# Abstraction 101
**URL:** https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/abstraction-101/36645
**Category:** Philosophy
**Created:** [July 17, 2013, 12:27pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/abstraction-101/36645 "2013-07-17T12:27:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Faust](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Faust)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2013, 8:41pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/abstraction-101/36645/41 "2013-07-20T20:41:10Z")
The philosophical significance is that with the distinction that i describe, idealism is impossible.
In a nutshell.
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### Author:  [@anon](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/anon)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2013, 9:46pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/abstraction-101/36645/42 "2013-07-20T21:46:30Z")
> [@Faust](#):
>
> The difference it that there is only an ideal cylinder but no ideal dog.
The ideal cylinder is strictly defined and we all must agree on its definition. A dog is less strictly defined, and the images we each carry of a generic dog are various. Not sure what the significance of that is.
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### Author:  [@anon](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/anon)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2013, 9:55pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/abstraction-101/36645/43 "2013-07-20T21:55:25Z")
I called an ideal cylinder an invention. An idealist considers it a discovery. I think much can be gained by exploring the precise contours of the boundary between the two conceptions. I’m not afraid of idealism; I see no slippery slope here. I mean, numbers don’t exist, but we don’t just make them up.
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### Author:  [@Faust](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Faust)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2013, 4:55am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/abstraction-101/36645/44 "2013-07-21T04:55:31Z")
Then we agree there’s a difference.
Let’s go back to HC’s example of the toy cat. Here I will say that what i am getting at, eventually, is the type of definitions that are useful in philosophy. The most useful for present purposes are taxonomic definitions. In fact, I will say that for the most difficult language problems, taxonomic definitions are always at least among the most useful. I’d make an even stronger statement than that, but in the end, there is always more than one way to skin a cat.
We might call the subject of HC’s photograph a cat, and surely most of have done something similar. Let’s say we refer to this as a cat when talking to a small child. No harm in that, mostly. But we’re not talking scientifically, and we surely have all known small children to refer to almost any mammal as a cat or a dog - or which ever mammal-name they have learned first. Cows are called cats. Horses are called cats. The child is generalizing, but hasn’t learnt the various labels for various animals, and the differences have to be pointed out to the child for a while until he is able to tell a dog from a cat. Or a toy cat from a real one. This is what makes kids cute, after all.
So, the child is ready to talk about cats, but not scientifically. Just as we can talk about empirical circles - we are ready to talk about circles but not mathematically. And that’s okay, but it means then that we are probably not ready to talk about mathematics ontologically. And i think we all know that many philosophers, to this day, attach ontological significance to mathematics.
If these thinkers make mistakes in the taxonomy of abstractions, they will make ontological errors. And I see them all the time.
Let’s say I throw this cat down the laundry chute. In front of the child. And let’s say that the child is concerned about the welfare of the cat. I assure the child that it’s okay to throw the cat down the chute, so that it can “take a bath”. And let’s say I have forgotten about this the next week when I bring home a live cat as a pet for the child. There could be trouble, if the child can reach both the cat and the laundry chute. Ontologists will say that ontology counts. I will say that taxonomy counts. The veterinarian may say that language counts.
it doesn’t always matter, but sometimes it does.
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### Author:  [@anon](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/anon)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2013, 9:20am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/abstraction-101/36645/45 "2013-07-21T09:20:40Z")
Yes, there’s more than one difference. I’ve pointed out at least a couple. I have to admit, I’m not sure where we agree and disagree on this. I think we generally agree about abstraction, but I wonder if you believe that “dog” is somehow more real or something than “cylinder”. And if I say both are equally real or unreal, do you think I’m mistaken? “Dog” and “cylinder” are both abstractions. They differ in various ways, but neither exist. Miss by an inch, miss by a mile, as they say.
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### Author:  [@phyllo](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/phyllo)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2013, 12:44pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/abstraction-101/36645/46 "2013-07-21T12:44:30Z")
Everyone agrees that the abstraction does not physically exist. But you find instances of ‘dog’ in the physical world. I think you find instances of ‘cylinder’ as well. Faust say you don’t…not even imperfect cylinders.
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### Author:  [@Faust](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Faust)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2013, 12:55pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/abstraction-101/36645/47 "2013-07-21T12:55:59Z")
I think we agree on the facts but perhaps not on the ramifications of those facts, anon.
Let’s take the extreme example of an autistic with little ability to form or recognise language abstractions but genius-like math skill. Such a person would have a hard time doing philosophy. And the ability to philosophise is what I am talking about.
It’s not the ability to live life or even to have many conversations that i am concerned with.
The abstraction “dog” is no more real than is “circle”. But dogs are real.
So let’s take that other extreme case, that of the sociopath Plato. We will say that the phrase “good person”, when speaking in general, contains an abstraction from something real and one that is not from something real. But does everyone agree on that? Did Plato?
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### Author:  [@phyllo](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/phyllo)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2013, 12:59pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/abstraction-101/36645/48 "2013-07-21T12:59:58Z")
> [@](#):
>
> The ideal cylinder is strictly defined and we all must agree on its definition. A dog is less strictly defined, and the images we each carry of a generic dog are various. Not sure what the significance of that is.
