Questions tagged [abstraction]
14 questions
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Do numbers exist independently from observers?
Do numbers have an objective existence? If life had not evolved on planet earth would there be numbers or are numbers an invention of human minds?
Are there any relevant works that discuss this? (I know of Husserl's Über der Begriff der Zahl and…
leancz
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What is it called when perception of a thing is replaced by an pre-existing abstraction of that thing?
Going through life, I often replace actual perception of the world with my pre-existing knowledge. If I see a car, for example, I might shortcut my understanding of it as "that is a car," and skip any further appreciation of what sets this…
1600hp
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Have any abstractionists discussed the possibility of multiple abstraction principles?
An abstractionist is someone who claims that some version of Frege's abstraction principle accounts for or justifies talk of abstract objects. The abstraction principle says that an equation of the form
f(x)=f(y) <=> x~y
justifies talk of objects…
David Gudeman
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conceptualizing metaphor and analogy with abstraction
Are two concepts metaphor/analogy equivalent to generalization/abstraction.
If yes how? Give me some examples .
Mohit
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How do humans generalize abstract concepts from concrete objects?
To elaborate, I would like to take the definition of square as example, the square is shape with four equal sides and either two sides form a 90 degrees angle, while we can not directly see it. What we see is square with four 10 inches sides or…
Milligan
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Are there "levels" of reality in physics or is everything just reductive and explainable by just appealing to quantum physics?
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tPqQdLCuxanjhoaNs/reductionism#vM59Y3K2ki6sSvAxu
Simply put the link is suggesting that what we call levels is really just simplified models to help us navigate reality. But it just seems fishy to me, because some…
BoltStorm
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What is reification in philosophy of science and why is it a fallacy?
This is related to what someone said as I was coming across topics on this site and looking through stuff. Here is the remark:
to understand why natural kinds are constructed, why abstract objects don't exist, and how our senses, perception, and…
BoltStorm
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How do modern platonists explain the objective, specific connections between the physical and abstract?
There seems to be an entirely objective, human-independent way in which specific physical objects relate/correspond to specific abstract objects.
Example, we don't think the abstract inverse cube law 1/r^3, and the gravity around a planet is a…
J Kusin
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Does the Truth not exists or does it seems to not exists due to our abstraction?
I will give an example to illustrate my question :
We sometimes hear something like : "All the [population of a country] are [stereotypes]".
I think we all know that, for a certain number of people, this sentence isn't true, ALL people do not have…
Arthur Delannoy
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Do regresses-of-reasons go from particulars to generalities only, or can they mediate chains of just particulars or just generalities too?
I was thinking of Kant's discourse on the form of the law and the law of formality as reciprocal (in the Critique of Practical Reason), where he seems to talk about a regress from specific maxims to the pure CI:
It is therefore the moral law, of…
user40843
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1 answer
Is there a difference between an abstraction and a property?
What I mean by an abstraction is a single thought that abstracts or stands for many objects, like "something blue". This stands for anything that is colored blue. What I mean by a property is something that objects have, like blueness.
Clearly…
David Gudeman
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Philosophers on the process of abstraction?
I see that there is an emphasis on studying the abstract using philosophy, but not much about abstraction. For example, I am interested in the discussion of the following two questions:
How would one define abstraction in broad sense?
When is it…
Clemens Bartholdy
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Is the ideal agent the ideal observer?
Is the ideal agent the ideal observer?
Without googling it, I mean the former is the best moral agent, and the latter some meta-ethical (can't recall what meta-ethics) abstraction that judges everyone's agency as moral or immoral. I suppose that the…
user65545
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Is there a philosophical take on how to come up with metadimensions that characterize complex systems?
In short: I am looking for a philosophical take/theory/way of finding abstract-level metadimensions of complex systems (or any "real" system in general at this stage, if that helps).
Details: Complex systems are characterized by large…
