 At least since Aristotle (see his Metaphysics 1011), Western philosophers have commonly assumed that the primary meaning (or truth) of words lies in their ability to refer to already existing realities. Often implicit in that assumption is that (1) reality is fixed, or at least stable enough to be pinned down by linguistic expression; (2) context is not necessarily determinative in meaning; (3) the audience is irrelevant or at least externally, not internally, related to the meaning of the expression; (4) the semantic and syntactic, but not phonetic, aspects of the language carry the meaning; and (5) language defines and restricts the possible meanings of things or events. Every one of those assumptions has been challenged by major Japanese philosophers, both classical and modern. In fact, some important thinkers have in one way or another denied or at least qualified all of them.