the signified), inverting the usual logic of substance and property.

Philosophy often reifies this identifying relation into a theory of essence. It takes the structure of a clause and turns it into a structure of reality:

• What is X? becomes What is the essence of X?

But in grammar, this is simply a way of construing meaning — a form of categorisation, not a window into noumenal reality.

The Illusion of Inherent Properties

When we say:

• Gold is heavy.

• Justice is fair.

• The soul is immortal.

We are drawing on attributive relations, projecting qualities onto entities. These too are grammatical: they belong to the system of intensive attribution. Yet over time, the constant co-occurrence of entity and quality becomes naturalised — taken as evidence of essence rather than of meaning-making.

Thus, the ghost of essence is born: an abstract identity, imagined as real, sustained by patterns of language.

7 Language as Origin — A Semiotic Ontology of Thought

In this final post, we draw together the threads of our journey — from Plato’s Forms to Nietzsche’s Will — to propose not the rejection of the philosophical tradition, but a re-reading of it: not as a map of reality, but as an archaeology of meaning.

Throughout the series, we’ve suggested that many core philosophical concepts are not false as such, but fossilised — sedimented residues of semiotic processes that have been turned into metaphysical doctrines. In every case, the origin of the concept was not the world itself, but language’s way of making sense of it.

The Semiotic Roots of Ontology

Systemic Functional Linguistics shows that meaning is organised by systems of choices — systems that are both structured and dynamic. These systems allow us to construe experience as meaningful, to project thoughts, to track agency and causation, and to distinguish appearance from reality.

But these same resources can also become invisible. As philosophy turns its gaze outward — toward Being, Will, Substance, Truth — it often forgets that the terms in which it does so are themselves products of a semiotic architecture.

In other words: philosophy speaks the grammar of meaning without often knowing it.

This is not a critique of philosophy, but a proposal: that the concepts we inherit are crystallised expressions of the architecture of language. To understand their power — and their limits — we must make visible the semiotic scaffolding that supports them.

Theories as Reconstruals of Meaning

Science, philosophy, and mythology all reconstrue the meaning of language. They are not simply ‘ideas about the world’, but second-order systems that re-interpret first-order meaning.

To say that gravity ‘acts’ on bodies is to metaphorise a grammatical structure — transitivity — into a cosmological agent.

To say that the ‘soul’ is distinct from the body is to project mental clauses into metaphysical planes.

To say that there is a ‘will to power’ behind all life is to nominalise a grammatical process and universalise it.

In each case, the movement is the same: from semiotic process to metaphysical reification. A verb becomes a noun. A clause becomes a doctrine. A projection becomes a substance.

Philosophy, then, can be read as the metaphysics of grammar.

Language as Origin, Not Obstacle

Traditionally, language has been treated in philosophy as either a transparent medium (a vehicle for truth) or a frustrating barrier (a source of confusion). But SFL offers a third view: language is the origin of meaning, not its distortion.

We do not simply describe the world with language; we construe it. The categories of thought — subject, predicate, cause, agent, event, intention, possibility — are not given by nature, but constructed in and through language.

To speak is not just to say something about the world. It is to make a world meaningful.

A Semiotic Ontology of Thought

If we take this seriously, then a theory of language offers more than just a tool for interpreting texts. It becomes a meta-theory: a way of reading the history of ideas as the history of meaning-making.

Plato, Descartes, Kant, Nietzsche — and countless others — were not wrong. They were, we might say, listening closely to the architecture of their own thought, without yet knowing its grammar.

A semiotic ontology does not replace philosophy. It re-grounds it. It shows that the most profound metaphysical questions — What is being? What is truth? What is self? — are also questions about the architecture of meaning.

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And so we conclude not with a rejection of metaphysics, but with its renovation. A theory of language does not solve the great problems of philosophy. It lets us see how those problems arose, and how — by attending to the meanings we live by — we might begin to live them differently.

Relational Science and the Future of Inquiry

1 Classical Science vs. Relational Science — Paradigms in Contrast

Science as we know it today is rooted in a tradition that dates back centuries — a tradition grounded in classical assumptions about the nature of reality, observation, and causality. This classical scientific paradigm is characterised by several core ideas: that reality exists independently of observation; that phenomena can be isolated and studied as discrete entities; and that knowledge is built through objective measurement and reproducible experiments.

