Reciprocity. No thing or event has a fixed, intrinsic meaning; its meaning only emerges through interaction with other things or events. This is equally true of the particular items within any cultural system, of the individual's relationship to any given piece of culture, and of the individual's actions in society. … A fundamental circularity is involved in all cultural systems. No legal precept is valid in itself, but only in relation to other legal precepts. A line has no intrinsic length; it can be measured only by comparing it with another line. The validity of any scientific or philosophic proposition depends on its relation to another proposition, the validity of which ultimately depends on the first.

DEFINE: Defines 'reciprocity' as the principle that nothing holds intrinsic meaning; meaning emerges relationally across cultural systems.

DEFINE: Defines the core concept of reciprocity as a framework for how meaning is constructed across cultural, social, and scientific systems.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 72