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Full Idea
The inevitable hypothesis is that abstractions are verbal fictions. We say we are speaking about abstractions when we are speaking abstractly about the original thing. We are ignoring some features, not introducing a new thing lacking those features.
Gist of Idea
Abstractions may well be verbal fictions, in which we ignore some features of an object
Source
David Lewis (On the Plurality of Worlds [1986], 1.7)
Book Ref
Lewis,David: 'On the Plurality of Worlds' [Blackwell 2001], p.86
A Reaction
Thus Lewis ends up pretty close to Locke and the traditional view. This makes abstraction not a feat of platonic perception, in which magical non-material objects are spotted, but a feat of counterfactual imagination.
| 14429 | Classes are logical fictions, made from defining characteristics [Russell] |
| 9497 | Without modality, Armstrong falls back on fictionalism to support counterfactual laws [Bird on Armstrong] |
| 8909 | Abstractions may well be verbal fictions, in which we ignore some features of an object [Lewis] |
| 10023 | Talk of mirror images is 'encoded fictions' about real facts [Hodes] |
| 8864 | We quantify over events, worlds, etc. in order to make logical possibilities clearer [Yablo] |
| 19494 | Fictionalism allows that simulated beliefs may be tracking real facts [Yablo] |
| 19489 | For me, fictions are internally true, without a significant internal or external truth-value [Yablo] |
| 19490 | Make-believe can help us to reason about facts and scientific procedures [Yablo] |
| 19491 | 'The clouds are angry' can only mean '...if one were attributing emotions to clouds' [Yablo] |
| 10262 | Fictionalism eschews the abstract, but it still needs the possible (without model theory) [Shapiro] |
| 10277 | Structuralism blurs the distinction between mathematical and ordinary objects [Shapiro] |
| 12445 | If fictional objects really don't exist, then they aren't abstract objects [Azzouni] |