These assumptions have yielded tremendous insights and technologies. Yet, as we push the boundaries of knowledge—into the quantum realm, complex ecosystems, and social systems—it becomes increasingly clear that the classical model is insufficient to capture the full texture of reality. This insufficiency has prompted calls for a new way of thinking: a relational scientific paradigm.

What is Relational Science?

At its heart, relational science acknowledges that reality is not composed of isolated, self-contained things but of dynamic relations and interactions. Objects and subjects co-constitute each other; the observer participates in shaping what is observed; and processes unfold through networks of interdependence. This relational ontology reframes what counts as an explanation: from linear cause-effect chains between discrete entities to webs of mutual influence, emergence, and co-becoming.

Key Contrasts:

Classical Science	Relational Science
Reality is independent, observer is separate	Reality is co-constructed with the observer
Entities have fixed, intrinsic properties	Properties emerge through relations
Causality is linear and local	Causality is distributed, context-dependent
Knowledge is objective and context-free	Knowledge is participatory and situated
Reductionism: isolate parts to understand whole	Holism: understand wholes through relations

Implications for Scientific Methodology

The shift toward relational science challenges the classical ideal of detached measurement. It requires us to reconsider experimental design, data interpretation, and even what counts as evidence. Relational methods emphasise contextualisation, reflexivity, and multi-modal approaches — combining quantitative data with qualitative insights, and integrating perspectives across disciplines.

Why Does It Matter?

Embracing a relational paradigm is not merely an abstract philosophical move. It has practical consequences for how we approach pressing global challenges — from climate change and biodiversity loss to social justice and public health. These complex problems involve entangled systems where linear, reductionist approaches fall short. Relational science offers tools better suited to capturing complexity, fostering cooperation, and co-creating sustainable futures.

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In the next post, we will delve deeper into Observer Participation — exploring how measurement, reality, and co-creation intertwine in relational inquiry.

2 Observer Participation — Measurement, Reality, and Co-Creation

A defining feature of relational science is the recognition that the observer is not a passive spectator but an active participant in the phenomena being studied. This insight disrupts the classical scientific ideal of objective, detached observation and invites a deeper inquiry into the entanglement between measurement, reality, and knowledge.

Observer and Reality: A Mutual Constitution

In classical science, measurement is often assumed to reveal pre-existing properties of independently existing entities. Yet, advances in quantum physics and systems theory challenge this notion. The act of observation itself influences what is observed, collapsing potentials into specific outcomes, and in doing so, co-creating reality with the measured system.

This does not imply that reality is purely subjective or constructed arbitrarily. Rather, it means that reality emerges through ongoing relations between observer and observed, context and system, measurement and meaning.

The Measurement Problem and Its Lessons

Quantum mechanics famously exposes the limits of classical observation. Phenomena such as wavefunction collapse and entanglement highlight that the observer’s choice of measurement affects the behaviour of quantum systems in fundamental ways.

Beyond physics, similar patterns arise in ecology, social sciences, and cultural studies: observations shape and reshape the systems under study, whether through researcher influence, participatory methods, or the feedback loops intrinsic to living systems.

Co-Creation in Scientific Practice

Relational science advocates methodologies that embrace observer participation. Reflexivity — where researchers critically reflect on their own role and influence — becomes essential. Collaborative inquiry, where stakeholders co-design studies and interpret findings together, exemplifies this participatory approach.

Such methods do not undermine scientific rigour; instead, they enrich understanding by making explicit the relational dynamics at play and acknowledging the limits of detached objectivity.

Implications for Knowledge and Inquiry

Observer participation implies that knowledge is situated and provisional. Scientific claims are understood as negotiated, contextual, and contingent — rather than final or universally fixed truths. This relational stance opens space for plural perspectives, interdisciplinarity, and adaptive inquiry responsive to changing conditions.

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In our next post, we will explore Methodologies for Relational Inquiry — examining how scientific practices evolve to embody this participatory, situated approach.

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3 Methodologies for Relational Inquiry — From Experiment to Ethnography

If relational science redefines the observer as a participant in the unfolding of phenomena, then the methods of inquiry themselves must also transform. Traditional scientific methodologies—designed for separation and objectivity—must give way or adapt to approaches that acknowledge and incorporate relational dynamics.

