Something becomes visible because something else remains in the background.
A figure stands out against a field.
A tree becomes an object against a landscape.
An event becomes an event against something that continues around it.
We rarely notice the background precisely because it is doing its job.
It allows the thing to appear.
This is true of concepts as well.
To recognise something as an object, we normally assume a space in which it can be located.
To recognise something as an event, we assume a temporal continuity against which it can occur.
To recognise something as a cause, we assume a world of processes in which events can be related.
The background is therefore not simply what we have chosen not to describe.
It is part of what makes description possible.
And yet, once a construal is working, its conditions tend to disappear from view. We see the object, not the distinction that made it an object. We notice the event, not the continuity that allowed it to count as an event.
The map shows the roads.
It does not show the assumptions that made the roads mappable.
Perhaps this is why the limits of a construal can be so revealing.
When the background can no longer be taken for granted, what was previously obvious may cease to be intelligible.
The object loses its setting.
The event loses its temporal field.
The relation loses the structure that made the relation possible.
And then we discover something we normally overlook:
A construal does not merely make some things visible. It also makes a background possible against which those things can appear.
The background we don't see may therefore be one of the most important parts of the world we do.
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