Reflexivity of Method, Part 1: Cuts and Perspectives: How Construal Works

At the heart of a relational ontology lies a simple but radical claim: reality is not given but construed. What we experience as “phenomena” come into being through cuts — perspectival shifts that actualise potential.

The cut as constitutive

A cut is not a passive observation. It is the act of drawing a boundary within a field of potential, producing an instance from a system. In physics, this appears in the role of measurement; in language, in how a clause complex selects and organises relations; in everyday life, whenever we frame a situation one way rather than another.

Without the cut, there is no phenomenon. There is only structured potential. The cut does not reveal reality; it constitutes reality-in-perspective.

Perspectives, not absolutes

Every cut is perspectival. It is one way of carving the potential, but never the only way. The same system can support multiple construals, depending on where the cut is made. This means that “reality” is inherently plural — not in the sense of multiple disconnected worlds, but in the sense that actuality is always perspectival actualisation of shared potential.

Implications for method

• To think relationally is to attend to the cuts we make — and those we neglect.

• To compare perspectives is not to decide which one is “true” in substance, but to explore how each aligns or misaligns with the structured potential it construes.

• To innovate is to cut differently, finding new ways of actualising what could be.

A methodological shift

Much of philosophy and science has been dominated by the search for absolutes: entities, essences, foundations. By foregrounding cuts and perspectives, we shift from substance to relation, from absolutes to construal. This is not relativism, but a recognition that reality itself is possibility-in-motion, constituted through perspectival actualisation.

This opening reflection sets the stage for the series. In the next post, we will explore the system/instantiation dynamic more directly, showing how the relation between potential and instance provides a method for thinking across scales — from physics to language to social life.