A person learns a new meaning. Something that was previously unfamiliar becomes intelligible, and the person can now make sense of an encounter that had once presented a difficulty.
But has anything changed beyond that particular understanding?
Perhaps the new meaning is simply an addition to what the person already knows. The system remains as it was, except that one more meaning is available. Alternatively, the new meaning may alter how other meanings can be made, changing the possibilities available for subsequent encounters.
How might we distinguish these two kinds of change?
Consider learning the meaning of an unfamiliar word. Initially, the word may be understood through an explanation or an example. The learner can now recognise what it means in familiar circumstances. Yet learning the word may also enable the learner to make distinctions that were previously unavailable, recognise relations that had gone unnoticed, or construe unfamiliar experiences in new ways.
The difference is not necessarily in the word itself. It lies in what learning the word makes possible within the wider system of meaning.
A similar distinction applies when we encounter a new idea. We might add it to our existing understanding without changing anything else. Or the idea might lead us to reconsider how several things are related, altering the significance of what we already know. The change extends beyond the new idea because it affects the resources through which other things can be understood.
This suggests that we should distinguish between the acquisition of a meaning and the development of meaning-making potential. The first concerns what a person can now understand or express. The second concerns the resources available for making meanings, including meanings that have not yet been encountered.
The distinction is not absolute. Acquiring a particular meaning may contribute to developing meaning-making potential, while changes in that potential may make further meanings easier to acquire. What matters is whether the new meaning remains an isolated addition or participates in a change in the resources available for making meaning.
We should also distinguish between a possibility becoming available and that possibility being actualised. A system may acquire resources that enable new meanings to be made without those meanings ever being made in a particular instance. Conversely, an unusual meaning may be produced through existing resources without transforming the system that makes it possible.
The question, then, is not simply whether a new meaning has appeared. It is whether the resources through which meanings are made have changed in ways that alter what can subsequently be made meaningful.
This raises a relational problem. Meaning-making potential does not operate independently of the circumstances in which it is used. What becomes possible depends on the relations among the resources available, the circumstances encountered and the activities in which participants engage. A new resource may open possibilities in one setting without having the same consequences in another.
Nor need the consequences remain with the individual who first acquires the new meaning. When a new distinction becomes part of a shared system, others may use it to make meanings that its originator never anticipated. A change in one participant's resources can therefore contribute to changes in what becomes possible for others, provided the innovation enters relations through which it can be shared and extended.
Over time, such changes may alter the system itself. What began as an unfamiliar way of construing something may become an established resource, available to subsequent participants. The history of a meaning-making system is therefore not merely a history of the meanings that have been made within it. It is also a history of changes in the resources that make further meanings possible.
Yet we should not assume that every new meaning expands those resources, or that every expansion represents progress. New distinctions may close off other ways of construing experience; innovations may remain confined to particular circumstances; and some changes may eventually be abandoned. The possibilities a system affords are not necessarily increased in every direction.
The more important question concerns the nature of the change. Has the system merely acquired another meaning, or have the relations among its resources changed so that something previously unavailable can now be made meaningful?
We began by asking what happens when a meaning-making system encounters something it cannot accommodate. We then considered how such an encounter might contribute to a change in the system. Now we can see why the distinction matters: the consequences of an encounter may extend beyond what it enables us to understand here and now. They may affect what can be understood in circumstances we have yet to encounter.
Can we recognise a change in meaning-making potential before we know what new meanings it will make possible?
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