In this paper we mobilise the politically operative notion of universality on the basis of a syntagmatic curiosity enunciated in the sixth meditation of Meditación sobre el poder (1976): ‘el universal malentendido’, reversible in a ‘universal entendido mal universal entendido mal universal entendido mal'. Which at the same time epistemologically problematises and ontologically presupposes the feasible existence of this universality. This syntagm will thus constitute for us both a generating nucleus and a point of reference for exploring the development, in Trías's later work, of the political dimension of the concept of the universal as it is posed in terms that we postulate as seminal for the author in this sixth meditation. We will organise them into four lines of research, giving priority, in accordance with the subject matter of this dossier, to their ethical dimension too: ideology, essence, absolutism and enunciation.
Keywords: Eugenio Trías, Universal, Politics, Ethics, Hegel.