Transcendental Relationalism: Framework-Indexed Determinacy, Relative Truth, and Invariant Objectivity

Abstract

Transcendental Relationalism develops a framework-indexed account of determinacy, truth, and objectivity. Its central claim is that an object, identity, property, or truth-value becomes determinate only under conditions specifying a domain, language, criteria of identity, admissible relations, and rules of evaluation. The framework replaces an unqualified truth predicate with a partial indexed evaluation, distinguishing false propositions from propositions that are semantically incomplete within a given framework. It separates three notions often conflated in discussions of relativism: framework dependence, cross-framework variation, and transformation invariance. A proposition may depend on a framework for its interpretation while remaining invariant under every admissible translation between frameworks. Objectivity is therefore reconstructed not as the absence of a standpoint, but as preservation under a specified class of admissible transformations. The paper also examines the self-reference objection to relativism and argues that an indexed formulation avoids immediate formal contradiction without implying that all frameworks are equally legitimate.