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Full Idea
'Reification' occurs when a mere concept is mistaken for a thing. We seem generally prone to this sort of error.
Gist of Idea
'Reification' occurs if we mistake a concept for a thing
Source
Jonathan Schaffer (Causation and Laws of Nature [2008], 3.1)
Book Ref
'Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics', ed/tr. Sider/Hawthorne/Zimmerman [Blackwell 2008], p.89
A Reaction
Personally I think we should face up to the fact that this is the only way we can think about generalised or abstract entities, and stop thinking of it as an 'error'. We have evolved to think well about objects, so we translate everything that way.
| 19463 | Induction assumes some uniformity in nature, or that in some respects the future is like the past [Ayer] |
| 21697 | The Struthionic Fallacy is that of burying one's head in the sand [Quine] |
| 12223 | It is a fallacy to explain the obscure with the even more obscure [Hale/Wright] |
| 14603 | 'Reification' occurs if we mistake a concept for a thing [Schaffer,J] |
| 11070 | 'Denying the antecedent' fallacy: φ→ψ, ¬φ, so ¬ψ [Hanna] |
| 11071 | 'Affirming the consequent' fallacy: φ→ψ, ψ, so φ [Hanna] |
| 11088 | We can list at least fourteen informal fallacies [Hanna] |
| 4686 | Fallacies are errors in reasoning, 'formal' if a clear rule is breached, and 'informal' if more general [PG] |