Abstraction
The process of generalizing rules and concepts from specific examples.
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Simon Pierre Barrette ( Cephas ( talk )) · CC BY-SA 4.0
Anatol Rapoport described abstracting as a mechanism by which infinite experiences can be mapped onto short noises (words).[1] Generalizing rules and concepts from specific examples yields an abstraction, which functions as a common noun grouping all subordinate concepts.[2] Anthropologists, archaeologists, and sociologists view abstract thinking, which emerged between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago, as a key feature of modern human behavior.[3]
Quick Facts
- Field
- Philosophy
- semantics
- cognitive science
- Known for
- Generalizing rules from specific examples; key trait in modern human behaviour
- Opposite
- Specification (analysis of general ideas into concrete facts)
Facts from the source article.
Key facts and history
Francis Bacon's Novum Organum (1620) encouraged collecting specific facts before making generalizations.[4] Bacon used induction as an abstraction tool, complementing the ancient deductive approach that had dominated Western thought since Greek philosophers.[5] John Locke proposed that all general words come from a process of abstraction of particular ideas.[6] Abstraction in mathematics is the process of extracting underlying structures, patterns, or properties, removing dependence on real-world objects.[7]
Induction of ideas or synthesis of particular facts into a general theory constitutes abstraction; its counterpart, specification, decomposes general ideas into concrete facts.[4] Bacon's inductive method, as described in the Stanford account, begins with sensory experience, proceeds through natural history, and arrives at lower axioms derived from abstraction of notions.[8] Twentieth-century artistic abstraction developed alongside scientific and technological progress, as well as transformations in urban living.[9]
What the cited sources add
Bacon's methodological program of induction includes aspects of deduction and abstraction on the basis of negation and exclusion.[8] The tables of counter-instances may suggest experiments, requiring correction of the senses and abstraction of propositions.[8] Francis Bacon, according to the Stanford account, dismissed general ideas as mere abstractions based on too few sense perceptions.[8]
References
- Wikipedia, "Abstraction" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Gorman, "General Semantics and Contemporary Thomism", University of Nebraska Press, 1962, p. 43 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Abstraction" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Suzanne K. Langer (1953), Feeling and Form: A Theory of Art Developed from Philosophy in a New Key, p. 90: "Sculptural form is a powerful abstraction from actua (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Abstraction" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Carrier, "Social aspects of abstraction", Social Anthropology, 2007-01-19, p. 243–256 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Abstraction" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Hesse, M. B. (1964), "Francis Bacon's Philosophy of Science", in A Critical History of Western Philosophy, ed. D. J. O'Connor, New York, pp. 141–52. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Abstraction" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Klein, "Francis Bacon", Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2016 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Abstraction" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Locke, "An essay concerning human understanding" (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Abstraction" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Stewart, "Does God Play Dice?", Penguin Group UK, 2010 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Klein, "Francis Bacon", Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2016. facts only, no text reused. plato.stanford.edu
- Wikipedia, "Abstraction" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Catherine de Zegher and Hendel Teicher (eds.), 3 X Abstraction. NY/New Haven: The Drawing Center/Yale University Press. 2005.; National Gallery of Art: Abstraction. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Abstraction (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
More in Philosophical Concepts
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Abstraction (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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