Any abstract concept must be reducible to a hard fact.
Please forgive my being so irrelevant, but I’m engaged in a certain debate on another board, and I thought it might be fun to throw a poll of this board in a certain person’s face - provided, of course, most are in agreement with me. Should the opposite be the case perhaps, if nothing else, a nice conversation can develop here.
He says:
I say:
Thoughts?
I say it is false as well
there are no abstract facts, only specific or particular facts of the matter
-Imp
Thanks Imp.
My thinking, for the record, is that an ‘abstract concept’ is by definition abstract, and thereby may or may not be reducible to any ‘hard fact’. Thus my issue is with his use of the words ‘any’ and ‘must’.
I’d agree - there’s no definitive, necessary connection. Of course, one can make all the connections one wants with one’s imagination, but that doesn’t make them necessary.
I think we need to eliminate the variable to be able to answer the question. Any ideas/suggestions? Examples needed.
“Any ABSTRACT CONCEPTS must be reducible to a hard fact.”
I have a feeling that this statement would make more sense in context. What was his intention by saying this?
Am I correct in venturing to say that in no case is an abstract concept (because it is abstract) reducible to a hard fact (which is concrete and by no means abstract), and that this is an invalid statement?
I vote no.
I feel like an idiot, but - what variable?
edited for clarification. 
What fun would abstract concepts be if they had to be reducable?
Thats not to say that many aren’t or that practical examples may not help to illustrate cases.
That said you could go with my (painfully bad) understanduing of Deleuze and note that a lot of things exist and differentiate themselves before they find themselves “represented” - eg go with the particular “facts” or their emerging into the world as interesting.
But I love abstract concepts would hardly be hanging here otherwise.
Krossie
First of all, there are abstract concepts. They exist as mental entities. Denying them would be turning your eyes from basically anything that goes on anywhere.
Related to the debate, I think the proper interpretation is that
first of all, “abstract concepts are derived from hard facts (otherwise they are sophistry)” and, hence,
“abstract concepts must relate to things belonging to an empirical universe (otherwise they are a stretch of reason or an abuse of it)”.
One uses abstract concepts in just about anything involving thought and my mental awareness of their reality is so painfully obvious, that it is difficult for me to express it as appropriate as I would like.
I see the conceptual abstraction as a mental forcefield overarching certain objects of experience. Poets use it, as an example, to construct metaphors, and critics use it to decipher them. Crudely, a dove (hard fact) is subsumed to the idea of peace and then used within the work to suggest that idea. There is no mention or literal reference of the word “peace” in the text, but without the tutorial guidance of our intellect that uses its functions to connect representations with formal categories, we would be unable to climb up from the imagistics to the connotative interpretation of the text.
This is just a rude and offly singular example, of course.
Daybreak - when we ask the question “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?”, we are not asking about pins, or dancing, but about angels.
You are correct.
Hi Faust I see you’re coming from Hume - roughly - but is it possible to construct a pure abstract concept. Hmmmm “construct” - I suppose I’m already conceeding it has to be consructed from something? However if you went several levels above the bits you used in the initial building could you dilute down the “materials” repeatedly so much you’d be in an “almost” realm of pure abstraction
memo to men with white coats: Now would be a good time to grab me!
Krossie
Krossie - “Angel” is not purely abstract? It contains a phenomenal referent? What?
Is it not composite - (didn’t Descartes go on about this too?) eg constructed from wings, human body and that - but then its a level above these. Now (ok I’m loosing it…) could you then construct some higher abstract thing eg make something out of angels, gods, satyrs and maybe a pinch of succubus….and then composite that with other things at 2 degrees removed
Are you then a level up towards abstraction - eg could you “tend” to something absolutely abstract by continously moving “up” from your sense
/concept building blocks.
Then there’s the Cartesian (Platonic even) idea that some things “squares, maths relations†and the likes are in there in the head in advance of sensing them - that its not a tabla rasa - Hume wouldn’t go with this I presume…
Memo to men in white coats: I think it may be too late!
Krossie
Krossie - Well, gift shop angels, yeah. Ceramics class angels.
I think if you’re “moving up” you may be moving up from a phenomenon, if I read you right, in which case I don’t think you get a qualitative difference - a difference from the first abstraction.
I think you have to break the chain of abstraction - you need a [MA!!] mutation - which I think we call “Rationalism”.
[MA!!] = “Metaphor Alert”
But can you not (calculus style) move up incremently tending towards an infinite
How are abstract notions created in thefirst place?
The angels might be bad examples as obviously people came up with Gods then needed messangers and the wings etc were added as optional extras on them…
But weren’t the first Gods: rocks, rivers, trees, sun, moon etc.
Do you not always have to start with a thing?
Or are abstract notions such as “all powerful gods” sum of angles in triangle = 180 degrees etc built in
Can you get them eg by incrementing from finite things to infinite or particulars to forms and relations.
(as one of Descarte’s objectors suggested)
(eg would there be maths if some one didn’t first take one apple and add another apple)
Does everything “abstract” - go back to some thing real or is there a qualitive break at some stage as Faust seems to suggest…I thought Hume and co thought ALL thoughts traced back to sensation at some level contra Descarte?
Krossie
Krossie - I think I misunderstood you. I think this is correct in a broadly psychological way, yes. We analogise from sense perception. But logically speaking, we can break the chain of abstraction from it’s source.
Abstraction occurs when we make a word - that’s how it starts. It is when we make a logical error that we make a “pure” abstraction. This would be an idea that cannot be sensically traced back to a sense perception. But certainly we should be able to find some sense perception that we can trace any idea to as a psychological matter. But sometimes people just make no sense.
Some stuff is just silly. Children do and say silly things. It’s fun, and should be encouraged, I think. Somewhere along the line, many people lose sight of what silliness really is, and take it seriously. Strange, but true.
Given the wording, it is impossible to give your friend the benefit of doubt. Could it be that he phrased his claim in a different manner?
He could have argued that all facts, hard or otherwise, are expressed as abstractions. Since all expressions are abstractions, then any facts that are expressed would have to be abstractions as well.
He could even argue that all facts ARE abstractions. But not the other way around. Abstractions like UFO’s and unicorns can never be reduced to hard facts.
^
An abstract concept is reducible to a structure made of many fragments of many “hard-facts”. It is an example of “creativity”. The processing of information, the digestion of it, and then the creation of new structure.
I will amend. There are ideas that are taken as being abstractions that are not truly abstractions. They are more properly called reifications. These are what I refer to when I say we can break the chain of abstraction.
I never remember this word - it just came to me. I will admit that they are not really abstractions - the merely depend upon abstractions.
My mistake.