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Full Idea
The Way of Conflation account of abstractions (identifying them sets or with universals) is now relatively rare. The claim sets or universals are the only abstract objects would amount to a substantive metaphysical thesis, in need of defence.
Gist of Idea
Conflating abstractions with either sets or universals is a big claim, needing a big defence
Source
Gideon Rosen (Abstract Objects [2001], 'Way of Con')
Book Ref
'Stanford Online Encyclopaedia of Philosophy', ed/tr. Stanford University [plato.stanford.edu], p.6
A Reaction
If you produce a concept like 'mammal' by psychological abstraction, you do seem to end up with a set of things with shared properties, so this approach is not silly. I can't think of any examples of abstractions which are not sets or universals.
| 8912 | Nowadays abstractions are defined as non-spatial, causally inert things [Rosen] |
| 8913 | Chess may be abstract, but it has existed in specific space and time [Rosen] |
| 8914 | Sets are said to be abstract and non-spatial, but a set of books can be on a shelf [Rosen] |
| 8918 | Functional terms can pick out abstractions by asserting an equivalence relation [Rosen] |
| 8919 | Abstraction by equivalence relationships might prove that a train is an abstract entity [Rosen] |
| 8917 | The Way of Abstraction used to say an abstraction is an idea that was formed by abstracting [Rosen] |
| 8916 | Conflating abstractions with either sets or universals is a big claim, needing a big defence [Rosen] |
| 8915 | How we refer to abstractions is much less clear than how we refer to other things [Rosen] |