Rationality and universality: conditions and orderliness - on the border of concept and idea

Abstract

Throughout the history of Western philosophy knowledge was closely related to universality and to conceptual knowledge - supposedly constituting the core meaning of rationality: rational knowing should be conceptual if it is to be recognized as knowing at all. Although Aristotle clearly realized that individuality is not conceptually knowable, he side stepped this problem by introducing his secondary universal substantia form in order to safe-guard (conceptual) knowledge. A brief analysis of the further historical development of the relationship between universality and particularity paves the way for discussing the manner in which Dooyeweerd and Vollenhoven tackled this problem.