Universality or commensurability: Can the latter bridge the culture gap?

Abstract

The commensurability / incommensurability (C/I) model, as an element of meta-discoursive practice, helps to focus attention on the culture specificity of journalism studies that influences journalistic practice; the configuration of the information field, as well as the public’s perception of the world (common–national worldview). Russian journalism studies and, more generally, the national style of making the news agenda, show a culture gap between ‘an ideal model’ of Western journalism and a Russian analogue within the national information field itself. Today’s Russian journalism and Russian journalism studies are not interested in culture-specific topics. The conflict between Western standards of journalism (and Western-oriented theories of journalism) and expectations of the public is increasingly deemed crucial. The inner cultural gap can be bridged using the C/I model if professional actors both in journalism practice and in journalism education accept three general lines of reflection: (a) recognition of the Western model of journalism as the only acceptable and institutionally supported model in Russian education; (b) investigation of the cultural divide between the practice of this model and the expectations of the Russian public; and (c) searching for their own specific model. The last option could emerge from the juxtaposition of native and ‘foreign’ informational culture. It would require a definition of ‘culture-specific’ in the C/I model allowing a description of the local understanding of journalism/communication within a meta-theory of communication.

Keywords

Commensurability communication de-Westernization Russian journalism incommensurability information field Russia Westernization

The C/I model (Wang, 2014, 2011; Wang and Kuo, 2010) must be considered as a practical instrument of great explanatory strength in the process of globalizing journalism/communication studies. If we understand the term ‘globalizing’ as a transition to the new-syncretism era (analogous to pre-historic culture syncretism but on another level of development), we need the ‘right’ instrument for this transition. Can commensurability/incommensurability (C/I) be this instrument? And, if yes, how should one use it to derive useful/meaningful results? What contradictions will we find when using this method? How can we overcome these contradictions and create fruitful local (unique) communication models in the light of the principle that ‘unmerged unity’ is the future of national cultures?

This article tries to answer these questions by following five logical steps:

critical analysis of the C/I model as an instrument of research reflection in journalism/communication studies;

review of Russian philosophy in the light of the C/I model;

contribution of Russian culture to the C/I model;

description of practical advantages of the C/I model for current Russian fields of research and professional journalism;

concluding thoughts about the constraints of the C/I model in the particular case of Russian journalism/communication studies.

C/I model as a method of thinking

The concept of C/I model is at the centre of Georgette Wang’s works (Wang, 2011, 2014). Her approach is the composition of hermeneutics, Kuhn’s idea of incommensurability, and the basic yin/yang concept of Chinese philosophy (Wang, 2014: 374) – a concept that Gunaratne (2005) had brought to the attention of communication scholars in The Dao of the Press. As one can see, the C/I model is generated by the symbiotic exchange of European and Chinese thoughts. This ‘combination’ makes the C/I model simultaneously strong and weak.

First, Wang (2014) says that Western philosophy was never linear, because one can find many concepts corresponding to the C/I model (even dialectics or hermeneutics).

Then, she points out the lack of explanatory potential of these (Western) theories for different types of national cultures, and she emphasizes the disadvantages of the so-called universality/particularity (U/P) model. She understands universality as the Westernization of social studies, and she describes non-Western countries in this model as parts of the whole, just small elements of the Western fundamental picture of the world.

Wang (2014) does not accept this picture, and predicts a deadlock of social studies development if the actors in the field of research do not find a new perspective. This new perspective can be a C/I model. It is the way to actualize and encourage local-oriented thinkers of non-Western countries and – more broadly speaking – cultures. Her message is obvious and accepted as an important step, in the research circles – to open a stagnating research field to new perspectives, ideas and findings, to shift theory and practice onto the next level.

Analyzing this approach it is pertinent to recall Stephen Toulmin’s (1992 [1990]) ideas. To continue Kuhn’s (1970) logics, Toulmin demonstrated in his Cosmopolis (1992 [1990]) the basic ‘dead-ends’ of the rational Cartesian–Newtonian paradigm; and, at the same time, he showed the perspective of a new twist in the history of science: opposites like Written/Oral, Universal/Particular, General/Local, Timeless/Timely (Toulmin, 1992 [1990]).

The concept of commensurability is obvious in this argumentation. Science and philosophy equally need to develop. The sources of this development are the oral, particular, local and timely practices of everyday life.

