Talk:Universality (philosophy)

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[edit] AKA 'Stolen Concept Fallacy'

From the article: "There are no absolute truths. If this statement were true, it would imply that it is an absolute truth itself. And if this statement is an absolute truth, it would contradict its original statement and mean that the statement is in fact false. Therefore it is impossible to prove that there are absolutely no absolute truths. However, this doesn’t necessarily imply that they exist." Wouldn't it be true, that if truth did not exist, then false does not exist either? The stolen concept goes both ways- you can either assert the statement as true and deny truth, or you can assert it as false. I for one, choose to see the third way: the sentence is a statement, and does not require truth (the concept introduced by means of communication). - Msilveira13@gmail.com

[edit] Merge with problem of universals

If I know quite well what does "universality" means in philosophy and metaphysics, I've never heard of a so-called "problem of universals". The article seems to me quite confused. In any case, this "problem" should be adressed in this page, as to no create unnecessary forks. Lapaz 23:02, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the "Problem of universals" is a sub-topic within the existing Universals topic and, until that Problem content grows too large, the two should merge. Note, though, that Google lists 23,600 hits for "Problem of universals" philosophy -Wikipedia, as compared with 372,000 hits for "universals" philosophy -Wikipedia, so the problem appears to account for a significant proportion of the philosophical "universals" literature. The Rod (☎ Smith) 16:22, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
The problem of universals is a well known topic in metaphysics and in analytic philosophy. it's mentioned repeatedly as a sample problem in Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy since it is a common enough topic to be used to illustrate differences among various philosophers. The problem of universal's is the problem that russell hoped to solve with the theory of descriptions. That having been said, the present problem page as it stands needs to be wholly rewritten to become NPOV and conform to a higher standard. I think it would be better to just get rid of the separate "Problem of universals" page and subsume it under "universals" for now.

Jason

All right, as a student of continental philosophy I understand what I'm not familiar with this expression of "problem of universals". They should be kept distinct, as universality here refers to the more general aspect of universality vs relativism, for example in the controversy relating to human rights, which were thought as universal although various philosophers, starting from Marx's critique of them, considered them not to be so. Lapaz 19:37, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep separate. The problem of universals is a distinct topic that goes under several distinct names, and for which some senses of "universal" as commonly understood are tantamount to confused misnomers. Thus its distinctness is likely to buried under a haze of generalities about unrelated issues if it should happen to be placed under the umbrella of an article with a generic name like Universality. Jon Awbrey 22:54, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep: Just like thought experiments have their own articles seperate from who formulated them, I think well-known philosophical problems deserve to be treated in detail as well. --TheOtherStephan 22:52, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
  • having spent some time looking at it now, it's become apparent that both articles are rife with inaccuracy, opinion, speculation, and misrepresentation. As it stands both this article and the Problem of universals article need to be completely overhauled. Merging them will only exacerbate these problems. I want to reverse my earlier vote. Keep them separate.JFQ 18:14, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Keep them seperated. The problem of universals deals with univerals, but merging the problem of universals with universality is like merging genocide into a article on war crimes. Granted it falls underneath it but it is seperated enough that it should have its own page. Sorry if I can't give a better reason. I've been studying all night for a medieval philosophy final!

[edit] What is it?

This page seems a little tossed together. I would probably separate the metaphysical concept of a universal, as in the problem of universals. That was better as its own article. The "Others" section described something else entirely. The rest of the article is hard to figure out. Is it just about ethical absolutism? To say universalism opposes relativism implies that that term has a single meaning. Srnec 04:30, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Steven Robiner?

Is this quotation from the filmmaker of that names? --Christofurio 15:30, 23 April 2006 (UTC) http://entertainment.msn.com/celebs/celeb.aspx?c=312020

[edit] Merge universalism into here

I really think we need to avoid Content forking, so I think universalism should be merged here, as it is close enough not to justify another article. The main part which has been written in the universalism article concerns religion, but many others doctrines may be said universalist, as the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, American exceptionalism which claims, as did France before, to bring Enlightenment to the world, etc. Lapaz 15:14, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Keep Them Separate

One is a theological stream, the other is a philosophical concept. They are different.

Universalism (theological concept) has a very separate history from Universality (philosophical concept). It is important to have a separate page on universalism to discuss the history and theology of certain religions, including Unitarian-Universalism, Judaism, and Bahai. Since these religions, which all share elements of universalism as a part of their theological roots, come from extremely diverse origins, and from origins quite distinct from the philosophical concept of Universality, a merger of the pages would be a mistake. --Metzenberg 09:54, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I am not an expert on splitting philosophical hairs, but Universalism was (among other things?) a widespread US religious movement of the 19th century based on universal salvation. This seems very different from the philosophical concept of universality. I would hate to see them merged. –Shoaler (talk) 14:15, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Since there is no consensus to merge in almost two months, I have removed the merge tags from both pages. –Shoaler (talk) 09:04, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

For the same reason, I'm going to remove the merge tage from problem of universals --Christofurio 18:52, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A note of humor

' For instance, the proposition that all dogs are mortal and the proposition that all cows can fly are universal propositions, the former (assumedly) true and the latter false.[citation needed] '

Ahem. Does anyone have a citation that disputes the (supposed) fact that cows cannot fly, and that dogs are mortal? Black Hole 15:34, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the Fact tag from the sentence relating to cows flying (or not). The sentence contains illustrative hypotheses grounded in common sense. It would be unreasonable to expect that a scientific citation be furnished, given that scientists are unlikely to devote their efforts to demonstrating the capacity or otherwise of bovines to fly; the question does not arise as one for serious investigation. Aidanthingy (talk) 18:52, 9 December 2007 (UTC)