Meaning does not change its nature when it becomes interpersonal.
But it does change its conditions.
This post begins the series by explaining why meaning enacted with others present feels heavier, riskier, and more consequential — without reclassifying it as a different kind of thing.
The familiar intuition
Interpersonal meaning feels different from solitary meaning.
Speaking to oneself, reading privately, or silently interpreting a phenomenon lacks a certain pressure.
Speaking to another introduces:
anticipation of response,
concern about uptake,
risk of misunderstanding,
possibility of sanction or approval.
This difference is real — but it is not ontological.
Meaning does not change kind
Meaning remains:
symbolic and semiotic,
constituted in construal,
evental and relational.
Nothing new is added to meaning itself when another person is present.
No interpersonal essence appears.
What changes: constraint
What does change is the field in which construal occurs.
When others are present — actually or implicitly — meaning is enacted under constraint.
These constraints include:
expectations about appropriateness,
norms governing intelligibility,
sensitivity to roles and relations,
anticipation of consequences.
Constraint does not generate meaning.
It shapes the space in which meaning can occur.
The presence of others
Crucially, the presence of others need not be physical.
Social fields persist:
imagined audiences,
institutional roles,
internalised expectations.
Interpersonal meaning occurs whenever construal is oriented toward possible uptake.
Pressure without representation
The pressure felt in interpersonal meaning does not arise from internalised rules or representations.
It arises from repeated exposure to value-laden coordination systems:
social norms,
biological viability pressures,
histories of sanction and reward.
These systems do not interpret.
They condition interpretation.
Why this distinction matters
If interpersonal meaning is treated as a different kind of meaning, confusion follows.
If value systems are treated as meaningful, ontology collapses.
What is required is a careful account of how constraint operates on meaning without becoming it.
Looking ahead
The next post will clarify the nature of value systems themselves.
Post 2: Value Systems Do Not Mean (And Why They Still Matter) will show why value is indispensable to social life — precisely because it is not meaning.
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