THESE days, and perhaps for the last few centuries, many people have had difficulty grasping the nature of universals. When it comes to singular, individual objects, we are more inclined to perceive their existence on account of the senses, as universal concepts are considered abstract in that they cannot be seen or heard. The logical positivist, Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), even believed that universals should be denied and this is the view of those empiricists who consider such things vastly inferior to the immediacy of the particulars that surround us.
By contrast, thinkers such as Plato (427–348 BC) are of the opinion that reality itself lies in universals as our inherent nature involves the wherewithal to think beyond the particular and of course this is demonstrated by the fact that in relation to particulars themselves our senses have the capacity to err unless they are in the process of apprehending mathematical principles.
Now, if the universe is whole it cannot be regarded as singular and yet at the same time the universal must not simply be viewed as a convenient generality. Unlike finite objects, the universe is individual without being singular and this means that it is possible for the Absolute, that most universal of universals, to self-specify as universal and simultaneously identify as individual.
This view has more in common with the idealist thought of the last two hundred years, than the philosophy of the ancient world, for whilst Plato intimates that his Forms lie ‘beyond Being’ the universe is never presented as something that is individual. In other words, although everything beyond the One is said to be nothing the actual consequences for the One are never explained. It was left to G.W.F. Hegel (1770–1831) to establish the concrete universal that may be described as a self-determining absolute spirit that begins as a generality and is subsequently transmogrified into a multiplicity of particulars. Meanwhile, that the One self-articulates as individuality represents a triadic dialectic of thesis, antithesis and synthesis.
