A theory’s universality is shown by its capacity to illuminate new concrete situations.

Evidence

The problem arises of whether a theoretical truth, whose discovery corresponded to a specific practice, can be generalised and considered as universal for a historical epoch. The proof of its universality consists precisely 1. in its becoming a stimulus to know better the concrete reality of a situation that is different from that in which it was discovered (this is the principal measure of its fecundity); 2. when it has stimulated and helped this better understanding of concrete reality, in its capacity to incorporate itself in that same reality as if it were originally an expression of it. It is in this incorporation that its real universality lies, and not simply in its logical or formal coherence, or in the fact that it is a useful polemical tool for confounding the enemy. In short, the principle must always rule that ideas are not born of other ideas, philosophies of other philosophies; they are a continually renewed expression of real historical development. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 812

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the criterion for a theory’s universality: not logical coherence but fecundity in grasping new concrete realities and incorporating back into them.
• XREF: Connects to how later Islamophobia readings deploy theory — concepts must prove themselves against new concrete cases (e.g. Orientalism applied beyond its original objects), not stay abstract. — connects to: Universal techniques exist only as incarnated in concrete individual acts; Ancient philosophical formation built universality from concrete experience; modernity finds it ready-made and truncated. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 1016; Radical Enlightenment rests on the conviction that everything can in theory be understood — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1926