So we can see that the Western model of science/philosophy produces the same ideas as the Eastern model (taken generally) and can be qualified as a ‘culture-specific’ trend (Wang and Kuo, 2010). The difference between the two models can be considered as conceptually translatable, and therefore they are commensurable. Practically, globalization – as a concept – looks like an expansion of Western values and world-views, even if we can point out many tractates and works of Western thinkers who support the ideals of culture-specifics and diversities in unity (see, for example, collection of opinions and bibliography in Vartanova, 2012).

But the C/I concept gives to this ‘oral, local, particular and timely’ (Toulmin, 1992 [1990]: 160) model a chance to survive and to be included in the Big Polyphony (Bakhtin, 1929) of modern philosophy and science. The epistemological value of a concept can be characterized as the openness of the point of entrance to the problematic of social studies and, particularly in the journalism/communication field, with the new optics, allowing to see, to watch and to describe the informational society with unexpected and new points of view.

Wang says that the C/I concept implies that incommensurability could be used as a resource for the new ideas, theories, concepts (2014: 384). This is a sort of motor of inventory. Commensurability, in that case, could be questioned in each particular case if it is real commensurability and not just a rational assumption. Even more importantly, the C/I model can be used as an instrument of understanding ‘the Other’, and can help to overcome not only a gap between different cultures but also a gap between science and philosophy and other seemingly incommensurable subjects and concepts.

The natural problem of West–East controversies is the evident domination of Western world-view everywhere. Asiacentric or Afrocentric social studies can be strong in their argumentations mostly in polemics with Western thinkers than independently from the Western research field. De-colonialization of social studies is possible only as a consequence of an acquaintance with the Western-dominated point of view. At the same time in this situation Russian journalism/communication occupies a very special niche. Talking about this niche requires starting from the basic peculiarities of Russian cultural model.

Russian cultural model vis-à-vis globalization of communication

Is Russia Eastern or Western? (in Russian, this question is even stronger and uncompromising – is Russia East or West). This was the key question of self-identification of the Russian nation in the 19th century, and this question is still actual as recent events confirmed. The Russian Federation censorship committee partially banned the liberal opposition Novaya Gazeta newspaper for publishing Yu Latynina’s column titled ‘If we are not West, who are we?’ (2014). Slavophils and Westernians (slavyanofily i zapadniki) have discussed this question intensely, and Russian philosophy is very much crystallized as a result of these debates. But – to be more precise – it was not a choice between East and West; but rather between the Western and non-Western Ways; and Slavophil-ism was a sort of philosophic engineering of the ‘state-without-Western-spirit’ concept, not an analysis of Russian-Eastern similarities (Danilevsky, 2010 [1869]). Danilevsky (2010 [1869]) proposed that the dominating feature of the Russian national character is non-violence. Dostoevsky (1978 [1861]), analyzing Pushkin’s heritage, claimed world-responsiveness as a main feature of Russians, or vsetselost’, vseprimirimost’ and vsechelovechnost’ (meaning: reconciliation) (Dostoevsky, 1978: 69). One can see in these examples of self-identity at the national level a sign of unique way (neither Western, nor Eastern). The world-responsiveness is compatible with the concept of commensurability because the latter means to search and to find a foundation of comparison (better to say – juxtaposition) of evidently non-comparable sides of phenomena. In Dostoevsky’s sense, to be Russian means to be able to understand any mentality of the world, to feel the Other like Yourself (more precisely – to become ‘the Other’). These ambitions were enthusiastically accepted by Russian intelligentsia and quite frequently reminded in the current Russian humanities discourse.

However, in Russian journalism studies one only finds a national hermetic circle whereas one cannot find even the slightest traces of world-responsiveness. This self-closedness (hermetism) cannot be defined as culture-specific with non-Western connotations. On the contrary, one finds that Russian journalism studies are a mix of pro-Western concepts (‘hodgepodge or mélange of ideas and expressions,’ Wang, 2014: 378). The Soviet journalism concepts have almost never been subjected to serious investigation by Russian scholars. Post-Soviet researchers generally qualified them as totalitarian and communist-party-centred. This label was so strong in the 1990s that journalism studies fully neglected the Soviet journalism research field. Post-Soviet journalism studies tend to relate to journalism practice rather than to communication studies (Zagidullina, 2010). This is why Russia produced numerous manuals for students but hardly any research monographs or articles related to theory of journalism. The fundamental theory of journalism is not proposed, not even for educational purposes. The key concept of current journalism studies in Russia is the liberal (American) model of journalism as a watchdog of democracy. This mission is a milestone of journalism education in Russia. But practice journalism is very far from this ideal model.

