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Sub specie universitatis

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Abstract

As a contribution to the debate on the future of philosophy as an autonomous discipline beyond its current function within Western-type universities, a comparison is offered between three diverging strategies of “speaking the universal” which keep their relevance today; the “Double Truth” strategy for secular tolerance, illustrated by Spinoza and Wittgenstein; the construction of the universal as “hegemony,” analyzed by Hegel and Marx in terms of collective consciousnesses or ideologies; and the program of generalized translation as it emerges from the critique of traditional “paradoxes of the untranslatable” in the works of contemporary socio-linguists and pragmatic philosophers. The conclusion remains an open questioning on the equivocity of the universal.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Paris X-Nanterre, Paris, France

    Etienne Balibar

  2. University of California, Irvine, USA

    Etienne Balibar

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  1. Etienne Balibar
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Correspondence to Etienne Balibar.

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Balibar, E. Sub specie universitatis. Topoi 25, 3–16 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-006-0001-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-006-0001-6

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