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A universal may have instances, known as its particulars. For example, the type dog (or doghood) is a universal, as are the property red (or redness) and the relation betweenness (or being between). Any particular dog, red thing, or object that is between other things is not a universal, however, but is an instance of a universal.
Nyāya postulates the existence of universals based on our experience of a common characteristic among particulars. Thus, the meaning of a word is understood as a particular further characterized by a universal. [28] For example, the meaning of the term 'cow' refers to a particular cow characterized by the universal of 'cowness'.
In philosophy, universality or absolutism is the idea that universal facts exist and can be progressively discovered, as opposed to relativism, which asserts that all facts are relative to one's perspective. [1] [2] Absolutism and relativism have been explored at length in contemporary analytic philosophy.
In Aristotle's view, universals are incorporeal and universal, but only exist only where they are instantiated; they exist only in things. [1] Aristotle said that a universal is identical in each of its instances. All red things are similar in that there is the same universal, redness, in each thing.
Some philosophers follow Aristotle in describing metaphysics as "first philosophy", suggesting that it is the most basic inquiry upon which all other branches of philosophy depend in some way. [7] [b] Immanuel Kant conceived metaphysics from the perspective of critical philosophy as the study of the principles underlying all human thought and ...
For example, Socrates is a particular (there's only one Socrates-the-teacher-of-Plato and one cannot make copies of him, e.g., by cloning him, without introducing new, distinct particulars). Redness, by contrast, is not a particular, because it is abstract and multiply instantiated (for example a bicycle, an apple, and a particular woman's hair ...
Moral universalism (also called moral objectivism or universal morality) is the meta-ethical position that some system of ethics applies universally.That system is inclusive of all individuals, [7] regardless of culture, race, sex, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, or any other distinguishing feature. [8]
Platonic Forms were the first universals posited as such in philosophy. [7] Our term "universal" is due to the English translation of Aristotle's technical term katholou which he coined specially for the purpose of discussing the problem of universals. [8] Katholou is a contraction of the phrase kata holou, meaning "on the whole". [9]