Semantic Determinacy and the Structural Limits of Unrestricted Universality

This article argues that any strong universal theory is structurally defective. Any theory that claims truth must employ distinctions, and every truth-claim therefore presupposes distinctions with determinate content. A distinction possesses determinate content only insofar as there exist specifiable conditions under which it applies correctly, incorrectly, requires transformation, or is legitimately suspended. On this basis, the article develops a structural dilemma for any theory that claims unrestricted universal validity for a fixed set of distinctions. Such a theory must either make the relevant conditions of application explicit, thereby rendering its universality conditional rather than absolute, or leave them unspecified, thereby sacrificing the semantic determinacy needed to underwrite genuine truth-claims. The paper argues that unrestricted universality without conditions of application does not strengthen a theory’s distinctions; it empties them. The argument is illustrated through examples drawn from physicalism, mathematical structuralism, and informational or computational ontology, and it is presented as a general constraint on universal theoretical claims.