Beyond the Detached Experiment

Classical experimental designs aim to isolate variables, control contexts, and produce replicable, universal findings. While this has driven profound advances, it often abstracts phenomena from their contexts and downplays the mutual shaping of observer and system.

Relational inquiry challenges this by emphasising the situatedness of all observations. Experiments are no longer mere snapshots of independent reality but interventions within dynamic systems. This requires flexible designs that account for feedback, context, and the evolving nature of the phenomena.

Ethnography and Participatory Methods

Ethnographic approaches — long established in anthropology and sociology — offer valuable models for relational inquiry. By immersing themselves in contexts, researchers attend to the interplay of actors, environments, meanings, and practices over time.

Participatory action research and community-based studies extend this by involving those studied as co-researchers, valuing local knowledge and fostering collaborative meaning-making. These methods reveal the entangled nature of knowledge production and highlight the ethical responsibility of inquiry.

Systems Thinking and Network Analysis

Relational methodologies often employ systems thinking, which conceptualises phenomena as networks of interdependent components. Network analysis, complexity science, and modelling techniques allow researchers to map, simulate, and interpret interactions that transcend linear causality.

These tools are particularly potent in ecological, biological, social, and technological domains where relationships themselves carry causal force.

Towards Methodological Pluralism

A relational science does not prescribe a single methodology but encourages pluralism—a toolkit adaptable to the question, context, and participants. Mixed methods approaches, iterative cycles of inquiry, and openness to emergent insights characterise this ethos.

Importantly, relational inquiry foregrounds reflexivity: continual examination of how the researcher’s presence, assumptions, and actions shape the process and outcomes.

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In our next post, we will delve into Relational Thinking in Physics, exploring how quantum entanglement and related phenomena exemplify and inspire relational approaches in science.

4 Relational Thinking in Physics — Quantum Entanglement and Beyond

Physics has long been the poster child of classical science’s quest for objective, universal laws. Yet, the advent of quantum mechanics has profoundly challenged this classical picture, revealing a world that resists simple, detached description and invites relational thinking.

Quantum Entanglement: A Paradigm Shift

At the heart of this challenge lies quantum entanglement—a phenomenon where particles become inseparably linked, such that the state of one instantly correlates with the state of another, regardless of distance. This phenomenon defies classical assumptions of independent, local entities and suggests that relations themselves are fundamental.

Entanglement implies that what exists “out there” is not a collection of isolated objects, but a network of interdependencies, where measurement and observation participate actively in defining reality. In other words, the observer and the observed are entwined.

Relational Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics

Relational interpretations, such as Carlo Rovelli’s Relational Quantum Mechanics, propose that the properties of quantum systems exist only relative to other systems — no absolute, observer-independent state exists. This reframes reality as a web of interactions, where knowledge and existence are co-constructed.

Similarly, interpretations like Quantum Bayesianism (QBism) view the wavefunction as a tool for an agent’s expectations, not an objective property. This underscores the participatory nature of scientific inquiry.

Beyond Quantum Physics

Relational thinking extends beyond quantum physics into the realms of spacetime, information theory, and cosmology. Some approaches suggest that spacetime itself emerges from entanglement patterns, positioning relations as ontologically primary rather than derived.

Implications for Science and Philosophy

These insights challenge entrenched dichotomies — subject/object, observer/observed, and independent/dependent — prompting a reconsideration of what science aims to describe. They invite a shift toward a science that is less about uncovering fixed entities and more about understanding networks of relations and processes.

In the next post, we will explore how relational perspectives illuminate biological and ecological systems, highlighting co-evolution and complex networks.

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5 Relational Biology and Ecology — Systems, Networks, and Co-Evolution

While physics has prompted us to rethink the foundational nature of reality, biology and ecology offer equally profound insights into relationality—revealing life itself as a dynamic network of interactions that shape and are shaped by their contexts.

From Organisms to Systems

Traditional biology often treated organisms as discrete units, bounded entities that evolve through gene-centred processes. Yet, relational biology invites us to view organisms as systems—complex, open, and interdependent networks of cells, genes, and environmental interactions.

This systems perspective acknowledges that the boundaries of organisms are porous and that life unfolds in continuous relation with its surroundings.

Networks and Interactions

Ecology extends this perspective further, focusing on the webs of interaction between organisms and their environments. Food webs, mutualistic relationships, and ecosystem dynamics exemplify how no species or individual evolves in isolation.

