Ontologies in Action, Part 3: Science as Construal, Not Discovery

Science is often imagined as the uncovering of what already exists: the discovery of timeless facts about a pre-given reality. But in a relational ontology, this picture shifts. Science does not reveal objects waiting to be found; it construes possibilities within structured potential.

Theories as structured potentials

Just as in SFL, systems are networks of meaning potential, so too in science, theories function as networks of structured possibility. A physical theory does not merely describe what is, but maps out what could be. Its power lies in generating potential instances and guiding how phenomena can be construed.

Experiments as perspectival cuts

An experiment is not a passive window onto reality but an active cut into possibility. By arranging instruments, defining variables, and framing hypotheses, scientists carve a particular pathway through potential. What emerges is not an independently given phenomenon but an event of construal — one perspective on a larger space of possibility.

Science as a relational practice

From this view, science is less about correspondence with an external world and more about the coherence of construals. A scientific explanation is successful when it aligns construals across scales and contexts, allowing us to navigate and coordinate within the evolving network of potential.

Why this deepens science, not diminishes it

Some may worry that construing science in this way undermines its authority. In fact, the opposite is true. Recognising science as construal makes visible the creative, relational work that has always been central to its practice. It also situates science within the same ontology as meaning, ethics, and education: all are practices of opening, aligning, and actualising potential.

Science, then, is not discovery but systematic construal of possibility. Its strength lies not in uncovering immutable objects, but in mapping structured potential in ways that expand what can be known, done, and imagined.

The final post in this series will extend this logic into the collective domain, showing how relational ontology redefines social life and collective action as possibility-in-motion.