“The Wrong End of the Telescope”: Anna Julia Cooper’s Concrete Universalism

Abstract

Abstract: This article conceptualizes “concrete universalism” and “personal self-determination” in Anna Julia Cooper’s writings. The theory of concrete universalism recognizes that an individual’s experience as part of a subjugated group can cultivate greater sensitivity to the ethical development of universal values usually associated with the rationalistic abstractions of Enlightenment liberal ideas. Within a concrete universal framework, particular experiences neither overdetermine universal principles nor are they rendered irrelevant to expressing fundamental truths about human nature. In this way, concrete universalism resists unproductive forms of skepticism and relativism on the one hand and “colorblind” abstractions on the other.