The concept of co-evolution captures this beautifully: species adapt not simply to static environments but to other evolving organisms, producing reciprocal influences over time.

Niche Construction and Ecological Inheritance

We have explored how organisms modify their environments and pass these changes to subsequent generations, a process known as niche construction. This challenges gene-centric views by positioning environment modification as a form of inheritance and evolutionary influence.

Relational Development and Phenotypic Plasticity

Developmental biology contributes another layer: phenotypic plasticity—organisms’ capacity to develop different traits in response to environmental cues—highlights how relational interactions during development shape evolutionary outcomes.

This underscores the fluidity and contextuality of life, where genotype, environment, and history are intertwined.

Towards a Relational Biology

Embracing relationality shifts biology from a focus on static ‘things’ to a science of processes and relations. It highlights networks, feedback loops, and histories as foundational to understanding life’s diversity and adaptability.

In the next post, we will examine how the social sciences and humanities are embracing relational approaches, transforming our understanding of culture, meaning, and society.

6 Social Sciences and Humanities — The Relational Turn in Culture and Meaning

The social sciences and humanities have long grappled with the complexity of human experience, culture, and meaning. Recently, a relational turn has reshaped these fields, offering fresh perspectives that resonate with relational ontologies in science.

From Individuals to Networks of Relations

Where classical approaches often centred on individuals as isolated agents or fixed social structures, relational thinking foregrounds the networks, interactions, and processes that constitute social life.

Human identity, culture, and knowledge are understood not as static possessions but as emergent from ongoing interactions—between people, their histories, institutions, and environments.

Language, Meaning, and Semiotics

Relational approaches emphasise language and semiotics as dynamic systems of meaning-making. Meaning is not inherent in isolated words or symbols but arises in relations—between speakers and listeners, texts and contexts, and cultural traditions and innovations.

This dynamic challenges essentialist notions of identity or culture, highlighting hybridity, fluidity, and co-construction.

Power, Agency, and Ethics

A relational lens also reshapes understandings of power and agency. Power is seen not merely as possession but as distributed across networks, enacted in relations.

Agency emerges relationally—through participation, negotiation, and contestation within social fields—inviting ethical reflections on responsibility, participation, and co-creation.

Transdisciplinarity and Methodological Innovation

Social sciences and humanities increasingly adopt transdisciplinary and participatory methods, such as ethnography, dialogic inquiry, and collaborative research.

These methodologies align with relational epistemologies by valuing situated knowledge, multiple perspectives, and the co-production of meaning.

Implications for Culture and Society

Understanding culture and society relationally encourages us to see social change as emergent from complex interactions rather than solely from top-down structures or individual choices.

It opens pathways for more inclusive, responsive, and adaptive approaches to addressing contemporary social challenges.

7 The Future of Science — Toward Integrative, Participatory Inquiry

As we conclude this series, it is clear that adopting a relational ontology invites us to rethink not only what science studies, but how science is done. The future of inquiry points toward more integrative, participatory, and co-creative approaches that transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries.

Beyond Reductionism and Fragmentation

Classical science often seeks to break complex phenomena into isolated parts, aiming for precision through reduction. Relational science, by contrast, embraces complexity as fundamental, focusing on patterns of interaction and emergence.

This shift challenges the fragmentation of knowledge and calls for holistic frameworks that honour interconnectedness.

Participatory Epistemologies

Relational inquiry recognises the active participation of observers and practitioners in the production of knowledge. Measurement, observation, and interpretation are not passive acts but co-creative processes that shape what is known.

This participatory stance fosters reflexivity—awareness of how methods, perspectives, and values influence scientific outcomes.

Transdisciplinary Collaboration

Future science increasingly requires collaboration across disciplines, cultures, and sectors. Complex global challenges—such as climate change, health crises, and social inequality—demand integrative approaches that combine insights from physics, biology, social sciences, humanities, and indigenous knowledge.

Relational science provides a conceptual and ethical foundation for such transdisciplinary engagement.

Methodological Innovation

Embracing relationality encourages innovation in methods—blending quantitative and qualitative tools, integrating systems thinking, network analysis, ethnography, and participatory action research.

This methodological pluralism respects multiple ways of knowing and invites diverse stakeholders into inquiry.

