Universals

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A universal and its context

I define the universal as a conditioning principle that acts as a firm point of reference affecting uniformly all elements within a given set.

Elements are drawn from either the cultural or the natural sphere. In each case, they are part of a set htat constitutes a structural whole, such as a painting or text, a grammar or an ethical code.

The notion of context refers to the scope and range of the elements to which the universal relates.

If the elements constitute a finite set, then the universal is context-bound, i. e., it applies only to the elements within the set.

If there is no defined of set elements, thet the universal is context-free, i. e., it applies to all of reality.

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Context-bound universals

Context-bound universals relate to specific sets of elements, which are either created by culture or are found in nature.

We may consider the context-bound universals as limited absolutes. This goes to say that, in each case, the universal is absolute with regard to the specific set of elements to which it applies. Cultural universals in particular are useful in that the universal itself is the result of an explicit human choice.

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Cultural universals

A cultural universal affects elements that are generated by culture, and is thus a conditioning principle that is itself generated culturally. As such, the principle itself is part of the cultural process that identifies the elements to which it applies, and may accordingly be identified and analyzed in detail. But it works just as well even when there is no articulate knowledge of the principle as such. We may look at two examples.

The vanishing point in a painting offers such a setting: the painter worked explicitly with it, and anyone trained may reconstruct it starting from the lines that are visible in the finished product; yet there is no need for a normal viewer to find it. The vanishing point in perspective acts thus as a universal (it conditions everyhting in the picture, but is outside the picture and thus remains unknown to the normal viewer); yet it is known to the painter and to trained viewers (even though it remains outside the picture).

Or take a speaker who speaks grammatically without knowing the grammar (with a nod to Monsieur Jourdain ^NOTE): the utterances adhere perfectly to a grammar of which such a speaker has no abstract knowledge, a grammar which serves as the conditioning principle, unknown to the speaker, yet powerfully operative – indeed, a universal. A linguist, on the other hand, or any speaker versed in the grammar of that language, is able to articulate the details of the grammar as the universal that affects the language as spoken. (The Saussurian distinctions between “langue” and “parole” may be seen in this light. “Parole” is the concrete embodiment as spoken within a given cultural context, while “langue” is the structural representation of the rules that govern the “parole.”)

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Natural universals

A natural universal affects elements that are given in nature, and is thus a conditioning principle that is itself found in nature. As such, the principle is outside the cultural process but conditions it to the extent that it is pertinent with regard to given cultural elements. We may again look at two examples.

Linguistics may be seen as the set of principles that define the faculty of speech in general, while a grammar is the particular set of rules that apply to given embodiments or languages. In this case, the context is narrowly defined as relating to elements that make the speech act explicit.

A fundamental moral sense (Kant’s categorical imperative) is the basic principle that conditions any code of moral or ethical prescriptions. Here, too, the context is narrowly defined as relating to specific aspects of human conduct.

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Context-free universal

In a context-free setting, there is in effect no context. Alternatively, the context is the entire domain of reality. As such, i. e., inasmuch as it applies to everything, it cannot be reduced to classes of elements.

Accordingly, there can be only one and thus unlimited, context-free universal.

Such a universal is properly the Absolute, which can be defined as

• a universal conditioning principle which
• relates to all elements of reality
• with no contextual limitations.

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The dynamics between universal and embodiment

As a conditioning principle, a universal affects every single detail that is found in the embodiment to which it applies. This means that, where it is not known, we can infer the universal from the data which are available to us.

In the case of the cultural universals, the universal itself is a cultural product and thus it maybe documented as such if one looks at the an expert uses it. A vanishing point, for example, is a universal in the form of a physical element used by the painter, from which all the perspective lines in the painting (the context) are derived; but if this operation is not documented, and thus we have no explicit record of it, it can be inferred by extending all the lines present in the finished product to the single originating point where they meet.

In the other cases, the universal is not a tangible entity. Tthe faculty of speech or the moral sense, not to mention the absolute, are not documentable as such, but only as a presupposition for what we see otherwise documented in the record we have available. This raises the question of control.

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The question of control

A cultural universal is open to direct control: being set up as a culturally defined rule, it is stated very explicitly and can be verified empirically through its operation. All the perspective lines in a painting do lead to the vanishing point, all proepr utterances in a language adhere to the rules of the established grammar. There may be lines that do not conform to prespective, and utterances that do not conform to grammar: but then they are outside of the pertinent context to which the universal refers, they are “wrong.”

A natural universal is also open to control, but indirectly: a “moral sense” or the “faculty of speech” are not set up culturally through human action, and thus they are not empirically documentable, the way a vanishing point or a grammar are in a painting or for a language. It is nevertheless actionable as it explains how the individual phenomena, or elements in the given context, come together.

With the context-free universal we have no control over the full set of elements: temporally we are limited to what we know about our past, and are completely ignorant of the future; spatially, we have not reached the outer boundaries of the universe. If the universal is indeed understood as affecting the entire set of elements since the beginning to the end of time, it clearly remains beyond our ken.

Given the absence of a context, and given, therefore, the unlimited range of the context-free universal,

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Overview

The various types of universals may be summarized graphically in the following chart.

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NOTES

• ^. «Par ma foi ! il y a plus de quarante ans que je dis de la prose sans que j’en susse rien» (Good heavens! For more than forty years I have been speaking prose and had no idea I was doing it) Molière, Le Bourgeois gentilhomme Act IV, sc. iv.