In metaphysics, the distinction between abstract and concrete refers to a divide between two types of entities. Many philosophers hold that this difference has fundamental metaphysical significance. Examples of concrete objects include plants, human beings and planets while things like numbers, sets and propositions are abstract objects. [1] There is no general consensus as to what the characteristic marks of concreteness and abstractness are. Popular suggestions include defining the distinction in terms of the difference between (1) existence inside or outside space-time, (2) having causes and effects or not, (3) having contingent or necessary existence, (4) being particular or universal and (5) belonging to either the physical or the mental realm or to neither. [2] [3] [4] Despite this diversity of views, there is broad agreement concerning most objects as to whether they are abstract or concrete. [1] So under most interpretations, all these views would agree that, for example, plants are concrete objects while numbers are abstract objects.
Abstract objects are most commonly used in philosophy and semantics. They are sometimes called abstracta in contrast to concreta. The term abstract object is said to have been coined by Willard Van Orman Quine. [5] Abstract object theory is a discipline that studies the nature and role of abstract objects. It holds that properties can be related to objects in two ways: through exemplification and through encoding. Concrete objects exemplify their properties while abstract objects merely encode them. This approach is also known as the dual copula strategy. [6]
The type–token distinction identifies physical objects that are tokens of a particular type of thing. [7] The "type" of which it is a part is in itself an abstract object. The abstract–concrete distinction is often introduced and initially understood in terms of paradigmatic examples of objects of each kind:
Abstract | Concrete |
---|---|
Tennis | A tennis match |
Redness | Red light reflected off of an apple and hitting one's eyes |
Five | Five cars |
Justice | A just action |
Humanity (the property of being human) | Human population (the set of all humans) |
Abstract objects have often garnered the interest of philosophers because they raise problems for popular theories. In ontology, abstract objects are considered problematic for physicalism and some forms of naturalism. Historically, the most important ontological dispute about abstract objects has been the problem of universals. In epistemology, abstract objects are considered problematic for empiricism. If abstracta lack causal powers and spatial location, how do we know about them? It is hard to say how they can affect our sensory experiences, and yet we seem to agree on a wide range of claims about them.
Some, such as Ernst Mally, [8] Edward Zalta [9] and arguably, Plato in his Theory of Forms, [9] have held that abstract objects constitute the defining subject matter of metaphysics or philosophical inquiry more broadly. To the extent that philosophy is independent of empirical research, and to the extent that empirical questions do not inform questions about abstracta, philosophy would seem especially suited to answering these latter questions.
In modern philosophy, the distinction between abstract and concrete was explored by Immanuel Kant [10] and G. W. F. Hegel. [11]
Gottlob Frege said that abstract objects, such as numbers, were members of a third realm, [12] different from the external world or from internal consciousness. [1] (See Popper's three worlds.)
Another popular proposal for drawing the abstract–concrete distinction contends that an object is abstract if it lacks causal power. A causal power has the ability to affect something causally. Thus, the empty set is abstract because it cannot act on other objects. One problem with this view is that it is not clear exactly what it is to have causal power. For a more detailed exploration of the abstract–concrete distinction, see the relevant Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article. [9]
Recently, there has been some philosophical interest in the development of a third category of objects known as the quasi-abstract. [ citation needed ] Quasi-abstract objects have drawn particular attention in the area of social ontology and documentality. Some argue that the over-adherence to the platonist duality of the concrete and the abstract has led to a large category of social objects having been overlooked or rejected as nonexistent because they exhibit characteristics that the traditional duality between concrete and abstract regards as incompatible. [13] Specifically, the ability to have temporal location, but not spatial location, and have causal agency (if only by acting through representatives). [14] These characteristics are exhibited by a number of social objects, including states of the international legal system. [15]
Jean Piaget uses the terms "concrete" and "formal" to describe two different types of learning. Concrete thinking involves facts and descriptions about everyday, tangible objects, while abstract (formal operational) thinking involves a mental process.
Abstract idea | Concrete idea |
---|---|
Dense things sink. | It will sink if its density is greater than the density of the fluid. |
You breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. | Gas exchange takes place between the air in the alveoli and the blood. |
Plants get water through their roots. | Water diffuses through the cell membrane of the root hair cells. |
In analytic philosophy, anti-realism is a position which encompasses many varieties such as metaphysical, mathematical, semantic, scientific, moral and epistemic. The term was first articulated by British philosopher Michael Dummett in an argument against a form of realism Dummett saw as 'colorless reductionism'.
In ontology, the theory of categories concerns itself with the categories of being: the highest genera or kinds of entities according to Amie Thomasson. To investigate the categories of being, or simply categories, is to determine the most fundamental and the broadest classes of entities. A distinction between such categories, in making the categories or applying them, is called an ontological distinction. Various systems of categories have been proposed, they often include categories for substances, properties, relations, states of affairs or events. A representative question within the theory of categories might articulate itself, for example, in a query like, "Are universals prior to particulars?"
Existence is the state of being real or participating in reality. The terms "being", "reality", and "actuality" are often used as close synonyms. Existence contrasts with nonexistence, nothingness, and nonbeing. A common distinction is between the existence of an entity and its essence, which refers to the entity's nature or essential qualities.
Idealism in philosophy, also known as philosophical idealism or metaphysical idealism, is the set of metaphysical perspectives asserting that, most fundamentally, reality is equivalent to mind, spirit, or consciousness; that reality is entirely a mental construct; or that ideas are the highest form of reality or have the greatest claim to being considered "real". The latter view is often first credited to the Ancient Greek philosopher Plato as part of a theory now known as Platonic idealism. The term "transcendental idealism" may also be applied to the related idea in epistemology which states that our knowledge of reality is completely based on mental structures. This view was famously defended by Kant.
