Misreading Relational Ontology II: 4.“But Without Representation, How Do You Explain Error?” (The Misunderstanding That Assumes What It Needs to Prove)

Another classic: the realist-materialist assumes that if knowledge isn’t representational, then there’s no way to distinguish between “true” and “false”, “accurate” and “inaccurate”, “successful” and “failed”.

But this objection only works if one first presumes that knowledge must be representational — that there must be a mental picture whose fidelity can vary.

Once you abandon that architecture, the objection dissolves.

Let’s take it cleanly.

1 Error Is Not a Failure of Matching; It’s a Failure of Coordination

Representation-based epistemologies treat error as:

A mismatch between the mind’s model and the world’s structure.

But in a relational ontology, there are:

• no inner models

• no outer objects waiting to be mirrored

• no metaphysical “fit” to be measured

So error must be rethought.

And when you rethink it relationally, the picture is much cleaner:

Error = a construal that fails to coordinate effectively with the system’s potentials.

Meaning:

• the cut was made

• the phenomenon was actualised

• but the way you individuated the situation did not align with the potentials that matter for the activity you’re engaged in

No “false belief”.

No “incorrect representation”.

Just misalignment of relational cuts with the actionable potentials at hand.

2 Construal Generates Consequences — That’s Where Error Lives

In a relational system, every construal:

• selects

• foregrounds

• configures

• and therefore enables certain courses of action while disabling others

An error is simply a cut whose downstream affordances fail.

This is not “psychological failure”; it is relational incoherence.

Not wrong because the “mental picture” is inaccurate.

Wrong because the construal does not sustain viable coordination with the world’s ongoing dynamics.

3 Representationalists Misunderstand Error Because They Misunderstand Meaning

Representationalists think:

• meaning = encoded content

• epistemic accuracy = fidelity of encoding

• error = corrupted or mismatched encoding

But in our ontology:

• meaning = construal

• construal = perspectival actualisation

• error = a cut that disables effective relational alignment

This is not a subjective failure.

This is a failure of relational individuation.

4 You Can Only “Measure Error” Against Purposes, Systems, and Potentials

Error is always relative to:

• the system whose potentials constrain the cut

• the purposes or activities the cut is being used to sustain

• the semiotic resources through which the cut is enacted

In other words:

A construal is in error when it fails in the activity it attempts to actualise.

No metaphysical “fact of the matter” lurking behind the scenes.

No truth-as-correspondence.

No representational scoreboard.

What you have is coherence or incoherence with:

• system potential

• semiotic resources

• social or biological activities

• ecological constraints

5 This Makes Error More Robust, Not Less

The surprisingly enjoyable twist is this:

Representational accounts make error metaphysically mysterious.

Relational accounts make error functionally obvious.

Representationalists must explain:

• how a mind compares its inner model with the outer world

• how it knows when it’s doing so

• how it escapes the infinite regress of checking each model with another model

In the relational view:

• coordination succeeds or fails

• potentials are negotiated or violated

• the world pushes back

Error becomes a feature of interaction, not an epistemic hallucination.

6 Summary for the Formal Epistemologist Already Preparing a 14-Part Rebuttal

• There is no representation.

• Therefore no representational “match”.

• Therefore no representational “mismatch”.

• Error = misalignment of construal with the potentials relevant to action.

It is not subjective.

It is not mental.

And it is not mysterious.

It is simply the world’s way of saying:

“Not that cut.”