The propaganda turn of 2014 was qualified by liberal circles of intelligentsia as the death of true journalism. At the same time a non-engagé investigator could note that the Russian public (in general) has accepted this turn as a necessity, as a right decision of power. It is possible to define this acceptance as a sign of infantilism of people (and one can find numerous comments with this rhetoric at the liberal portals and Internet-media). But at the same time it is possible to see in this enthusiastic acceptance a sign of indigenization of the Russian information field. This indigenization can be seen as a variant of the media system development in the context of a non-Western approach (Servaes, 2015), and also according to the concept of paternalist media system in the so-called Euroasian hybrid informational field (Vartanova, 2012). But it is probably more likely to see in this turn a real will of the public with its specific mentality and needs.

Historically, from the moment of its foundation, Russian journalism has been pro-government, and for the Russian public this was a guarantee of quality (or truth). In the well-known work Four theories of the press (‘normative theory’) by Siebert et al. (1956), one can see that three of four theories are similar (authoritarian, Soviet, social responsibility) because they claim a limitation of press (mass-media control). And the libertarian model can be seen as the opposite of the three theories mentioned above because this model’s principle is a full freedom of press. So the Russian model of journalism can be defined historically as authoritarian or soviet but never as libertarian. It is now obvious that we can see a social-responsible model (in terms of normative theory) that will never be accepted by the libertarian intelligentsia. The conflict is evident: Russian professors and specialists in media theories are mostly educated in a libertarian tradition or converted to this tradition after the Soviet Union collapse, and in contrast, journalism practice naturally tends to follow a pro-government model (and this trend is in line with the will or wish of the majority of Russians).

Western influence is evident, and the Western paradigm of knowledge was fully accepted in Russia at all levels of education (from the primary school to the academics’ works) and there is not the slightest information available on Eastern mainstream philosophy in the education schedule (except for the specialties in Eastern languages and culture). All branches of Humanities are closely tied with Western ideas and concepts. Any attempts to include some information about Buddhism, Hinduism, thoughts of Confucius or other Eastern thinkers in research and education circles are often qualified as ‘esoteric’ rather than being accepted in the research dialogues. Institutionally, Russian education is fully Western, even in its Soviet variant; that is why one cannot expect from the Russian-language discourse that the Eastern way of thinking will be understood.

Thus, we can see a conflict between education and mentality, and that is why Russian thinkers are searching along the third way beyond the East–West opposition.

Can Russian culture enrich C/I model?

The concept of world-responsiveness formulated by Dostoevsky as a metaphor of Russians’ readiness to accept different cultures and traditions by heart (or sincerely) can be supported linguistically because Russian language is generally impersonal.

According to this fact, the concept of collectivism is part of the mentality and of the so-called mystery of Russian soul. One of the best explanations of this phenomenon can be found in Leo Tolstoy’s (1889 [1869]) War and Peace, in the episode of Pierre Besoukhoff’s dream in a French prison, after the death of Platon Karataev, when Pierre sees a vibrating ball without dimensions:

The whole surface of the globe consisted of drops closely squeezed together. And these drops were all in motion, changing about, sometimes several coalescing into one, sometimes one breaking up into many. Each drop tried to expand, to occupy as much space as possible; but others, striving for the same end, crushed it, sometimes annihilated it, sometimes coalesced with it… Such is life… In the centre is God, and each drop strives to spread out, expand, so as to reflect him in the largest possible proportions. And each expands, and coalesced, and is pressed down, and is to all outward appearance annihilated, and sinks into depth and comes out again. (Tolstoy, 1889 [1869]: 170)

Pierre had realized then that Platon Karataev and the other soldiers in Raevski’s Redoubt during Borodino Battle did not fear death because they had no self-identity, no sense of their individuality; they were just drops on the surface of this metaphoric ball.

