“Context is King” is a phrase, saying that’s become popular within modern language. But what does it actually mean? What is the intended meaning? Is it indeed true?

In this article I will look at answering these questions and point out why the saying should not be used, because it is indeed false.

We begin with a word about words. Words have meaning. In fact, and the problem is most words have a range of meanings.
Let’s look at the word ‘run’ for example. The Oxford English Dictionary has 645 use cases for the verb alone in its 2025 Edition. Does this example show that meanings of words are tied up with how they’re used, or is this a case of where a different word could and should be used to explain the other 644 cases?

Let’s turn our attention to the definition of the words used in the saying “Context is King”

Context

The word ‘context’ is defined as the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood.
Here are a few examples of where context is used:

Linguistic Context: In language, context refers to the words and sentences surrounding a particular word or phrase that help to determine its meaning. For example, the word ‘bat’, as a noun alone can refer to an animal or a piece of sporting equipment, and the context of the sentence helps to clarify which meaning is intended.

Situational Context: This type of context involves the physical or social setting in which something happens. For example, the meaning of a conversation can change depending on whether it takes place in a formal meeting or a casual gathering. Different levels of education often dictate the level of formality and casualness.

Cultural Context: Cultural context includes the beliefs, values, and practices of a particular group or society. Understanding cultural context can help to interpret actions, behaviours, and traditions within a specific cultural framework. Different cultures are typically formed within a country that highlight differences between two or more countries.

Historical Context: This refers to the time period and events that surround and influence a particular situation or event. For example, understanding the historical context of a literary work can provide deeper insight into its themes and characters. Words can have different meaning based on their use throughout time. Legal definitions have also changed during different periods. Even the Bible has adopted a change over time; a number of verses from ‘Leviticus’ are an example.

Is

‘Is’ has been defined as the third person singular of the present tense of be.

King

The word ‘King’ can be defined as the male ruler of an independent state, or
the most important chess piece.

By combining these definitions together, as we combine the words together, we should have a meaning:

If the word ‘King’ is not defined as above, but instead is defined as ‘the most important’, we end up with the meaning, which is intended:
‘The circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea with respect to language, location, culture and history for being able to comprehend is most important.

This implies that ‘knowledge’ and ‘truth’ is not only not as important as the context, but varies because of it, therefore both ‘knowledge’ and ‘truth’ are relative words and concepts!

I would argue that this has to be absurd. Knowledge and truth are absolute, or should be.

Now let’s look at the words and their definition in my proposed alternative “Contextualism is Most Important, Except in Context of Invariantism or Compositionalism”.

Contextualism

Contextualism in philosophy is the view that the truth-conditions of knowledge attributions, ethical judgments, and other evaluative statements can vary depending on the context in which they are expressed. This approach can be applied in different areas, such as epistemology, ethics, and even the philosophy of language.

Epistemology:
In epistemology, contextualism asserts that whether a person knows something can depend on the context. For example, the standards for knowing might be higher in a courtroom than in everyday conversation. This helps to address sceptical challenges by acknowledging that in some contexts, what counts as ‘knowing’ something is more stringent than in others.

Ethics:
In ethics, contextualism can suggest that what is morally right or wrong can depend on the specific circumstances of a situation. This contrasts with moral absolutism, which holds that there are fixed, universal moral principles. Contextualism allows for more flexibility and sensitivity to the particular details of each case.

Philosophy of Language:
In the philosophy of language, contextualism examines how the meaning of words or sentences can depend on the context of utterance. For instance, the word ‘mate’ means something different in the context of a sexual partner than it does in the context of a friend.

Contextualism has been defined to adapt to various situations. In epistemology, it provides a way to counter radical scepticism. Particularly in ethics, Contextualism allows for nuanced judgments that take into account specific details.

Contextualism can however lead to relativism, potentially undermining universal principles. Determining relevant contextual factors can be challenging and complex. Varying standards can lead to inconsistency and ambiguity in guidance.