You could define an ideal dog as well … perhaps with amazing amounts of loyalty and intelligence. When you looked for an ‘ideal dog’ in the world, then you would not find an instance of it.
So an ‘ideal dog’ is not a particularly practical way to abstract observed physical dogs. But apparently when cylinders get abstracted into ‘cylinder’, we cannot stop there but we must adopt the Euclidean geometry definitions and ‘cylinder’ becomes short form for ‘ideal cylinder’.
😕
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### Author:  [@phyllo](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/phyllo)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2013, 1:03pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/abstraction-101/36645/49 "2013-07-21T13:03:15Z")
> [@](#):
>
> If these thinkers make mistakes in the taxonomy of abstractions, they will make ontological errors. And I see them all the time.
>
> Let’s say I throw this cat down the laundry chute. In front of the child. And let’s say that the child is concerned about the welfare of the cat. I assure the child that it’s okay to throw the cat down the chute, so that it can “take a bath”. And let’s say I have forgotten about this the next week when I bring home a live cat as a pet for the child. There could be trouble, if the child can reach both the cat and the laundry chute. Ontologists will say that ontology counts. I will say that taxonomy counts. The veterinarian may say that language counts.
This sound like ‘toy cat’ is a different abstraction from ‘live cat’ instead of one abstraction with different associated properties.
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### Author:  [@Faust](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Faust)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2013, 1:05pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/abstraction-101/36645/50 "2013-07-21T13:05:15Z")
Let’s now get into the difference between “ideal” and “perfect”. Circles, insofar as they exist, which is purely abstractly, are both ideal and perfect. All of them. But no ideal or perfect dog exists - that is not our purpose in abstraction when it comes to dogs. That’s an important ramification of my position.
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### Author:  [@Hobbes\_Choice](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Hobbes_Choice)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2013, 1:05pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/abstraction-101/36645/51 "2013-07-21T13:05:36Z")
> [@phyllo](#):
>
> Everyone agrees that the abstraction does not physically exist. But you find instances of ‘dog’ in the physical world. I think you find instances of ‘cylinder’ as well. Faust say you don’t…not even imperfect cylinders.
There are objects with the appearance of cylinders, that’s all you can say. Let’s say we see a toilet roll. It is human interest that decides that the interface between the edge of the cardboard, and the atmosphere, or the table top on which it stands.
Kant rightly makes a distinction between the world as it is, and that which we see. In a world where the idea of a toilet roll or a cylinder was unknown to us. Thus the phenomenon of the object is human interested, and seen in the world of our understanding through a series of expectations and interpretations.
None of this denies that existence of the matter in the world of which cylinders or toilet rolls are comprised, but it does invite us to consider how and why we construct a world, of not only toilet rolls, but of cylinders also.
There is a nonsense story about the “Indians” upon first seeing a ship from the Old World were not capable of seeing anything. I can’t remember the source, nor do I accept that they saw nothing at all. But what they could not see is a “SHIP”, having no concept of it. On the ocean as the ship approached they were able to see something, maybe a floating island with large white leaves on the trees that sprung straight up from the base.
As the ship draws close they are able to see armadillos with the faces of men. As it comes closer still they realise that these are men clad in metal.
I think the story gives us pause to understand the the world we see is not a simple uncomplicated representation of objective reality, but always the construction of our thinking, and understood in terms of what we already know.
When you accept this, history, the history of science that the strange and puzzling ways that people once thought become more clear to us; if only in terms of giving us an appreciation of how we cannot ever perfectly access the thoughts of another culture, or time.
It also gives us pause not to too easily accept the world of givens that we thoughtlessly use day by day.
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### Author:  [@Faust](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Faust)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2013, 1:11pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/abstraction-101/36645/52 "2013-07-21T13:11:22Z")
Hobbes - that’s exactly what i am getting at - how we construct the world. Objective morality - as you know, there are those who believe in this. This is possible only by screwing up the process of abstraction. I am presenting such ideas as the result of learning disabilities.
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### Author:  [@phyllo](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/phyllo)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2013, 1:13pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/abstraction-101/36645/53 "2013-07-21T13:13:49Z")
> [@](#):
>
> There are objects with the appearance of cylinders, that’s all you can say. Let’s say we see a toilet roll. It is human interest that decides that the interface between the edge of the cardboard, and the atmosphere, or the table top on which it stands.
The same can be said for a dog. In reality there is only matter… we draw a boundary around some matter and name it.
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### Author:  [@Faust](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Faust)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2013, 1:32pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/abstraction-101/36645/54 "2013-07-21T13:32:55Z")
I agree with that, by the way, phyllo. The problem arises when we believe that the name is the thing. We draw boundaries around matter and name it. But we also name that which is not matter - and i have seen many times when the namer doesn’t seem to know the difference.
