Once context is rejected as environment, register as variable set, and realisation as bidirectional, one final move remains available:
to install social process as the grounding layer.
Not explicitly.
But as a background assumption:
meaning happens within social activity, and is therefore explained by it.
This move appears to avoid earlier errors.
It does not:
- reduce meaning to biology
- treat context as external variables
- or rely on simple causal influence
Instead, it says:
- meaning is part of social practice
- language unfolds in interaction
- semiosis is embedded in process
This seems subtle.
It is structurally identical to what we have already excluded.
Because “process” does a very specific kind of work.
To say that meaning is part of a social process is to say:
- there is an ongoing system of activity
- within which meaning is produced, exchanged, and transformed
Which implies:
- a shared temporal unfolding
- a medium in which events occur
- and a continuity that links instances together
In other words:
a substrate.
It may not be called that.
But it functions as one.
Because without it, “process” has no coherence.
Let’s make the structure explicit.
If meaning is part of social process, then:
- meaning occurs within activity
- activity precedes and exceeds any instance of meaning
- and meaning derives its character from its role in that activity
This immediately entails:
- dependence
- embedding
- and continuity across instances
Each of these violates the constraints already established.
1. Dependence
If meaning derives from social process, then:
- it is not internally sufficient
- it is explained by something outside itself
This is grounding.
2. Embedding
If meaning is embedded in activity, then:
- it is a component of a larger system
- and that system provides the context in which it operates
This is reduction to system.
3. Continuity
If process unfolds over time, then:
- there must be something that persists
- linking one instance to another
This reintroduces:
- structure
- memory
- or system-level organisation
All three are prohibited.
At this point, the usual defence appears:
“We are not claiming causation—just that meaning is situated in social activity.”
But “situated” does not resolve the problem.
It relocates it.
Because to situate something is to place it:
- in a space
- within a process
- as part of a larger whole
Which again requires:
- a shared substrate
- a medium of unfolding
- a container of events
So the concept of social process functions as:
a grounding layer that is not named as such.
It allows the theory to say:
- meaning is not autonomous
- meaning is socially constituted
while avoiding explicit reduction.
But the structure is the same:
something outside the semiotic explains it.
This cannot be sustained.
The alternative is not to deny the social.
It is to remove process from it.
There is no:
- ongoing activity
- unfolding system
- or temporal substrate
in which meaning resides.
Instead:
- value (as organised selectivity)
- and the semiotic (as organised construal)
are distinct organisations
that are:
co-individuated in coupled actualisation.
What appears as “social process” is:
- the reproducibility of constraint across instances
- not the unfolding of an underlying system
There is no activity that carries meaning forward.
There is only:
- repeated actualisation
- under constraint
- producing patterns that appear continuous
This is the same move we made with stability.
We do not explain continuity by:
- persistence of a system
But by:
reproducibility of constraint.
So what is usually described as:
- interaction
- practice
- social process
is not a domain in which meaning exists.
It is:
a way of describing the patterned recurrence of coupled actualisations.
This has decisive consequences.
1. No “use” of language in activity
Language is not:
- used in social processes
- applied within activity
Because there is no container in which such use occurs.
2. No embedding of meaning in practice
Meaning is not:
- part of a larger social system
- integrated into ongoing activity
There is no such system.
3. No temporal continuity as explanation
We do not explain meaning by:
- tracing processes over time
- following interactional sequences
These are redescriptions of recurrence—not explanations.
At this point, the full force of the position becomes visible.
What has been removed:
- environment
- variables
- bidirectional influence
- social process
What remains:
- distinct organisations
- coupled in constraint
- actualised without mechanism
- reproducible without substrate
Closing formulation
There is no social process in which meaning resides or through which it unfolds.
What appears as process is the reproducibility of constraint across instances of coupled actualisation.
The moment social activity is treated as a grounding layer,the semiotic is no longer internally sufficient,and the distinction it depends on collapses.
This is the deepest cut.
Because once “process” goes, there is nothing left to carry:
- interaction
- practice
- or system
as explanatory foundations.
At that point, most frameworks don’t just weaken.
They lose the ground they were standing on.
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