In trying to analyze the structure of systems of sounds in various languages previously unknown to me, I learned that I could not do so if I tried to deal exclusively with the sounds themselves. This problem, in turn, forced me to look more explicitly toward human thought and what turned out to be philosophical presuppositions, even though I did not recognize them as such at the start. It consists in finding a way of regarding a fact or situation so that it is seen as an integral part of a larger whole or system. Patterns of patterns, within higher patterns, when seen as integrated, suggest that one is approaching some component of truth. A mode of discovery which leads to finding such patterns is not purely formal, but includes the observer, with his physical-social experience, his observer intuition, his observer guesses, and his testing procedures.
Life is in context.
We observe that a baby needs a mother. A plant needs nourishment and water from outside itself. Abstracted meaning needs physical experience as a basis. Structured language form needs language meaning to exist emically. Nothing can survive outside of a patterned context.