Ethics of Inquiry and Co-Creation

A relational future science is deeply ethical. It recognises that scientific knowledge co-produces realities and affects communities and environments. This awareness compels scientists to engage responsibly and collaboratively, fostering science as a shared, dynamic practice embedded in social and ecological contexts.

A Vision for Tomorrow

Ultimately, relational science envisions inquiry as a participatory journey rather than a quest for fixed truths. It calls on us to become co-creators in an ongoing dance with the living world—cultivating curiosity, humility, and openness.

This future is not distant. It is already emerging in pockets of innovation, dialogue, and mutual learning worldwide. The question is: how will we nurture and expand it?

Relational Ontology: From Things to Participations

1 What Is a Relational Ontology?

Ontology concerns itself with the question of being — of what exists and in what manner. It is not a question of what we know, nor of what we value, but of the fundamental presuppositions we bring to our engagement with the world. This series addresses such presuppositions explicitly, with a focus on what we will call relational ontology.

Traditionally, Western thought has been dominated by a substance ontology: a metaphysical stance that treats entities as primary and their relations as secondary. According to this view, the world is composed of discrete objects, each possessing intrinsic properties, and any relation between them is incidental or externally imposed.

By contrast, a relational ontology begins with the premise that relations are prior to relata. That is to say, it is not things that relate, but relations that bring things into being. “Things,” on this view, are not foundational elements of reality, but emergent phenomena: transient stabilisations within ongoing patterns of interaction. From this standpoint, reality is not composed of self-contained units but of events, processes, and participations. It is not the presence of substance that grounds being, but the ongoing actualisation of potential through relation.

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Ontology and Everyday Assumptions

While the term may suggest abstract metaphysical speculation, ontology has direct and pervasive implications. It conditions the frameworks within which we conceptualise knowledge, identity, language, ethics, science, and more. Consider the contrast:

• If knowledge is construed as the accumulation of facts by a detached observer, then inquiry becomes a matter of acquisition. If, instead, knowledge is relationally constituted — a matter of participation — then inquiry becomes a practice of attunement.

• If the self is imagined as an autonomous, bounded entity, then sociality becomes secondary, even optional. But if selfhood is emergent within relation, then sociality is constitutive of subjectivity.

• If language is seen as a code for representing pre-existing objects, then meaning appears static. But if meaning is realised through relational instantiation, then language is an unfolding of interaction, not a mirror of the world.

These examples indicate the far-reaching consequences of one’s ontological commitments. A shift in ontology is not simply philosophical — it is transformative.

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Toward a Participatory World

The position we wish to articulate in this series is that participation is prior to presence. What exists is not first a set of entities and only later their relations, but rather a field of unfolding potential, in which instances of meaning, action, and being are co-actualised through relation. This is a world not of fixed realities but of emergent configurations — not of static identities, but of mutual becoming.

This orientation is informed by several disciplinary commitments:

• A systemic functional linguistic account of meaning as relationally stratified and contextually instantiated;

• A neurobiological model of consciousness as selection within nested systems of coordination;

• A quantum theoretical framework in which observation constitutes, rather than merely records, phenomena;

• And an overarching commitment to understanding reality not as objective presence but as semiotic participation.

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Looking Ahead

This first post offers an outline. The five that follow will articulate this ontological orientation in more detail. They will address the priority of relation, the ontological status of potential and instance, the world as participatory event, and the implications of grounding without foundation. A final post will draw these threads together in reflection.

For now, we will close with a proposition that frames what follows:

If there are no things prior to relation, then ontology is not a study of what is, but of how being is made possible through participation.

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2 The Priority of Relation

At the heart of relational ontology lies a reversal: rather than beginning with entities and asking how they relate, we begin with relation itself. This reversal is not simply theoretical; it reconfigures how we understand existence, agency, and structure. It challenges us to see that relations do not connect pre-existing things — they bring things into being.

In this view, relation is ontologically prior to relata. That is to say, what we think of as “things” — bodies, selves, objects, identities — do not pre-exist the network of relations in which they participate. They are not the source of relation but its effect. This is not merely a re-description; it is a different metaphysical stance, one that refuses the assumption of atomism and posits instead a world constituted in and through ongoing interaction.