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality. This includes studies of the first principles of: being or existence, identity, change, consciousness, space and time, necessity, actuality, and possibility. It can also include questions about the existence of God, as well as relationships between foundational philosophical ideas such as between mind and matter, cause and effect, substance and attribute, or potentiality and actuality.
In metaphysics, nominalism is the view that universals and abstract objects do not actually exist other than being merely names or labels. There are at least two main versions of nominalism. One version denies the existence of universals – things that can be instantiated or exemplified by many particular things. The other version specifically denies the existence of abstract objects – objects that do not exist in space and time.
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being. It investigates what types of entities exist, how they are grouped into categories, and how they are related to one another on the most fundamental level. Ontologists often try to determine what the categories or highest kinds are and how they form a system of categories that encompasses the classification of all entities. Commonly proposed categories include substances, properties, relations, states of affairs, and events. These categories are characterized by fundamental ontological concepts, including particularity and universality, abstractness and concreteness, or possibility and necessity. Of special interest is the concept of ontological dependence, which determines whether the entities of a category exist on the most fundamental level. Disagreements within ontology are often about whether entities belonging to a certain category exist and, if so, how they are related to other entities.
The problem of universals is an ancient question from metaphysics that has inspired a range of philosophical topics and disputes: "Should the properties an object has in common with other objects, such as color and shape, be considered to exist beyond those objects? And if a property exists separately from objects, what is the nature of that existence?"
Process philosophy, also ontology of becoming, or processism, is an approach in philosophy that identifies processes, changes, or shifting relationships as the only real experience of everyday living. In opposition to the classical view of change as illusory or accidental, process philosophy posits transient occasions of change or becoming as the only fundamental things of the ordinary everyday real world.
In metaphysics, a universal is what particular things have in common, namely characteristics or qualities. In other words, universals are repeatable or recurrent entities that can be instantiated or exemplified by many particular things. For example, suppose there are two chairs in a room, each of which is green. These two chairs share the quality of "chairness", as well as "greenness" or the quality of being green; in other words, they share two "universals". There are three major kinds of qualities or characteristics: types or kinds, properties, and relations. These are all different types of universals.
The philosophy of mathematics is the branch of philosophy that studies the assumptions, foundations, and implications of mathematics. It aims to understand the nature and methods of mathematics, and find out the place of mathematics in people's lives.
Reductionism is any of several related philosophical ideas regarding the associations between phenomena which can be described in terms of other simpler or more fundamental phenomena. It is also described as an intellectual and philosophical position that interprets a complex system as the sum of its parts.
In logic and philosophy, a property is a characteristic of an object; a red object is said to have the property of redness. The property may be considered a form of object in its own right, able to possess other properties. A property, however, differs from individual objects in that it may be instantiated, and often in more than one object. It differs from the logical/mathematical concept of class by not having any concept of extensionality, and from the philosophical concept of class in that a property is considered to be distinct from the objects which possess it. Understanding how different individual entities can in some sense have some of the same properties is the basis of the problem of universals.
Philosophical realism – usually not treated as a position of its own but as a stance towards other subject matters – is the view that a certain kind of thing has mind-independent existence, i.e. that it exists even in the absence of any mind perceiving it or that its existence is not just a mere appearance in the eye of the beholder. This includes a number of positions within epistemology and metaphysics which express that a given thing instead exists independently of knowledge, thought, or understanding. This can apply to items such as the physical world, the past and future, other minds, and the self, though may also apply less directly to things such as universals, mathematical truths, moral truths, and thought itself. However, realism may also include various positions which instead reject metaphysical treatments of reality entirely.
Edward Nouri Zalta is an American philosopher who is a senior research scholar at the Center for the Study of Language and Information at Stanford University. He received his BA from Rice University in 1975 and his PhD from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1981, both in philosophy. Zalta has taught courses at Stanford University, Rice University, the University of Salzburg, and the University of Auckland. Zalta is also the Principal Editor of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
In metaphysics and ontology, Austrian philosopher Alexius Meinong advanced nonexistent objects in the 19th and 20th centuries within a "theory of objects". He was interested in intentional states which are directed at nonexistent objects. Starting with the "principle of intentionality", mental phenomena are intentionally directed towards an object. People may imagine, desire or fear something that does not exist. Other philosophers concluded that intentionality is not a real relation and therefore does not require the existence of an object, while Meinong concluded there is an object for every mental state whatsoever—if not an existent then at least a nonexistent one.
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that investigates principles of reality transcending those of any particular science. Cosmology and ontology are traditional branches of metaphysics. It is concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world. Someone who studies metaphysics can be called either a "metaphysician" or a "metaphysicist".
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to metaphysics:
In the philosophy of mathematics, formalism is the view that holds that statements of mathematics and logic can be considered to be statements about the consequences of the manipulation of strings using established manipulation rules. A central idea of formalism "is that mathematics is not a body of propositions representing an abstract sector of reality, but is much more akin to a game, bringing with it no more commitment to an ontology of objects or properties than ludo or chess." According to formalism, the truths expressed in logic and mathematics are not about numbers, sets, or triangles or any other coextensive subject matter — in fact, they aren't "about" anything at all. Rather, mathematical statements are syntactic forms whose shapes and locations have no meaning unless they are given an interpretation. In contrast to mathematical realism, logicism, or intuitionism, formalism's contours are less defined due to broad approaches that can be categorized as formalist.
Meinong's jungle is the name given by Richard Routley (1980) to the repository of non-existent objects in the ontology of Alexius Meinong.