§ 11 Use value
Value is the meaning something acquires in use that is expressed in some way.1
The value of the Mona Lisa, to take an example, is its meaning as an icon expressing manifold things, among them the heights of human endeavour, the technological prowess of expressing an ineffable humanity in paint.
It is hard to be more specific here, as there are countless ways to express value.
Monetary value is just one of the many forms in which value is expressed.
Important to realise for the current discussion is that value just is the expression of a feeling: its expression in care, in attention, in money, in effort, in skill, in whatever. A feeling just is its expression as a feeling.
However, it does not need to be expressed openly. It can be expressed as a feeling that lies buried deep in oneself and remains there, cherished. It will then perhaps find further expression indirectly, in gratitude, love, jealousy, resentment, admiration, in benevolence and in many, many more ways, in all the ways that things can mean.
Use stands at the centre of all these expressions in that, looking upriver, use just is the reason for which the value is expressed and looking downriver, it is the use made of the expression.
I express value for a reason. That reason is the use I make of that which is valued for its value or the use I make of the value itself as it is expressed.
In this way, use is the focus of our perspectival engagement, arranging everything relative to our attentive gaze.
Use labels any and every relationship between us and our environment as a potential reason.
That which is of little interest is used as the backdrop of that which catches our attention. The ‘useless’, as a concept, is useful to demarcate the ‘useful’ in contrast with it.
Taking our Spinozan definition of a universe, we can say that there can be no relationship in a universe without the possibility of effect. And any effect may, to a conscious creature, hold affordance.
To heap all relationships together this way is itself useful, as it allows us, from that single measure of use, to create a network of more precise descriptions using nothing more technical than our ordinary language.
For example, I can use the distance of the furthest star in the universe to instill a sense of wonder. I can build a useful store of knowledge about possible relationships between us and our environment that might become more directly useful later, when the circumstances are different. I use a museum to indulge in the sheer pleasure of contemplating beautiful things. I use ornament to distinguish between the special and the everyday. I use the image of a flying bird to express the desire for escape, etc.
One can make the use value of any relationship visible simply by describing that relationship in terms of the uses we might hypothetically make of it, or the uses already made of it.
The advantage of putting use at the very centre of our conic organisation of the world relative to us is that it allows us to be or become aware of affordances in any relationship. For us, mobile, learning, growing, developing creatures that determine themselves through their action, this is a very useful fact. We need to be creative and good at finding use in any situation.
Analytical space is useful. That is the Cartesian space of objectification is useful to us.
The whole purpose of an objective description of the world is to re-subjectify that description when it has delivered its accurate and reliable information and put it to use.
Analytical, or objective space, is a particularly clever abstraction whereby we set aside our subjective view of the world in order to make our understanding of our relationships more accurate, more reliable and therefore ultimately more useful.
Analytical values construct their usefulness by sidestepping subjectification and postponing that subjectification for when it becomes appropriate. Analysis requires accuracy and logical consistency before the thing analysed can be put to critical use subjectively.
For instance, a formula simulating a structural force in a building needs to be accurate to help design the building’s structure. The objectification of that force helps us use it properly relative to our collective subjective interests in safety, comfort, etc.
As such, meaning, including analytical meaning, is an aspect of using.
When value is accorded to something by a subject, that something acquires the meaning of that value.
(Only subjects have the power to accord value through thought, objects have value accorded them by thought)
The acquisition of meaning happens through the acquisition of use value.
This can be held as a standing reserve that we can make use of as the need or desire arises, like a hammer in the toolbox, or as something busy performing its value just by being there as we go about our daily lives, like a fridge.2
Why is all value use value?3
Imagine there is a value that is useless. I can think of any number of things that are useless to me right now. But can I imagine anything that is completely and utterly useless in principle? Let me rephrase that. Is it possible for me to think of something that could not be used by something or someone to some purpose?
If I can, I would prove that I can’t, because I would use that example to get myself entangled in a paradox. Paradox’s do not exist beyond a perspectival organisation of things. Look at the problem in the right way and the paradox disolves. Just like the one threatening above.
However hard I try, I cannot think of an example of something completely useless in a properly objective sense.
Use and uselessness ( aspecial kind of usefulness) are subjective qualities, organised from a perspective.
If we have settled that, then perhaps there is another question we ought to deal with. Is all value exclusively use-based?
We shall have to concede that all value involves some valuer of a relationship, using that relationship even if that use could be described as unintentional, accidental or potential.
But may values also have properties other than usefulness? Well, there are all kinds of labels we can use to build a typology of values, we can have exchange value, truth value, moral value, aesthetic value, excitement value and so forth.
But allowing these to pass the review, it takes little to demonstrate that all we are doing in distinguishing these different kinds of value is distinguishing the different uses we make of them.
Each kind turns out to be a subset of the set of use values.
The value of morality is that it gives us a guide for distinguishing between good and bad actions within a particular moral culture, the value of beauty is pleasure and joy, and the value of exchange is that we can translate one expression of value into another and so feel parity when exchanging goods.
Human beings require these kinds of values to transform information, which is everywhere, into useful knowledge.
As such, knowledge is only of one kind: it is useful. And if it is not useful for you now, then that is in itself already useful to know.
Why is that the case? Why is knowledge a value that is exclusively use-based?
Many explanations have been tried. I hold with the evolutionary argument, which says that it is so because of the contingent fact—necessary a posteriori—that human beings have evolved as growing, developing, learning and mobile creatures that seek to accommodate themselves within their environment as well as they can by building and using their conceptual model of the world, their frame of reference inferentially, negotiating norms and values.
These characteristics cause human beings to change their situation constantly and, as such, to adapt as intelligently as possible to ensure security, comfort and joy, and make the lessons learnt intelligible to their loved ones.
© jacob voorthuis, 2026. Please cite Jacob Voorthuis as the author, The Theoria Project as the title and the page address as the location. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially under the following terms: No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits. Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made.
- A slightly older version of this paragraph was first published in Jacob Voorthuis, Theoria, use, intention & design, a philosophical reckoning; Analysis & Critique: Gardening in the metaphysics of the beautiful, the true, and the good, AHT, Tu/e (2024) ↩︎
- Heidegger, M. (1977). The question concerning technology. In The question concerning technology and other essays (W. Lovitt, Trans.; pp. 3–35). Harper & Row.”Die Frage nach der Technik” was published in 1954 in Vorträge und Aufsätze. In it, Heidegger wanted to distinguish between modern technology and traditional technology using the concept of the standing reserve, which, according to Heidegger, could not be applied to traditional technology. I agree with that position, but instead it could be applied to domesticated animals and enslaved people who worked the traditional technology, so that ultimately there is little left of the distinction ↩︎
- As most people interested in this sort of stuff would realise. I am departing here from Marx’s distinction between use value and exchange value. For me, the latter is just a special case of use value; after all, profit is useful to the person who makes it. I am closer to the Dewey approach. Theory of Valuation, LW13 ↩︎