In the previous post, we proposed that validity does not depend upon hierarchical foundations but upon durable constraint within structured potential. A claim is supported insofar as it coheres, constrains, and survives reversible repositioning along the cline.
This reconstruction stabilises rigour without elevation.
But another, deeper concept now presses upon us.
If validity can no longer mean “grounded in something more fundamental,” can truth still mean “correspondence to reality”?
Or does correspondence presuppose precisely the vertical architecture we have set aside?
This post explores that question.
1. The Correspondence Picture
The classical conception of truth is familiar.
A statement is true if it corresponds to the way the world is.
The structure seems simple:
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There is a world.
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There are representations of that world.
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Truth is the adequation between the two.
Even when refined philosophically, the image persists: a relation between language (or thought) and reality, evaluated from a standpoint that can compare them.
But notice what this requires.
It requires a vantage from which:
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The representation can be inspected,
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The world can be accessed,
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And their relation can be assessed.
In other words, it requires a metalevel capable of standing outside both.
Yet in the previous series we argued that metalevel is not a higher ontological tier but a directional positioning within structured potential. There is no ultimate outside. Every construal is itself positioned.
If that is so, correspondence becomes difficult to stabilise.
For who—or what—performs the comparison?
2. The Instability of the Mirror
The metaphor underlying correspondence is that of mirroring.
But mirroring presupposes separability:
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A world fully formed,
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A representation distinct from it,
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And a neutral standpoint evaluating similarity.
Yet within a semiotic ontology, construal is not external to reality. It is a mode of actualisation within it.
What we call “the world” is never encountered outside construal. It is encountered as structured potential actualised through semiotic positioning.
This does not mean that reality is invented.
It means that access to reality is always already structured.
The mirror metaphor begins to fracture.
3. Truth as Durable Relational Adequacy
If truth cannot be correspondence from above, what can it be?
The reconstruction follows the logic developed for validity.
Truth becomes durable relational adequacy within structured potential.
A construal is true insofar as it:
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Maintains coherent constraint within its positioned framework.
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Remains stable under directional repositioning.
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Continues to generate viable actualisations across contexts.
Truth, in this sense, is not static matching. It is dynamic stability.
A claim is not true because it stands outside construal and matches an independent world. It is true because it participates successfully in the structured potential that reality affords.
This shifts the emphasis:
From adequation to durable participation.
4. Repositioning and Invariance
An important test of correspondence theories is invariance: truth should not fluctuate arbitrarily with perspective.
The directional account preserves this requirement, but reinterprets it.
Invariance becomes robustness under repositioning.
When we move along the cline—treating what was instance as potential, or theory as phenomenon—the claim retains its relational integrity.
For example:
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A scientific law may be treated as descriptive from one position, explanatory from another.
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A linguistic generalisation may be viewed as empirical pattern or as theoretical abstraction.
If the construal collapses under such shifts, it lacks durability.
If it retains coherence and constraint across them, it approaches truth in the directional sense.
5. Realism Without Transcendence
At this point another concern arises.
Does abandoning correspondence mean abandoning realism?
Not necessarily.
Directional ontology does not deny structured potential beyond any individual construal. It denies only that we can step outside construal to compare it with reality from nowhere.
Reality remains structured, resistant, and constraining. Not everything can be said, not everything can be actualised. Construal meets resistance.
Truth, then, names the durable alignment between positioned construal and structured potential.
6. The Quiet Transformation
This reconstrual is subtle but profound.
Truth ceases to function as metaphysical endpoint.
It becomes a name for stability achieved within complementarity.
It is earned through sustained constraint, coherence, and generativity across movement.
The mirror shatters.
But rigour remains.
7. The Next Question
If truth can be reconstructed without correspondence, then what becomes of proof?
For proof has often been regarded as the purest instantiation of truth: derivation from secure axioms, demonstration of necessity, ascent to certainty.
Can proof survive without foundations?
In the next post, we turn to that question.
Not to diminish proof.
But to understand it directionally.
The movement continues.
Hierarchy recedes.
Constraint remains.
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