Is

‘Is’ has been defined as the third person singular of the present tense of be. Even such a small word can have multiple definitions.

Is. can also be used as an abbreviation for Isaiah, island and isle. IS can mean Islamic State.

Most

‘Most’, a pronoun, is defined as the greatest amount or quantity.

Used forming the superlative of adjectives and adverbs, especially those of more than one syllable.
“The most important event of my life”

Important

The word ‘important’, an adjective, is defined as of great significance or value.

Except

The word ‘except’ is defined as a preposition as not including; other than , conjunction as used before a statement that forms an exception to one just made and as a verb as specify as excluded from a category or group .

In

The word ‘in’ has been defined as an adjective to mean designating, relating to, or restricted to a select group .

Of

The word ‘of’ is defined to mean expressing the relationship between a part and a whole.

Invariantism

Invariantism, as a theory in epistemology, posits that the standards for knowledge do not change regardless of varying circumstances, or in other words the standards for knowing something are constant and do not vary with different circumstances or contexts.

The theory offers a straightforward approach to understanding knowledge, avoiding complex and situational criteria. By maintaining the same standards across different contexts, invariantism ensures consistent and predictable judgments about what counts as knowledge.
This uniformity can be seen as fairer, as it applies the same criteria to all individuals, regardless of their circumstances.

Critics point out that Invariantism might ignore important contextual factors that can affect whether a belief counts as knowledge, such as the stakes involved or the evidence available in different situations. Contextualists argue that standards for knowing something can change depending on the context, and invariantism might fail to account for this variability.
In real-world scenarios, the rigid application of a single standard might not be practical or fair, especially when dealing with complex and diverse situations.

Or

Or is defined as a conjunction used to link alternatives and as a noun defined as a logical operation which gives the value one if at least one operand has the value one and otherwise gives a value of zero.

Compositionalism (Language)

Compositionalism is the principle that the meaning of a complex expression (like a sentence or phrase) is determined by the meanings of its constituent expressions and the rules used to combine them.
Essentially, it suggests that the meaning of the whole is a function of the meanings of its parts.
This principle is a cornerstone of the philosophy of language and formal semantics, logic, and cognitive science.

To break it down we can say:
Basic Units: Words or simpler expressions serve as the basic units of meaning.
Combination Rules: These units combine according to grammatical rules.

Meaning of Whole: The meaning of the entire expression depends on the meanings of its parts and the way they are combined.

An everyday example:
The simple sentence, taken from Dr. Seuss’s well known children’s book, “The cat sat on the mat” gets its meaning from the meanings of the individual words (‘cat’, ‘sat’, ‘on’, and ‘mat’) and the syntactic rules that combine them.
Compositionalism helps in understanding how complex ideas and statements are built from simpler ones.

Cosmopolitanism (Culture)

Cosmopolitanism is a philosophical perspective that advocates for the idea that all human beings belong to a single global community, transcending national, cultural, and political boundaries. It emphasises universal values, shared humanity, and global citizenship.

While encouraging cultural exchange and understanding, fostering mutual respect and appreciation for diverse cultures and traditions, emphasising the importance of universal values such as justice, equality, and human rights, advocating for their protection and promotion worldwide, critics argue that cosmopolitanism can lead to cultural homogenisation, where unique cultural identities and traditions are diminished in favour of one global culture.
The question is what is the standard to which cosmopolitanism can be applied?
If respectful standards of behaviour and thoughts are relative to their country of origin, how can there be a standard at all, which is the flaw in trying to create a multicultural society.

Summary of the meaning “Contextualism is Most Important, Except in Context of Invariantism or Compositionalism”

The truth-conditions of knowledge attributions, ethical judgments, and other evaluative statements can vary depending on the context in which they are expressed, except in the case of Invariantism, where the standards for knowing something are constant and do not vary with different circumstances or contexts and Compositionalism, where all human beings belong to a single global community, transcending national, linguistic, cultural, and political boundaries.

