I. The Formal and the Universal: The Biggest Possible Thing

Objects in each other form big things. The biggest possible thing is what we call the universe. While the world is the reverse side or the form of each thing, the universe is a big thing, the identity of which is variable. The universe is always defined with a superlative: ‘the biggest thing’. Thus, we cannot conceive of a more important thing at the present moment, and we do not know if we will find a means to augment it further in the future.

The maximal comprehension of objects is what we call the universal. To be universal, or to make a universal judgement, is to claim to comprehend the biggest possible object. Yet the universal must be distinguished from the formal. We call the formal the comprehension of each possible thing.

Many difficulties result from the confusion between universal and formal. While the search for the universal presupposes an objective knowledge, a knowledge of the state of objects in each other in the universe, the formal always implies a consciousness of each thing being equally in the world.

Universality – the universality of the laws of nature or the presumed universality of cultural phenomena – resembles a maximal comprehension of differences. It is always a continual process of the cumulative assimilation of differences. For example, when one establishes that some human groups consider non-human animals to have minds similar to theirs, while others take them to be without internal states or in some way different from humans, the universal operation consists in adding up the differences of opinion while returning to what remains in common. Universally, one may claim, humanity relates to and always maintains a comparative relation to non-human living things, expressible through identification and differentiation.