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Emergence, Not Construction

To say that entities emerge through relation is not to say they are constructed in the sense of being artificial or illusory. The charge of “anti-realism” often levelled at relational perspectives mistakes emergence for fabrication. But relational ontology does not deny the reality of things; it denies their independent reality. It insists that what is real is real as a function of relation — and that to understand anything apart from the relations that make it possible is to misunderstand it fundamentally.

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The Individual as Emergent Node

Take the example of the self. In a substance ontology, the self is a bounded individual, self-identical across contexts, capable of standing apart from its environment and engaging it at will. In a relational ontology, the self is a node in a field of relations — not reducible to that field, but not separable from it either. Its identity is not given once and for all but enacted through patterns of participation.

This view resonates with certain traditions in systems theory, cognitive science, and anthropology. But here we are framing it ontologically: not simply as a way the self behaves, but as a condition of its being.

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Meaning as Relational Actualisation

The same applies to meaning. Meaning is not a property of signs, nor a correspondence between language and world. It is a relation — a triadic relation in which a sign functions for an interpreter in a given context. Systemic Functional Linguistics offers a particularly powerful model of this process, understanding meaning not as pre-existing but as instantiated in and through contextually motivated choices within a structured potential.

Meaning, then, is neither located in the signifier nor in the signified, but in the relation between potential and instance, between system and situation. It is a process of actualisation — always dependent, always situated.

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Implications for Knowledge

When relation is given ontological priority, knowledge cannot be the apprehension of fixed truths about independent objects. Instead, knowing becomes a relational practice — an act of coordination, participation, and co-emergence. It is not that the world is unknowable, but that what we know of it is inseparable from how we come to know. This is not relativism. It is a call for reflexivity, for attentiveness to the ways in which knowing is always already embedded in relation.

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A World Made of With

Relational ontology insists that we live not in a world of things, but in a world of with. We are never alone, never outside. We are in relation — and through relation, we become.

The next post will extend this line of thought by examining the ontological status of potential. If relational ontology begins with relation, what does it mean to speak of the potential from which instances emerge?

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3 The Ontological Status of Potential

If relational ontology begins with relation, it must also account for that which can come into relation. This brings us to the concept of potential. What is potential, and how does it differ from — yet condition — the actuality of things?

In a substance ontology, potential tends to be treated as secondary or derivative: the possible is simply that which is not yet actual. In a relational ontology, by contrast, potential is a mode of being in its own right. It is not the negation of actuality, but the field from which actualisation becomes possible. This view requires a careful rethinking of both potential and instance, and of the relation between them.

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Potential Is Not a Shadow of the Actual

To approach potential relationally is to reject the idea that the actual is more real than the possible. Instead, potential is what makes actualisation possible. It is not what things lack before they come into being; it is the structured horizon of becoming — the web of affordances, constraints, and systemic tendencies from which instances emerge.

In Systemic Functional Linguistics, this is the distinction between meaning potential and meaning instance: the potential is structured, not amorphous; and the instance is an actualisation, not an exception. The same applies at the ontological level: the potential is not an unformed void, but a differentiated field of possibilities shaped by patterns of past actualisations and the systems that make them available.

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Instantiation as Ontological Process

The process by which potential becomes instance — instantiation — is not merely a linguistic phenomenon. It is an ontological principle. Actual entities are not static things but emergent outcomes: instances of relational actualisation. They do not stand apart from the field of potential; they express it. Each instance reconfigures the potential from which it emerged, just as each utterance in language shifts the probabilities within the meaning system for future utterances.

In this way, instantiation is not a linear unfolding from possibility to reality; it is a recursive process, a dynamic interplay between what has been and what may yet become.

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The Temporality of Potential

Potential is inherently temporal. It is what could happen, not in some detached logical sense, but in the thick present of the unfolding world. It is always situated — conditioned by history, shaped by pattern, and open to contingency. In quantum physics, for instance, the wavefunction describes a field of potential outcomes, and measurement instantiates one among them. But the wavefunction is not “less real” than its collapse. It is a different mode of reality: a reality of openness and relation.

Similarly, in the relational ontology articulated here, potential is the mode in which relational configurations can take shape. It is not inert. It is active possibility.

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From Possibility to Participation

To understand potential relationally is to recognise that possibility is not a neutral backdrop against which action occurs. It is a product of past actualisations and an invitation to future ones. It is not that we act upon potential; we participate in its unfolding. Thus, the shift from a substance to a relational ontology is also a shift from acting on the world to participating with it.