Non-individualism can be an advantage or a disadvantage according to the scale of valuation. The well-known Soviet (and later Russian-Estonian) thinker and semiotician Jurij Lotman showed in his latest work ‘Culture and Explosion’ the dramatic conflict between a ternary model of Russian mentality (needs of ternarity) and the binary system of Power (he analyzed mostly the Soviet Power model). This explosive conflict originates from the contradictions between natural and artificial in mentality and in social engineering (Lotman, 1984, 2009). Lotman used the C/I model in his book without even using these terms. He was one of the first Russian thinkers who supposed that the unwritten route of civilization could be successful, and that writing was not the only way to transfer culture from the generation to generation. This (idea) is consistent with Toulmin’s quadrant (oral, timely, particular, local). Discussing the results of archaeological research he emphasized the possibility of a high level of development of oral only cultures, and showed that the memory (and collective memory) in those societies had a paradigm other than the memory of writing cultures. This is an example of applying the C/I model as a generator of ideas because Lotman showed here the potential of the commensurable approach to phenomena (analyzing oral only culture as a perspective way of civilization in contrast with ‘normal’ valuation of this way as a barbarian, wild, primitive).

The idea of a specific (osobyj) Russian Way can be found in thousands of Russian articles and tractates during the 1990–2000s, around the ‘ideological vacuum’ theme – Huntington’s expression (1996: 100) used then many times by the President of the Russian Federation V. Putin. The polar explorer, thinker and public activist Gennady Cheurin (2014) proposed the concept of North Way as a specific Russian culture orientation. He suggested that the Russian communication model is a Trialogue (vs. Dialogue which is a dead-end way, two monologues without interpenetration). The Trialogue model corresponds to the Trinity of Rublev’s Icon (harmony, concordance, peaceful togetherness – Cheurin, 2014). An essay on the history of the ‘National Idea’ concept in Russian post-Soviet thought (Zagidullina, 2007) shows how tense was this searching of the uniting idea cemented the nation.

We can find many examples of this searching of the Way, and it is easy to see that this is analogous to finding a ‘Middle Way’. And the concordance of the majority of Russians with the President as a national leader can be accepted as this idea of the third way (neither Western nor Eastern) – to explicate the national needs of unity with the government, and at the same time to cultivate the concept of limited and non-public critics (Russian sociologist Jurij Levada using Orwell’s expression called it ‘mechanism of universal sly double-thinking’ – 2011 [2000]: 170).

It is possible to see the indigenization of the Russian communication model in this phenomenon. If the Russian audience is non-individualist or in agreement with the government, journalism (its theory and practice) should be more receptive to these features. In the national journalism studies field we can find only very few works that can be interpreted as reflecting a self-consciousness of researchers. Dmitrovskiy (2012) offers an existential model of journalist activity which shows the necessity to find a deeper and more fundamental basis of journalism practice and pretends being the meta-theory of journalism (eight hierarchical personal levels of journalist masterpiece, mission and responsibility).

In Russian journalism/communication studies, we see an inner gap rather than an external gap with other cultures or concepts. This means that the C/I model is fruitful for the Russian scholars as an instrument to search and find points of concordance between the Western-educated collective mind and the non-Western collective-oriented mentality. If commensurability can open the way to this explanation then it will be possible to make proper journalism studies in Russia, and after that to contribute to the international and global scholars’ indigenization-styled knowledge (concepts).

Can Russian journalism benefit from C/I model?

We have now a serious crisis of journalism studies: how can we study the process without the ‘right’ instruments? The positive influence of the C/I model can be formulated as an openness of the door to other points of view of the process, the public needs and also the changes in the informational field produced by the social media invasion. The C/I model is an instrument of revision of the Russian media-field key problems, and also it would be important to activate the professional reflection of journalists – their ‘mindfulness’ (Gunaratne et al., 2015) even if we are not discussing this approach here.