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### Author:  [@anon](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/anon)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2013, 1:40pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/abstraction-101/36645/55 "2013-07-21T13:40:58Z")
> [@Faust](#):
>
> I agree with that, by the way, phyllo. The problem arises when we believe that the name is the thing. We draw boundaries around matter and name it. But we also name that which is not matter - and i have seen many times when the namer doesn’t seem to know the difference.
But it’s just that simple. The differences between different types of abstraction are just differences. I guess I’m agreeing with you, but it seems like the whole thing has more import for you. Idealism just involves exaggeration of the mind’s involvement in creating reality, like in Hobbes’s story about not being able to see a ship at all.
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### Author:  [@Faust](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Faust)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2013, 1:45pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/abstraction-101/36645/56 "2013-07-21T13:45:39Z")
anon - it’s excruciatingly simple. Which is why it’s so puzzling to watch people make huge errors in ontology. It’s puzzling to hear that a thinker whose epistemology is based on that idea that God wouldn’t deceive him is considered the first modern philosopher, or even a good one. It’s puzzling to hear that people justify their moral positions in the very same way, to this day.
I’m puzzled by a lot.
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### Author:  [@anon](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/anon)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2013, 1:47pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/abstraction-101/36645/57 "2013-07-21T13:47:00Z")
> [@Faust](#):
>
> anon - it’s excruciatingly simple. Which is why it’s so puzzling to watch people make huge errors in ontology. It’s puzzling to hear that a thinker whose epistemology is based on that idea that God wouldn’t deceive him is considered the first modern philosopher, or even a good one. It’s puzzling to hear that people justify their moral positions in the very same way, to this day.
>
> I’m puzzled by a lot.
I hear you, Faust.
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### Author:  [@Faust](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Faust)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2013, 2:10pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/abstraction-101/36645/58 "2013-07-21T14:10:57Z")
The problem is one of instantiation, and the issue i am trying to bring to light is tantamount to the fallacy of existential instantiation. You have to establish that a class or set actually has real members before you can instantiate an individual from a universal.
So, the “circles” we see in nature are not “examples” of mathematical circles. They only remind us of circles. So, in an argument, if we start with universals, we cannot conclude that there is any particular. if we start with abstractions, we cannot assume there is anything “real”. This is not usually a problem when it comes to circles. But it’s a problem when it comes to dogs.
Again, the question is not “how do we know there are dogs?” We know because we have quite literally decided that there are dogs. That doesn’t mean we have “decided” the world into existence - it means that we carve up that world according to our own purposes. Just what a dog is has been the object of some controversy. Still is. I only care because it’s an example of just what taxonomy really is - a convenience. Towards our very human purposes. Including foxes as dogs doesn’t change the fox.
Now, one of those purposes may be morality. We don’t find it lying about - we decide.
That’s kinda waaaay to simple - because the “we” that has decided, and how that “we” has decided, is extremely complex. But someone has decided.
The question is not about knowledge at all. So we needn’t ask “how do we know this is morally right?” Someone has decided, and until that fact is accepted, you’re not going to get to square one in thinking about morality. The question is “Why has this been accepted as right, and by whom and for what purpose?”
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### Author:  [@anon](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/anon)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2013, 2:36pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/abstraction-101/36645/59 "2013-07-21T14:36:44Z")
Knowledge seems to be a big problem for many people. What is it, and how is it possible? But deciding is a big part of knowing. It’s not something wholly other. Just as round things remind me of circles, some furry beings remind me of dogs. We’ve mentioned some differences, but I still feel like you’re creating some kind of ontological preference or something, rather than just difference.
But maybe I’m just imagining things. Truly, it’s hard to tell.
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### Author:  [@Faust](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Faust)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2013, 1:13am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/abstraction-101/36645/60 "2013-07-22T01:13:21Z")
Well, I think, anon, the differences show up in the errors that philosophers make. There are different kinds of knowledge, and if we confound any of those, we come up with all manner of inane claims.
Generally, there’s the knowledge of how to do something; there’s familiarity, as with a person or place and there is factual knowledge, which we call propositional knowledge. it’s the first and third of these that is routinely confused. But that they are largely separate accounts for why we can add and subtract without a very keen understanding of what a number is.
Now, Plato’s virtue ethics (along with some similar moral theories) is a case in point about why we might have a “preference” of the kind you ask about. Within a certain context. Plato will tell us that we need knowledge of the Forms of virtue. If we want to live well (and be good). What has really happened is that, since Plato wasn’t very clear about the two kinds of knowledge, since he was confused, his thought seems to have allowed those after him to claim that we need factual moral knowledge - and more importantly, that since some men are moral, we must have the ability to gain moral knowledge (of the factual kind). Those who make this claim are simply in error, and their first error is the failure to make this distinction between different kinds of knowledge. Socratic Plato is guilty of this at least. Modern Platonists take ‘knowledge’ to have a sense that it could not in the context of morality.
Again, the issue is not “how do we know that a circle is a circle or that a dog is a dog”. But thinking that each is an example of the same sense of “knowledge” is tragically wrong. So, I don’t have a general preference, but a contextual one.
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