The instance is not a singularity but a node — a moment of coalescence that draws from, and returns to, the field of potential. And that field, in turn, is not fixed, but continuously reshaped through participation.

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Looking Ahead

The next post will explore the consequences of this view for how we understand the world itself — not as a set of objects, but as a participatory event. If all beings are emergent from relation, and all relations unfold from a field of potential, then what is the world but the ongoing play of their co-actualisation?

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4 The World as Participatory Event

If relational ontology gives ontological primacy to relation and recognises potential as a mode of being, then it follows that the world itself is not a static container filled with things, but a dynamic unfolding of participatory events. This view entails a radical reconfiguration of what we mean by “world.” The world is not a stage on which entities act, but the ongoing relational becoming of those entities — an event continually co-composed by its participants.

This is not a metaphor. It is a metaphysical claim: the world is not made of things, but of the relations that instantiate things in particular ways at particular times.

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Against the Background/Foreground Divide

In substance ontology, the world is often conceived as a backdrop — an objective, external environment in which subjects and objects appear. This assumption underwrites many dualisms: mind/world, subject/object, figure/ground. But a relational ontology resists this division. There is no neutral background against which things stand out; what appears does so only through participation.

The world is always already involved. It is not a setting for events but their condition — not external to relation, but its expression. To exist is to participate in the event that is world-making.

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Participation as Ontological Category

In this view, participation is not an epistemological feature (how we know the world), but an ontological one (what the world is). To be is to participate. This applies not only to human beings, but to all entities, forces, and processes — from cells to stars, from atoms to meanings. Nothing is outside relation. Nothing is outside the world-event.

Participation is thus the mode in which all actuality occurs. And crucially, it is non-isolable. No entity can be wholly disentangled from the relations through which it comes to be. Even attempts to define or delimit something — to draw a boundary — are themselves acts of participation, reconfiguring the potential for what can be seen, said, and done.

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The World as Recursively Co-Actualising

If the world is an event of participatory unfolding, then it is not simply happening to us. We are happening with it. This “with” is not additive — it is generative. Our participation does not occur within a pre-given world; our participation is the world, or more precisely, a moment in its continual becoming.

This has profound consequences. It means the world is never finished. It is not the sum of all that exists, but the ongoing play of emergence, collapse, and reconstitution — a recursive negotiation between potential and instance, where each instance modifies the potential for future participation.

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The Ethics of Co-Becoming

To frame the world as participatory event is also to reframe responsibility. If we are always already participants, then our task is not to seek a position of objective neutrality, but to cultivate attentiveness to the patterns we co-actualise. Knowing is no longer a matter of standing apart, but of leaning in — carefully, critically, and with care for what we bring into being.

This is not simply a philosophical point. It is a call to engage differently — with each other, with the more-than-human, with the systems and structures through which meaning and matter take shape.

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Next: The Limits of Objectivity

The next post will confront a central implication of this view: if the world is participatory, what becomes of objectivity? Is it still possible to speak of knowledge that does not collapse into mere perspective? We will argue that the problem lies not in abandoning objectivity, but in rethinking what it can mean — not as detachment, but as accountable participation.

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5 Rethinking Objectivity

The idea that the world is a participatory event invites a pressing question: what becomes of objectivity? If all knowledge is situated within relational unfolding, does this collapse truth into relativism? In a relational ontology, the answer is no — but only if we are prepared to rethink what objectivity means.

Objectivity is not abandoned. It is transformed. It ceases to be the view from nowhere and becomes a practice of accountable participation. The goal is not to escape relation, but to recognise and reckon with our place within it.

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From Detachment to Situatedness

In substance-based ontologies, objectivity is often associated with detachment: the ability to observe without interference. But in a relational ontology, such detachment is impossible. Observation is always an act of participation. We do not merely receive data; we enact selections, set parameters, collapse potentials into actuals. This is not a failure of objectivity — it is its condition.

What shifts is the ideal. The aim is no longer to erase the observer, but to foreground the structure of participation: to trace how our perspective has come to be, what it opens up, and what it forecloses.

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Epistemology Within Relation

Knowing is not a disembodied achievement. It is a mode of being-with. Every act of knowing is situated in a nexus of relations — historical, material, symbolic, affective. The question is not whether we can remove ourselves from these, but how we can move within them with greater precision, humility, and care.