As the famous Russian linguist Roman Jacobson (1996 [1968]) proposed, language as a phenomenon is commensurable with organic molecular structure and functioning (‘the language in its architecture was modeled with the principles of molecular genetics, i.e., structure of the language is also a biological phenomenon’ – Jacobson, 1996 [1968]: 210). So, using the C/I model, we can suggest that the model of national journalism must be coherent with the national ‘molecular structure’ of the language. In the current conflict between the Western model of journalism as a watchdog of democracy and Russian public (which support the propagandist style of news) we can see the ‘molecular level’ of misunderstanding, or inorganic structure of the Western journalism model in Russia. Obviously, that spontaneous process of converting Western-styled journalism in propaganda can be seen as an answer to this challenge. Democratic journalism has its niche in the Russian informational field but even there, we can see a strong auto-censorship, with tight limits and constraints. There are many contradictions between the claimed missions of professional journalism (in the educational system and in the Russian Federation Union of journalists’ documents) and its practice. We can use the C/I model concept to analyze these conflicts and contradictions. If journalism functioning in current Russia generally conflicts with the ‘molecular structure’ of language, the aim of journalism should be to search for a contact with this structure. Jacobson (1996 [1968]) has used Charles Peirce’s triad of signs assigning to each sign a relation with the ‘sensation of being in time’ (icon – Past, index – Now, and symbol – Future) (Jacobson, 1996 [1968]: 168). No sign in any language is ever totally pure but rather is a mix of these meanings. However, if the whole language as a special (i.e., different from other languages) model is isomorphic to its basic elements, we can suppose that there are icon/index/symbol-dominated languages – and mental structures. If any language has a national sign-nature so the journalism/communication model at this national level should be commensurable to this nature. At the same time, one can see that the differences between the three models could also be commensurable. It is a great temptation to generalize and define Western mentality as Index (realism, positivism, fact), Eastern as Icon (metaphysics, traditionalism, idea), and Russian as Symbol (mystery, dream, ideal). If, in the Russian case, the journalism model is mostly indexical and the national mentality is mostly symbolical, the conflict between them is inevitable. The C/I model can be applied to this situation not just in an explanatory manner, but mostly as a practical and useful model (or even like an instrument of solution).

Firstly, we wish to emphasize that journalism/communication studies in Russia are very close to journalism practice, and professional self-consciousness is more brightly visible in the higher-education field than in the profession. Consequently, the journalism departments of universities could play an influential role of spreading a Western-oriented model of journalism (encompassing ethics, mission of democratic society and watchdog function).

Secondly, the contemporary informational field in Russia has a highly visible politically engaged landscape (public-political mass-media). It means that the commercial model of free media-market, which worked so well in 1990s, is now dead. Subsidies (from the state budget) of mass media have remained because the latter are openly supportive of the government (local administrative will and goals). Other political mass media manage to survive if they primarily used Internet-platforms (but they are short-lived) or if they are funded by other (non-governmental) organizations. In both cases, this means that mass media in Russia generally cannot be seen as a real voice of democracy (even opposition mass-media have their own limits and rules that exclude freedom of speech).

Thirdly, the young journalist, who learns the virtues of the watchdog concept at his/her university, eventually realizes, after landing in the real world of journalism practice, that he/she has to follow the owner’s orders, which are not always in line with his/her newly acquired understanding of the mission of journalism.

This is the dialectics (or better, the hermetic circle) of Russian journalism. Sometimes, only a few weeks in a mass media redaction will disappoint the new journalist who will lose faith (taste) in his future profession. The inner cultural conflict brings a complex of unhealthy consequences for the whole journalistic field of the Russian Federation.

The major points of professional (both scholarly and practical journalism) reflection through the C/I model are (1) to define the mission of journalism in accordance with Russian history, with the history of journalism and with Russian mentality; and (2) to determine the role of journalism in line with this mission.

These simple issues are most important (as mentioned above) because the most dangerous gap is internal, within the same culture, not between two or more cultures. And this is what we can call a rupture of professional field.

The C/I model allows formulating the mission in a flexible manner: journalism must inform people while keeping civil peace. The ambiguity of this statement diminishes if we apply the C/I instrument of meaning construction: ‘to inform people’ and ‘to keep civil peace’ occupy conflict positions but when we commensurate their effect inside the system we can observe the annihilation of their negatives. The model can be construed as a scale where one end is ‘to inform’ (i.e., to say Pravda/the truth), and the other ‘to keep peace’ (i.e., to prevent maidan – this word currently means in Russia civil war, not the fighting against corruption or for civil rights). Flexibility means that journalists should find a middle path and consensus in their activity. This is not a problem of choice or bifurcation (so-called ‘or-or’ concept) but rather a problem of finding the right combination of words and stylistic meanings with the positive effect of the journalistic text. We are not concerned here with the problem of verification – who will decide whether a text is right or wrong and how to verify. In this part of journalistic activity, we can probably apply the ‘mindfulness-concept’ that Gunaratne et al. (2015) have elucidated to promote professional competence.

