CONCEPT
Scheme-Content Relation
The pairing of a symbolic scheme (symbols and their syntactic relations) with a referential field (what the symbols refer to)—established by the worldmaker's intentions, not by the symbols alone.
The scheme-content relation is
Goodman's term for the connection
between a
symbol system's formal structure and the domain of things, properties, and events to which the symbols refer. The scheme is the set of symbols and the syntactic rules governing their combination—the alphabet and grammar of a language, the pitch-classes and rhythmic values of musical notation, the color palette and compositional conventions of painting. The content is the referential field—the objects, events, properties that the symbols pick out, exemplify, or express. The relation between scheme and content is not given by the scheme alone. It is established by practice, convention, and—critically—by the
worldmaking intentions of the symbol-user. When Cézanne deployed the schemes of post-Impressionist painting to construct a version of
Mont Sainte-Victoire emphasizing geometric structure over fleeting light, the scheme-content relation was established by his specific intention to reveal the mountain's deep formal organization. The same symbolic scheme (fragmented planes, flattened depth, structural emphasis) could be deployed toward different content—a different mountain, a different aspect of