This is what accountable participation means. It is not a denial of objectivity, but a commitment to an objectivity that begins with situatedness — one that asks not only what is true? but also how does this truth come to matter? and for whom?

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Patterns of Recurrence and Inference

Importantly, relational ontology does not deny regularity, repeatability, or inference. Quite the opposite. Patterns emerge precisely through the recurrence of relational configurations. What changes is the status of such patterns: they are not features of a world out there, but expressions of the system’s actualisations over time. They can be tracked, modelled, and made increasingly robust — but they remain contingent upon the relations that produce them.

This is not relativism. It is realism — but of a kind that recognises the world as dynamically co-constructed rather than statically pre-given.

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Reflexivity and the Practice of Objectivity

A relational approach demands reflexivity: a continual awareness of the conditions and consequences of our participation. This includes the disciplines we work within, the tools we use, and the metaphors we inherit. It is not enough to speak of “data” or “facts” as if they emerge unshaped. Every fact is the outcome of selection, framing, and interpretation. This does not make facts unreal; it makes them relationally real.

Objectivity, then, becomes a virtue of openness: openness to revising frames, testing assumptions, and acknowledging entanglements. It is a practice, not a position.

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Toward a Relational Epistemology

In this light, epistemology itself must be rethought. Knowing is not the accumulation of representations, but the cultivation of capacities to participate meaningfully in a co-actualising world. It is not a conquest of the unknown, but an invitation to enter more deeply into the unfolding of relation.

The final post in this series will explore the implications of this view for what it means to know with — to understand not as possession, but as mutual emergence.

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6 Knowing With — Toward a Relational Epistemology

If the world is constituted through relation, and objectivity is a practice of accountable participation, then knowing is not a private act of acquisition, but a shared process of co-becoming. In this final post, we articulate a relational epistemology: not knowing about, but knowing with.

To know is to enter into relation — to be changed by what one seeks to understand. This is not a failure of rigour; it is its fulfilment. In a relational world, epistemology becomes a mode of responsiveness: a way of living attentively in the presence of others, human and more-than-human, where every act of understanding is also an act of world-making.

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Knowledge as Participation

In traditional models, knowledge is possession: one gains knowledge, accumulates facts, builds conceptual systems. But within a relational ontology, this metaphor no longer holds. Knowledge cannot be owned. It is not a static entity that sits in a mind or on a page. It is a process — a pattern of co-actualisation between knowers and knowns.

Knowing, then, is not separable from being. To know something is to become-with it, to let its potentials shape one’s own. Knowledge is not what I have about the world, but what we come to be together through our mutual engagement.

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From Representation to Intra-Action

This shifts the function of knowledge from representation to intra-action — a term that underscores how entities do not pre-exist their interactions but emerge through them. Knowing is not the mirroring of a world already made; it is a participation in the making of the world. To know is to intervene, to co-compose, to respond.

This entails responsibility. What we bring into view is not neutral. It is a commitment — a participation in particular worldings, with their own inclusions, exclusions, and consequences.

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Knowing-with as Ethical Practice

Relational epistemology is inseparable from ethics. If knowledge is participation, then all knowing is also a form of relating — and all relations carry ethical weight. What matters is not only what we know, but how we participate in the knowing: whether we make space for the other, whether we flatten difference, whether we listen or extract.

This is not a call to abandon analysis, but to deepen it — to let rigour and relationality inflect one another. Knowing-with is rigorous not because it pretends to be neutral, but because it strives to be reflexive, situated, and attentive to the difference that makes a difference.

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Knowledge as World-Making

In this framework, knowledge becomes a form of world-making. Not because it invents reality from nothing, but because it selects, frames, and instantiates potential into particular actualities. Our categories, our questions, our models — all participate in shaping the world we inhabit and inherit.

This is not to say that anything goes. It is to say that everything matters. Each act of knowing is an intervention in the unfolding of relation. As such, the epistemic is always also the ontological and the ethical.

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An Invitation

Relational ontology does not give us a stable platform on which to stand. It invites us into a practice of becoming-with — of living knowledgeably and responsibly in a world that is never merely given, but always in the making.

To take this seriously is not to despair over the loss of certainty. It is to recognise that we are always already involved, and to ask: what kinds of worlds do we want to participate in bringing forth?