Continuing this explanation, we can use another example: a propagandist style of official journalism in Russia, such as what is currently in vogue, cannot be acceptable to people with democratic principles. But it does have some positive effects: consolidation of the nation, preventing a Maidan effect, and keeping social peace in a rather difficult political period. Commensurability can be used as a measure of positivity in a case like this. And if one can see that this non-democratic style of journalism can mobilize a majority of the nation for a positive activity (build, help, create), is this not what journalism should do throughout the planet (in democratic countries or other political systems)? Josephi (2013) says that democracies can manage the legal framework for freedom of speech but can never diminish a dependency on owners (commercial non-freedom). And this absence of freedom is equivalent to that of the press in non-democratic countries. Any democratic journalism activity needs supporters valuing independent news. If we can see that the majority of people in a country do not want to support independent newspapers and resources, we can state that there can be no development of this sort of press in this country at all. It also means that if a significant minority of nations still needs this type of journalism, then, in all circumstances, it will exist. The C/I model helps to understand the right of the audience (public) to have the different sorts of press they need, and it shows the dependency of the national mass media system on these needs. An analogue of the C/I model is the imaginary garden behind an endless wall with thousands of doors. And these doors – all different and placed high and low, to the right and to the left – lead all to the same garden. The analogy with the ‘living, rolling globe’ from War and Peace is even more fruitful for an explanation of this effect.

We have an example from Wang’s article (2014) where she comments on Huang’s (2013) investigation devoted to the propagandist style of Chinese mass media. Wang states that repeating the fact that Chinese mass media have a propagandist character adds nothing to the research picture. And the C/I model can help to realize the consequences and the role of this national style of journalism for China.

Conclusion: Limitations of C/I model and further perspectives

The C/I model (even if it would be accepted in another form and with other terms) could reduce the tension observed in Russian professional journalism and journalism studies by providing a useful way of reflection and by helping to fill the inner cultural gaps between journalism education, journalism practice and the public’s needs. The semiotic (Peircian) approach allows us to see here the triangle where journalism education is marked as icon, journalism practice as index and audience needs as symbol.

Coming back to Tolstoy’s metaphor of the ball without dimensions, we can see the explanations drawn from the dialectics of the concept of (U/P) applied here to communication theory: each culture-specific theory tries to extend itself in order to reflect the truth (or, in other words tends to become a meta-theory) as ‘each drop tried to expand, to occupy as much space as possible’ reflecting God (i.e. truth) to the greatest extent. But the other drops try to do the same. This means that there is no theory that does not try to become universal, and no universality that satisfies all conventions and conditions in the communication field. Recognizing Western scholars’ intention to become universal, non-Western thinkers search other ways, trying to replace Western approaches and convince researchers that their model is universal (Gunaratne et al., 2015, introduction). The C/I model is just an instrument that helps us test these ambitions, to see if any new theory and idea can be commensurate with others. And even if we do find incommensurability as the signal of this new theory’s unique status, it will be just the start of revision and re-examination of our views on it. Any meta-theory is at the same time the result of a necessity from the research field (as the basis for commensurability and comparison) and just the current (timely) decision and point of view. Robert Craig (1999), in trying to summarize a number of theories of the communication field, proposes a dialogical–dialectical disciplinary matrix with seven approaches to the subject, and describes this matrix as a Mendeleev periodic table of communication elements – or theories (pp. 133–134). It is important that the second table (p. 134) organizes all theories in a 7 × 7 negation quadrate (each theory against seven others, including itself). In the same method of negation Szpunar (2012) demonstrates that the Four theories of the press of Siebert and others is an attempt ‘to define what Western journalism is, or should be, by what it is not’ (p. 3). Applying the C/I method, we could reorganize Craig’s matrix as a table of commensurable elements based on equivalents (not critics and negation).

When Wang shows the difference between the C/I and U/P (U/P) models she also makes a comparison in favour of the C/I model (‘organic not mechanic’ in the author’s terms). It means that Wang’s model is universal (applicable to any communication or even to any social reality). This contradiction is explainable as a reaction to Western theories’ pretensions of being universal (Wang, 2014: 385). If particularity just stimulates the researcher to find a way of including this specific or unique way to the whole universal model, then incommensurability stimulates one to commensurate these subjects, to find points of commensurability. Both instruments have the same mechanism – to make something understandable (in particular – in terms of universal model, incommensurable – in terms of commensurability).

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