The Epistemological Perspective Of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory

Axiom 1: Immanence: All meaning is within semiotic systems

Axiom 2: Semiotic systems distinguish between a non-semiotic domain and a semiotic domain.

Axiom 3: Within the semiotic domain, the semiotic system of language distinguishes between a material-relational domain and a mental-verbal domain.

Axiom 4: It is the mental-verbal domain (the process of consciousness) — by means of the material-relational domain — that construes experience of the non-semiotic domain as the meaning of the semiotic domain.

∞

In this view, 'reality' is identified with the semiotic domain: the outer material-relational and the inner mental-verbal. For example,

Galilean science is concerned with the outer material-relational domain ('primary qualities') rather than with the inner mental-verbal domain ('secondary qualities'); and

in Cartesian philosophy, the certainty of the existence of the inner mental-verbal domain (cogito) guarantees (ergo) the existence of the outer material-relational domain (sum).

∞

To be clear, this does not mean that the domain outside meaning (e.g. what is construed as 'cancer') "does not exist", but that to think or say that anything exists is to transform the meaningless into meaning (e.g. a material world).

Clarification by ChatGPT

Axiom 1: Immanence

All meaning exists only within semiotic systems.

Axiom 2: Distinction

Semiotic systems distinguish between what is construed as beyond meaning and the domain of meaning itself.

Axiom 3: Construal

Within the semiotic domain, the semiotic system of language distinguishes between a material-relational domain and a mental-verbal domain.

Axiom 4: Consciousness

It is the mental-verbal domain (the process of consciousness), by means of the material-relational domain, that construes experience of what lies beyond meaning as the meaning of the semiotic domain.

∞

In this view, reality as experienced and understood is identified with the semiotic domain: the outer material-relational and the inner mental-verbal. Thus, Galilean science is concerned primarily with the outer material-relational domain (its "primary qualities") rather than with the inner mental-verbal domain (its "secondary qualities"); while, in Cartesian philosophy, the certainty of the existence of the inner mental-verbal domain (cogito) guarantees (ergo) the existence of the outer material-relational domain (sum). Both are distinctions internal to the semiotic domain.

∞

To be clear, this does not mean that what is construed, for example, as "cancer" does not exist independently of meaning. Rather, it means that to think or say that anything exists is already to construe it as meaningful. The unconstrued is not denied; it simply cannot become an object of thought or language except by entering the semiotic domain as meaning.