On Universalism

Itinerary

I. Critique of Notions

To what grounding notions should we turn, by way of a conceptual upgrade, as we think of the possibility for connection between cultures? Are these notions not always faltering, subject to criticism from at least one perspective? Even the notion of the universal, a rigorous concept of reason derived from epistemology, cannot hide its ambiguity—does it serve solely to acknowledge a totality verified by experience, or does the term name something which has to be stipulated as an a priori and which establishes an absolute norm for all of humanity? One can trust neither the transparency of this notion nor the neutrality of its use the moment one considers the singular history of its birth (in contradiction to its urgent claim) in fierce conflict, renewed during each stage of philosophy, with the singular.

As for the uniform—far from being its pacified accomplishment, the uniform is the perverted double of the universal, spreading forward along with globalization. Saturating the world, it passes surreptitiously for the universal but cannot invoke any real legitimacy, for it authorizes itself not as a necessity, but as a commodity; it proceeds under the sway not of reason, but of production. Diffusing similitude without end, the uniform makes of it the only landscape left for us, and gains credit from that fact. And its dictatorship is all the more insidious insofar as it is discreet and avoids calling attention to itself.

To turn to the common, it is a site of sharing and, as such, directly political: it does not invoke a hypothetical a priori, as does the Universal, but marks its bottomless resources [les fonds sans fond] where our experience is rooted, and which it contributes to deploying. Likewise, it is indefinitely extensive. But it is no less constantly threatened by the possibility of turning back on itself: from being inclusive to becoming exclusive; from opening forth for participation to turning into its opposite, "communitarianism."

II. European Genealogy

Nonetheless, in following the thread of history, one sees the common deploy itself effectively, from the advent of the city onwards, until it encounters, in the midst of stoic cosmopolitanism, the exigency of the universal. But this exigency, guiding the extension of the common, has less in the way of unity than we might think. For the universal has been constituted by different orderings [plans] at the core of European culture: the logical, with the privileged accession of the concept; the juridical, with the institution of Roman citizenship; the religious, with the Pauline dissolution of every cleavage in divine love and the economy of salvation.

Contrary to the aims of what it gives itself over to in philosophy, does not the universal itself actually involve a composite layout, if not a chaotic one? And does it not derive its prestige in Europe precisely from its contribution to holding together all this heterogeneity, as an ideological keystone?

III. Inquiry and Problematization

From this arises the necessity that philosophy at last leave its own home, even if it means a change of régime, make an explorer of itself, and break with its safely kept order of reasons. For what is the value of the notion of the Universal once we leave the European frame, if it even obtains here in the first place? This question itself divides into two parts: (1) In what measure have other cultures developed the claim? and (2) Are there notions which might exist from the get-go, that is, as a priori, as universals? Being uncertain of whether we can respond to either of the two concerns obliges us to rethink the concept of the universal with new stakes: to conceive of it not so much as a positive and saturated totality, but inversely, as a claim proper to the negative that reopens every closed and satisfied universality—and it is precisely in this way that any given universalism prevails over itself.

Conjointly, the common between cultures can no longer be understood either as synthesis or as common denominator or still as foundation, but as the common of the intelligible, in...