Having resisted:
- reduction to behaviour,
- reduction to structure,
- reduction to isolated norms,
pragmatism consolidates its position:
meaning is the unified activity of use,normativity, and social practice.
On this view:
- meaning is not in any single component,
- but in the whole system of participation.
The claim becomes:
taken together, these are sufficient.
1. The Integrative Move
The argument is subtle:
- behaviour alone is insufficient
- norms alone are insufficient
- practice alone is insufficient
But:
their integration produces meaning.
Meaning is thus:
- not reducible,
- but emergent from a structured whole.
2. Why This Seems Plausible
This move has intuitive force.
Because in actual activity:
- behaviour is norm-governed,
- norms are enacted in practice,
- practice is sustained through coordination.
These are not separate in lived experience.
They appear as:
a single, unified phenomenon.
From this, it is inferred:
meaning must be identical with this unity.
3. Composition Does Not Create Construal
But integration does not introduce a new kind of organisation.
It combines:
- behaviour (what is done),
- normativity (what is correct),
- practice (how activity is organised).
Each of these has already been shown to lack:
the “as”-relation.
Combining them does not produce it.
4. No Threshold Effect
The integrative claim relies on an implicit assumption:
at some level of complexity or organisation,construal appears.
But no such threshold has been identified.
There is no point at which:
- coordinated behaviour,
- norm-governed activity,
- and social participation
suddenly become:
something that takes something as something.
Complexity increases coordination.
It does not generate construal.
5. Emergence Without Difference
To say that meaning “emerges” from integration is to claim:
- a new property appears,
- without specifying what introduces it.
But unless something fundamentally different is added,
integration remains:
composition of the same kinds of organisation.
And those kinds:
- do not include construal.
6. The Disguised Collapse
What the integrative move does, in effect, is:
- rename coordinated activity as meaning.
It preserves:
- all the components of use,
and simply asserts:
their unity is sufficient.
This is not an explanation.
It is:
a re-description.
7. The Missing Relation Persists
Across all components:
- behaviour
- normativity
- practice
what is present is:
- coordination,
- evaluation,
- and organisation.
What is absent is:
the taking of something as something.
This absence is not repaired by:
- adding more coordination,
- strengthening norms,
- or expanding practice.
8. Integration as Value Organisation
The integrated system can be understood as:
a highly organised value system.
It governs:
- what matters,
- what is correct,
- how activity proceeds.
It is:
- complex,
- stable,
- and adaptive.
But it remains:
value organisation.
Not:
- semiotic construal.
9. The Collapse Completed
We can now state:
the identification of meaning with use fails at every level—component and whole.
- behaviour does not construe
- norms do not construe
- practice does not construe
- their integration does not construe
What remains is:
coordinated, normatively structured activity.
Closing Formulation
Integration does not produce what its parts lack.
No combination of behaviour, normativity, and practiceintroduces the “as”-relation required for meaning.The unity of use is still use.
And use, no matter how refined,does not construe.
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