Expression

An expression is a distinguishable and reproducible form through which a concept becomes observable. It is the operational medium that allows a concept to appear within observation, communication or formal manipulation. Without expression, a concept cannot be accessed, differentiated or stabilized, even though it may still be presupposed.

Expressions are not identical with concepts. They don't contain meaning, truth or reference by themselves. Rather, they provide a condition under which a concept can be observed and operated upon. They may take linguistic, symbolic, formal, technical or biological forms, such as words, signs, code, gestures, mathematical notation or neural patterns. What unifies them is not their substance but their reproducibility and distinguishability within an operational context.

An expression must carry a reference. Only through reference does an expression become directed toward something and gain epistemic relevance. Every expression remains operationally available by reference. Perceived lack of meaning is not a property of the expression but a result of observation.

Multiple expressions may be associated with the same concept and a single expression may support different concepts depending on its contextual embedding. For this reason, expressions neither fix concepts nor guarantee stable meaning. They enable observation without determining what is observed. In this sense, expression is not a representation of reality but a condition for operability within cognitive, social, technical or formal systems.

Within the relation Concept-Expression-Reference, expression functions as the mediating element.

Relation to Watzlawick’s Metacommunicative Axiom

The idea that an expression always carries a reference is closely related to a foundational insight in communication theory known as Paul Watzlawick’s metacommunicative axiom: “Man kann nicht nicht kommunizieren!” (“One cannot not communicate!”). According to this axiom, every behaviour in a shared situation conveys something, because even silence, gestures, posture, tone, or immobility are forms of behaviour that others observe as communicative. In other words, it is impossible to suspend reference in communicative interaction, since any detectable expression will be interpreted by an observer as referring to something and thus as “communicating.” This principle highlights that expressions are never neutral or without reference in the context of observation and interaction, even if no specific meaning is deliberately intended.