Meaning Without Value (And Value Without Meaning)
Having established that relevance is constitutive and phenomena appear as this through instantiation, we are now poised to clarify the relation between relevance, meaning, and value.
The distinction is subtle but essential: meaning emerges from relevance, while value operates independently to coordinate social or biological systems.
1. Meaning depends on relevance
Meaning is not an abstract property added to phenomena. It is the second-order articulation of first-order relevance.
A phenomenon is already structured by relevance. Its meaning emerges because the articulation makes some distinctions intelligible while leaving others in the background.
Meaning is, in this sense, derivative of relevance but not reducible to subjective interpretation, epistemic judgment, or symbolic coding.
It is shared, contestable, and communicable precisely because it is rooted in the structured salience of instantiated phenomena.
2. Value is independent
Value systems operate in parallel, but separately:
they coordinate social or biological action
they generate obligations, preferences, or priorities
they do not dictate what appears or how it is structured
Conflating meaning with value is a widespread error. It collapses the ontological work of relevance into pragmatic or ethical reasoning.
Meaning can exist without any particular valuation; relevance can structure salience even in the absence of social, moral, or biological stakes.
3. Why this distinction matters
By distinguishing meaning from value we can see why symbolic systems can operate reliably without invoking completion, totality, or fixed hierarchies:
Relevance makes phenomena appear intelligibly
Meaning allows these phenomena to be connected, interpreted, and communicated
Value coordinates action, not intelligibility
This separation preserves the autonomy of ontology while allowing for symbolic elaboration.
4. Relevance structures symbolic articulation
Symbolic systems are second-order constructions. They depend on the first-order relevance structure of phenomena but do not generate it.
Without relevance, symbols would float free of any world. Without meaning, symbols would lack connection to intelligible construals. Without the distinction from value, symbols would collapse into coordination or social priority.
By keeping these layers distinct, we preserve the structural clarity of ontology.
5. Practical consequences
This account explains a number of persistent confusions:
Why different observers can share meaning even with differing valuations
Why some phenomena are intelligible yet socially disregarded
Why relevance can be constitutive without privileging any frame or perspective
It provides a framework to think about knowledge, communication, and symbolic systems without relying on totality or completion.
6. What follows
Having separated relevance, meaning, and value, we can now return to incompleteness.
The final post will show how incompleteness is not a defect but a structural condition of relevance and intelligibility. Gödelian limitations are, in this sense, not failures of knowledge but requirements for the world to appear intelligibly at all.
That will bring the series to its conceptual close, preparing readers for a coda in dialogue form if desired.
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