How often when speaking to people do you say or here from them “What do you mean”?
A question begs to be asked. Should the sender of a phrase be responsible for knowing the receiver’s linguistic ability, moral or ethical standard and/or cultural circumstances? Or is it up to the receiver to know what the sender is saying?

Does the Bible need to be read in Context?

Gaining meaning and having a discussion with people of differing Christian denominational faith can be contentious at best. Creating an English translated ‘Bible’ from ancient texts such as Hebrew that didn’t contain vowles while trying to understand and convey a meaning has proven to be a flawed task, leading to different versions of the ‘Bible’.
‘The King James Version’ (KJV), ‘The New King James Version’ (NKJV) and the Christian Standard Bible are 3 of many, yet they all offer ‘red letter’ versions where Jesus’s actual words spoken are identified using red ink, yet in different versions the words are different.

There are some tenants however, that are agreed upon by all Christians regardless of denomination and version of the Bible and that is all humans; Jew and Greek, rich and poor, men and women are equal in value.

The Solution

The problem of words and their meaning when forming a sentence with intended meaning is indeed thousands of years old. Our modern use of the English language has just made the inherent, systemic problem worse, by adding additional meanings to words, compounded by including ‘slang’ and ‘euphemisms’ created out of ‘popularism’ and ‘political correctness’, not through necessity.

So what is the solution to linguistic, cultural and historical differences in a modern world that is becoming smaller and more multicultural, wanting to communicate effectively?

I posit there is one solution with how we communicate at its core.
One word has one definition, and the meaning of the word does not change regardless of what other words are surrounding it when used.
Invariantism is most important and Contextualism should be removed as a word and philosophical theory because it is in itself a bad means to what it justifies as a good end.
When there is no standard to how we define knowledge or truth, there can be no ‘knowing’ or ‘truths’.

Instead of adding new words, simply out of popularism that only add to ambiguous speech, dictionaries should be responsible for providing clear definitions of words, so no ambiguity exists. These should be primarily based on historical use and meaning.

The grammatical composition of words would then have a clear way of conveying what is actually meant, not be open for two or more interpretations. It would therefore be the responsibility of everyone; including educators, to know what words mean so they can be correctly arranged to form sentences with purposeful meaning.

Is the Fall of Nationalism a Consequence?

Is there a case to be made for the abolition of national identity to remove cultural peculiarities, leading to Cosmopolitanism?
In Australia, would Australian’s be prepared to eliminate the popular ‘G’day mate’ welcome phrase for ‘Hello’, plus the person’s name if known, forever banishing the word g’day and the phrase from Australian’s vernacular.
The word ‘mate’ would then be reserved to mean a sexual partner where copulation can lead to reproduction in animals; understanding humans are part of the animal ‘Kingdom’.

Is the answer a ‘One World’ approach to language, and taking that a step further, Is a ‘One World Government’ a solution to civilizations problems, as proposed by many over hundreds, even thousands of years?
I’m going to leave if that’s a plausible, or even a desirable solution and how that could look for another article.

To the question is the saying “Context is King” true?
I have argued that it is not. Illustrated by “Contextualism is Most Important, Except in Context of Invarianism and Compositionalism” showing why and what the inherent, systematic flaw is.

The one word, one meaning doctrine of language, using a standardised ‘Knowledge Dictionary’, across all ‘English as the first language’ countries would eliminate much of the ‘What do you mean’ situations as the word ‘context’ and philosophical theory of ‘contextualism’ would be eliminated as a result.

While I acknowledge that slang words; typically used for abbreviation will always be part of some demographics in all cultures, and that some elegant prose can be constructed with symbolism, I advocate that no formal acceptance or acknowledgement is attributed to defining them, unless they represent a new word with a specific, non-contextual definition.

Good and clear communication is indeed the most important human attribute required for love, peace, understanding and prosperity for all and shouldn’t be esoteric.